DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who, unfortunately D: I own Odie's plot, and Odie's little settlement of immigrants. I am trying to make this story as accurate as possible, but when many sources contradict themselves, according to Doctor Who, I will ALMOST always take the TV-info as the correct. Most of the writing in this chapter is from the book 'Ten Little Aliens' by Stephen Cole.


The klaxons cut off.

The sudden silence in the cavern was almost physical in its strength. Ben felt a slight stirring in his stomach, the ground pitched a little and he felt a quick pang of homesickness. Motion. They were at sea. What the hell was happening here? Lindey turned to Shel. Her voice sounded too loud, unnatural in the silence.

"Could this all be part of the training simulation?" Shel didn't answer. Ben reckoned he was a bit of a Doctor-type in that he didn't like to commit himself if there was a chance he could be wrong. Haunt, who had been deep in thought, standing almost statue-like since the klaxons stopped, seemed to come to a decision.

"All right, everyone. Deactivate websets." Even her best sergeant-major bellow couldn't mask the worry in her voice. "We can no longer be sure this is a training exercise. Now, I don't want you thinking to make yourselves look good for Cellmek. I want you thinking to save yourselves and your team. No more recording." The soldiers gave muted assent. As Ben watched, fingers were placed to a particular spot on the metal band around their foreheads.

So the headgear wasn't just for show. The mixed looks on the soldiers' faces as they removed the websets ranged from scandalized pleasure to worried and just downright guilty. It put Ben in mind of how him and his mates had been at school when his older brother taught them how to swear. You were dying to do it but knew it was breaking the rules. And changing you, too, somehow. Shel spoke up, more confident now he was on familiar ground.

"Regulations state that as senior officers, we remain recording in all conditions of combat, unless our imminent capture dictates we erase all recording."

"I'm aware of that, Shel," Haunt said icily. "Naturally, I exclude ourselves from the order." The bloke with the marked face who'd been goggling at Polly, while pointing a gun at Odie's face, was now turning a less enthusiastic eye on the corpses on the platform and the one in the chair.

"Were there nine bodies here before, Marshal?" he asked quietly.

"No, Shade, there were not." Haunt crossed over to the corpses on the platform. Shel, Roba and Shade immediately followed her. Ben glanced at the Doctor, who was engrossed in some computer readout with that Tovel geezer, and at Polly who was just hiding her face in her hands. Odie caught his eyes, and shrugged. Even that motion made the marked bloke glower at her. Ben momentarily thought what she'd done to make him hate her like that. He then decided to get a closer look at the bodies, and to make sure Haunt wasn't getting ready to blame any of them for this.

Any thought that Polly must be mistaken vanished in an instant. The tableau had clearly changed. There was a clear gap towards the right-hand side. The Schirr had been clutching his bloody head with both hands. Now he had gone, while his two neighbours hadn't moved a muscle. With nothing between them they looked blankly at each other with milky eyes, red pupils fixed in what Ben had taken to be the moment of their sudden death.

"But they can't be, can they," he said, thinking out loud. Shade looked at him blankly, and Ben took in the black blotches that covered the man's face. "Dead, I mean."

"With wounds like that?" Haunt gestured to the guts spilling from one of the bodies, frozen in midfall. "How could they survive?"

"It's got to be a trick." Ben wasn't letting this go. "Special effects."

"We ran a scan," Shel told him. He sounded as calm and unfazed as ever as he studied the empty space on the platform where the creature's huge feet had been standing. "These are real corpses."

"Don't forget the one in the chair," said Roba. He spat on it to make his point, and Ben watched the liquid dribble down the huge pink head. "We can see that's for real."

"How could a corpse come back to life," Shade muttered. "Maybe Ben's right, they're not dead. Maybe this force field is really some kind of cryogenic -"

"They're dead," Shel informed him flatly, and held out a palm-sized gadget. "Would you like to check the displays?" Shade shrugged.

"You're science officer."

"It's more likely the corpse simply disintegrated when the systems started up," stated Shel. "Some resonance in the vibration may have interfered with the stasis field in some way." Haunt nodded, perked up a bit.

"Yes. That would make sense." It didn't to Ben, but he supposed they should be grateful for any explanation, no matter how incomprehensible it sounded.

"Maybe the force field's there to keep the bodies safe." Before Ben could be shot down in flames like Shade he quickly carried on: "You know; they can't bury them, so they keep them up here."

"So where's this piece of rock going to?" Haunt fixed him with a dark stare. "Some deep space cemetery?"

"Maybe," Ben said. "We don't know nothing, do we?"

"Double negative," Shel muttered, staring at the empty space between the corpses at the end of the line. "That would suggest we know everything." Haunt looked at him, thoughtfully.

Odie felt nailed in place. She could barely move a muscle without Shade reacting to it, and it peeved her to no end. Oh sure, she wanted nothing more than to smack him, and every other soldier in that room, but their guns kept her in check. She had been more than a little surprised her move against Shade had worked back then, but she supposed she'd just caught him by surprise. If there was one thing Odie didn't look like, it was a fighter.

But, Odie realized, she didn't want to go back to the TARDIS yet. Sure, she had when she and Polly had just been wandering aimlessly through the tunnels, but something was weird about this. The countdown making the rock fly, the missing alien body, and that machine which had attacked her and Polly. Her curiosity was piqued, and she hoped the Doctor was going to give them some answers soon.

"All right," Haunt called out to her troops. "I'll accept a corpse can maybe reduce itself to dust, but not one of my own squad. We need to find Denni."

"Or what's left of her," Odie heard the woman keeping Polly in check, Lindey, muttering.

"And while we're searching we can gauge how big a fragment has separated from the main mass of this rock. But first, we need to know if the ship is still accessible."

"I'm afraid your ship will be quite out of reach by now," said the Doctor.

"And just how would you know?" growled Roba.

"Surely, my boy, you don't imagine this whole area has detached itself for no reason? That you stumbled upon these dead criminals by chance?" He turned to Haunt and Shel.

"When was this place constructed?"

"We don't have access to that kind of information," Haunt said impatiently.

"Very well then, by what process was this asteroid chosen for your training exercises?" Odie smiled. The Doctor's tone made them answer him by automatic. Even with guns pointed at him, he still had that air of authority about him that made everyone stop and think that bit longer.

"I made available to Pentagon Central the experiential records of each soldier in the squad," said Shel. "Their computers then ascertained what further training experiences were needed to take the AT squad into elite class, and selected a suitable location."

"Craphole computers," Roba snorted. The Doctor shook his head.

"The computer, sir, is only equipped to take decisions according to the caprices of its programmers." He surveyed his audience haughtily. "You were expected here. All this is an elaborate trap that has closed around you."

"Around us, you mean," said Ben with feeling.

"Yes, quite so." At once the Doctor's smugness vanished, and he looked suddenly distant. "I hardly think a means of escape will be left to us."

"While I'm sure you know everything, Doctor," Haunt said dourly, "I think we'll check for ourselves." She turned to her soldiers. "Shade, Lindey, go back to the ship, check it out. Roba, Frog, get out there and guard that doorway. Anything coming our way, I want to know about it."

Silently, they obeyed. Odie was relieved when Shade left, and she dared to shuffle at the spot, rest her tensed muscles. Not that there still weren't soldiers ready to shoot her, but the only one who knew to keep a close eye on her was Tovel. Haunt did it because she was a paranoid hag.

"And remember," Haunt called after them. "There could be one, maybe two droids still out there in our share of this rock. Watch yourselves." She turned to Polly. "You claim you left this room by another exit."

"I don't claim anything." Polly crossed to stand by Ben's side. "It's true."

"Creben. Joiks. Find another door." Haunt gestured broadly around her with her rifle. She waved it around so naturally, like the thing was a part of her. Creben moved smartly away and Joiks slouched off to investigate in the other direction, his heavy-set face troubled.

"Tovel," Haunt went on. "You're the pilot. Can this really be a kind of ship?"

"Sure it can," Tovel replied. Ben looked confused.

"But how can it steer or whatever, if it's just a dirty great rock?" The Doctor ignored him and turned to Tovel.

"Young man, would you agree that technology of this sort would need some kind of primed navigational matrix in order to move through space?" Odie smiled at Ben who seemed none too pleased being ignored, and she walked to him.

"It's a spaceship, Ben. It doesn't have to work like a normal ship," she whispered to him. She wasn't exactly an expert on spaceships herself, but she remembered the Dalek saucers in London, and even the TARDIS itself. None of them even slightly resembled a normal ships. Tovel raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah. It's Schirr technology. They load up crystals with cartographic info, all pre-programmed, and burnt into the systems at launch. But the crystals are gone. We've no way of knowing where we're headed."

"We're on the edge of Morphiean space," Haunt said. "Any infringement on their territory could be construed as open warfare."

"Who are these Morphieans?" asked Polly. Tovel looked at her.

"So we can take it you had no relatives on Beijing Minor, then."

"We, er, have been out of circulation, you could say," the Doctor told him with an apologetic smile.

"Refugees," Haunt reminded Tovel.

"In a few years we could all be." Odie looked away, willing herself to not think on what Tovel meant.

"The Morphieans are the geezers with the magic, the Spooks," Ben piped up. "That bunch on the dais are called Schirr, and they've been ripping off the Morphieans' secrets, see Pol? The Morphieans want them back. And since the Schirr are part of Earth's empire now, the Morphieans are having a pop at us for not putting the lid on them." The Doctor gave Ben a withering look.

"Succinctly put." Odie looked back at Ben, nodding. She could certainly see why that would make the Morphieans annoyed. But there was just one problem...

"How did the Schirr get those secrets to begin with?"

"We learned from the pacified Schirr that centuries ago, the quadrant was active in this sector; before their isolationist stance," Tovel told her. "Certain Schirr elements still practised the Morphiean black arts, and none better than DeCaster. He's become a hero, a god to these primitives." Shel spoke up.

"Over the last ten years he has used Morphiean rituals to commit the most devastating terrorist acts against Empire."

"Whole worlds," said Haunt, "just gone up in flames." A pattern was starting to show itself to Odie.

"And once the Morphieans realised what was happening, they started reprisals with worse magic?" Polly guessed.

"Much worse," said Tovel. Polly's voice rose a little in panic.

"And we could be heading straight for them! We can't tell!"

"How can these crystals have gone? We've only just set off." Ben suddenly clicked his fingers. "Ere, maybe the stiff did the business while we were all out of the room - then he dissolved." He swung round to face the dais, half-expecting the missing figure to have suddenly sneaked back in.

"Not likely, is it," said Tovel.

"In any case, the countdown started ages ago," Polly said.

"According to you," Haunt pointed out.

"Would you stop doubting everything we say? We've told the truth so far," Odie growled, glaring at the stubborn marshal. Haunt sneered back at her.

"Just like you appeared out of thin air."

"You can see our craft for yourself, madam," the Doctor said impatiently, gesturing to the TARDIS. Haunt didn't reply to that.

"Where were you standing," asked Haunt, "when you disappeared?"

"It was dark, I'm not sure." Polly frowned. "Over by the bodies there, somewhere near the TARDIS. I was trying to get away from them." Polly looked to Odie. "What about you?"

"I don't know. By the wall. Remember, I walked into it when the light from the TARDIS was cut off?"

"Marshal, these two were here when we arrived," Shel said, his voice flat and emotionless as he looked at the Doctor and Ben. "It's possible they could have set our destination and then hidden the navigational crystals."

"Oh, come off it," Ben protested.

"The systems were dead until you entered," the Doctor agreed tetchily. "The area was pressurized, as you well know."

"But we don't know how long you were here before us," Tovel said, without, Ben was pleased to see, a good deal of conviction.

"We're wasting time!" the Doctor said, and Odie walked to him, linking arms with him. She didn't like the direction this conversation was going in. "Even without the crystals I'm sure I can decipher the residual coding in the navigational circuits."

"You can?" Tovel looked surprised. "Care to show me how?"

"Wait," Haunt ordered. "Scan them, Shel." Shel waved some weird-looking device over the Doctor and Odie. Then he stuck it in Ben's face. Ben felt dizzy for a few moments. Shel opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He looked a bit dizzy himself. Maybe it was catching, thought Ben.

"Cl… Clear, Marshal. No power source detected." Haunt frowned at Shel.

"You all right?"

"I'll check the girl." He moved over to Polly as if nothing had happened. But by the uneasy look between Haunt and Tovel, clearly something significant had.

"Nothing," Tovel observed, and Shel turned away impassively.

"As you see, we were telling the truth," said the Doctor. "Nevertheless, you were quite right to check. The crystals must be on board somewhere." He smiled icily at Shel. "Concealed by whoever set this vessel in motion."

"Why can't they be on the part we left behind?" Ben asked.

"Without them," Tovel explained, "this ship can't change course. Ever." Odie blinked.

"You mean, not even when we've reached the destination?" Tovel shook his head.

"It's a one-way journey," said Polly quietly.

"Indeed, that's quite possible." The Doctor steepled his fingers and turned his eyes to the vaulted ceiling high above. "But to where are we travelling, hmm? Let us consider the facts." Haunt looked at him warily.

"Go on."

"Firstly, it would seem the Schirr infested this training area and subverted its functions to accommodate their own. If we are travelling under the guidance of their systems it is unlikely we shall be entering Morphiean space. To do so would mean certain suicide for DeCaster and his followers."

"Yeah, but they're already dead, Doctor," Ben interrupted.

"Precisely, my boy. But the flight of this asteroid, and the timing of its take-off, would have been determined before the bloody conflict that consumed them took place."

"They've turned this whole place against us," Haunt breathed. "They must mean to use it as a weapon." Shel considered.

"DeCaster's intent has always been hostile to Earth and Empire. Outwardly, our appearance, size and mass suggests a simple meteor."

"This rock could steer smoothly into orbit around an Earth world," said Tovel, catching on, "then drop out of the sky on any continent before anyone can react." Polly just stared at him, horrified. Ben was still scratching his head.

"But if they had all this planned on the automatics, why stay behind? Why fight among themselves?"

"A power struggle of some kind?" wondered Shel. "Perhaps Pallemar wanted to take control." Haunt nodded, a faraway look in her eyes as if she were somehow watching the bloody events unfold.

"Pallemar was placing the others in the stasis field. They didn't know how long they would have to wait for the next training squad. They planned to use our ship to escape in once the trap was sprung, marooning us here. But Pallemar must've realised that with DeCaster stuck in stasis, he could set himself up as the leader." She nodded with sudden conviction. "The scum won't even stay loyal to their own kind."

"The scenario would seem to fit," said the Doctor. "Except for one thing. If such a squabble took place at the end, unexpectedly... why are the crystals not in evidence?" Tovel clicked his fingers.

"Of course. One of the Schirr must have them! If we can breach that stasis field, we can simply take the crystals back and change course as we wish."

"Scan the corpses, Shel," said Haunt. All eyes were on Shel as he waved the wand-like device around the dais. And shook his head.

"No power source, Marshal," he stated. Odie looked at the Doctor. He nodded his head, just a fraction, as if he'd suspected as much all along.


Polly sighed. The Doctor and Tovel were digging about in the gossamer cables within the navigational console. Haunt was watching them, sullenly. Creben and Joiks were still waving little pieces of machinery around the place, looking for her magic door (Polly hoped they would fall through it and vanish, just as she and Odie had). Shel lingered by the grisly display of corpses, staring at them as if he were somehow communicating with them telepathically. The idea frightened Polly. She edged closer to Ben.

"He's a funny one, isn't he," she whispered. "Shel, I mean. He acts more like a machine than a person."

"Confucius say, he inscrutable," Ben said cheerily. "Bet if we looked hard enough we'd find 'Made in Taiwan' stamped on him somewhere." Polly didn't smile back.

"That's racist, Ben."

"Come on Pol, I didn't mean nothing by it."

"No one ever means anything by it, but they still make the jokes all the same. Would you like to be treated like that?" She looked to the navigational console, where the Doctor had Odie hand in his own, and they whispered to each other. "And in any event, those kind of jokes might hurt Odie, if you don't stop it." Ben looked away, hurt.

"I'd never say stuff like that 'bout Odie. As for the soldiers, we ain't been treated so well by any of them in case you hadn't noticed." Polly spoke without thinking.

"Adam's all right."

"Adam?" Ben didn't look happy. "Oh, got you. Shade. The bloke with the face. Yeah, you and him seem to be getting on pretty well." Polly sighed. Jealousy was so childish.

"I don't know why you're so bothered. You and that froggy woman seem to be hitting it off quite well yourselves," she said, folding her arms. Ben didn't say anything to the contrary. The rat.

"Look, Duchess," Ben said finally. "We're all stuck here, whizzing through space on some dirty great rock with a load of murdered black-magic criminals, a bunch of trigger-happy space marines and God knows what else. Let's not fall out in the middle of this lot."

"We haven't fallen out," Polly told him, and was rewarded with a broad grin. She lowered her voice. "You know what we were saying earlier, about cat people and dog people?" Ben nodded.

"What do you make of this lot?"

"Well, I suppose they should all be cats. Independent. Tough." Polly considered. "Shel's a cat. Creben and Lindey too."

"Frog's not one or the other. Well, she's a frog, ain't she!" He paused. "Got to feel sorry for her." Polly nodded, forced a smile.

"Adam - Shade - is definitely a dog."

"And you feel sorry for him, right?" Polly nodded. "So we're equal."

"Creben. Joiks," called Haunt. "Found anything yet?" Both men shook their heads.

"As if she needed to ask," Polly snorted. "Doesn't she trust them to tell her?"

"She's just trying to keep them motivated, giving them something to do," said Ben. "Just 'cause they've got big guns don't mean they're not bricking it like the rest of us. If they feel like she's counting on them, they feel better about themselves." The thought hadn't occurred to Polly.

"I suppose that's your Navy background talking." Then she sighed. "I really am like a fish out of water round here."

"Then I'd better watch out for you with all these cats about," Ben said, patting her hand. "Especially the big, bad Marshal Haunt." Polly shook her head.

"I'm not sure about her. Something in her eyes... She acts really tough, but I'll bet she's been hurt before. Hurt badly. A love affair that went wrong, or something."

"Female intuition, is it?" Ben smirked.

"She's probably been a soldier forever, but it's like she's not here because she really wants to be... She just doesn't have anywhere else to go." Ben raised his eyebrows.

"Getting a bit deep for me, Pol." He looked quite relieved when a distraction came along in mutters and grumbles from the Doctor, as he struggled out of his spacesuit. Odie was giving him a hand, and Ben realized she was already out of her own. She was wearing a navy blue tunic and loose trousers. She always seemed to dress for running.

Tovel got on with pulling web-like filaments from out of the console. Soon the navy blue spacesuit was a shucked skin on the cavern floor, and the Doctor was resplendent again in his black frock coat, starched wing collar and cravat, somehow none the worse for wear.

"Any luck finding where we're going, Doctor?" Polly asked.

"I'm afraid not yet, my child."

"Only a matter of time though, thanks to those reducing equations of yours," said Tovel, and Polly could see he was impressed. The Doctor smiled wanly, but his face hardened as Shade and Lindey came marching back into the control room with Roba and Frog at their heels. As usual Lindey looked assured and collected. Shade, she noticed, looked less comfortable.

"Half the bullring has collapsed," Lindey reported. "There'd be no way through to the ship, even if it was still here." The temperature in the room seemed to fall by a couple of degrees. Polly looked longingly at the TARDIS. With the invisible barrier in place it was as out of reach as the soldiers' spaceship. Haunt took the news stoically.

"Then we sweep this place for droids. We kill anything that can kill us. Then we'll find a way to signal back home. We'll figure something out."

"Are we sure this isn't part of the training simulation?" asked Shade hopefully. No one replied.

"We could do with finding Denni," Creben observed. "She might've learned something that could help us."

"She's dead," Joiks muttered bitterly. Haunt overheard him.

"Thanks to you, we don't know that for certain." Joiks looked up, stung, but said nothing. Polly noticed Odie smirk at the sight. "We don't know anything at all," Haunt went on. "It's time we did." Now, as if under orders to accentuate the positive, there were murmurs of assent from the troops. Haunt turned back to Joiks. "Can you guide us back to where you lost Denni? That'll be our starting place." He nodded, to Haunt's evident satisfaction. "All right everyone, we're moving out."

"Everyone?" Odie asked, puzzled. Haunt turned to her grimly.

"Everyone."

"Madam," protested the Doctor, "surely in light of what has happened here with the missing crystals and the vanishing body, someone should remain here, on guard?"

"I have no one to spare," Haunt said flatly. "Besides, what's to guard? The crystals are not in this room, and the corpse fell apart in some kind of power surge when the drives started up." The Doctor looked between Haunt and Shel.

"You put a good deal of faith in your adjutant's judgement."

"We're a team. One unit. All of us," Haunt said simply. Her gaze swept round the room. "If we're going to survive, we have to act like one. So congratulations, old man. You and yours just joined the squad."

"Why do we have to go too?" Polly asked. Haunt smiled coldly.

"I want you where I can see you."


Ben tramped along behind Joiks as he led them all off to where he had last seen Denni. The Doctor and Polly were separated from him by the mass of marching bodies, straggling at the back of the procession. Now and then he heard Frog buzz some kind of prompt to keep them moving, but whether threat or request, he wasn't sure. Odie was walking next to him.

The cold seaweedy cave smell of the asteroid now had the added niff of sweaty trooper. It seemed to be driving the white fleas crazy. They were swarming over the troopers, jumping like ticks in their hair, over their skin, everywhere. The light seemed to shift as they walked along; Ben worked out this was because the weed on the ceilings - fleaweed, he would call it - grew in uneven clumps in these tunnels, rather than the even covering of those closer to the complex.

Why would that be, Ben wondered. What had the Doctor said? 'Has this been grown here by the architects of this place so that you can light your way... or so that something else can see you approaching?'

Maybe now that something else didn't want them to see it coming.

"It was here," Joiks said, pausing at the twisted mouth of yet another dank tunnel. "It slopes down and gets pitch black."

"All right," Haunt said, pushing to the front of the group.

"We go inside in groups of three. Joiks, take Creben and Frog in there. Tovel, Roba, take the boy here." Ben felt his heart beat a little faster.

"I should go with Polly," he said. Haunt didn't even bother to look at him.

"The girls can go with Lindey and Shade. Shel and me will take the old man." Ben turned to Roba and Tovel. Their lack of enthusiasm suggested that if they'd been picking teams, he might have wound up somewhere else. Odie didn't seem pleased either, and Shade seemed like he'd swallowed some bitter medicine.

"I'll keep Polly safe, Ben," Odie whispered, as she walked to the other girl. Ben nodded at her back in gratitude, before looking at his assigned wardens.

"Come on then, fellas," he said briskly, marching up to Roba with a confidence he didn't feel. "You've got a spare gun there, ain't ya? Lend us it, will you?" Roba looked down at him, sneering.

"You're seriously asking me to lend you my weapon?" Ben pulled himself up to his full height, and even then he was barely level with Roba's shoulder.

"All right, give us it, then." Roba slowly pulled the chunky pistol from its holster and levelled it at Ben's chest.

"To mess with me," he said quietly, "you're either stupid, or else you've got some guts."

"Don't reckon I'm the brightest in the class," Ben said, trying to keep his voice steady. "But I reckon I got plenty of guts." He put his hand round the gun barrel and gently pushed it aside a fraction. "And if it's the same to you, I'd like them to stay inside my skin. All right?" Roba's eyes narrowed, but soon his teeth bared in a wolf-like grin. He opened his palm and allowed Ben to take the gun with sweaty fingers.

"Maybe we could use a man your size around," Roba told him, slapping down the slab of his hand on Ben's shoulder. "You can watch my ankles. Let me know if anything's coming to chew 'em. OK?"

"You got a deal, mate." Ben could barely see Odie winking at him in approval from her position by Polly. Creben and Frog followed Joiks into the tunnel, weapons trained dead ahead of them.

"Count ten," Haunt instructed them. "Then move in after them."

"I'll go in first," Tovel volunteered. "Ben, you follow me. Then Roba." Ben nodded, and looked over his shoulder at Polly down the dim passage. She was watching him forlornly, peeping over Shade's shoulder. He winked at her, but wasn't sure if she'd see. The Doctor, standing by Shel about ten feet away, inclined his head. His chest was puffed up, as if with pride. His fingers flexing around the unfamiliar contours of the gun handle, Ben strode after Tovel into the dark, dripping mouth of the tunnel.


Polly found the darkness almost overpowering. The troopers' torchlight seemed swallowed by it. Occasionally she glimpsed movement in it, a faint flare on a rifle butt, a moving leg or swinging arm. Her imagination filled in the gaps, conjured monsters out of the dark for her to thread her way through. The ground was wet and slippery with scree. The only thing keeping her from going all out paranoid was Odie's steady grip on her hand.

"The path splits into three." Creben sounded as casual as always, even here.

"Me and Denni never got this far," said Joiks.

"Test your wrist-comms," Haunt snapped. "I couldn't reach you and Denni before." The squad did as she asked, and everyone seemed satisfied.

"Evidently some sort of energy-source was interfering with your transmissions," said the Doctor. "The drives, powering up, perhaps."

"Perhaps." Haunt didn't sound interested. "Joiks, Creben, Frog, push on to the left. Tovel, your group follow them. We'll take the middle. Shade the right." Polly was impressed by her swift decision making, until it dawned on her that since no one knew where they were going, it hardly mattered who went where. Except that anything could be waiting, silently, down one of these dark passages.

Footsteps crunched off into the darkness.

"Here we go then," said Shade. He didn't sound much happier about it than Polly did, and she wasn't sure whether to feel consoled or more frightened still. Polly stifled a cry as something pushed past her into the tunnel. It was Lindey. Odie had squeezed her hand when she cried, and Polly felt thankful Odie had gotten to go with her.

"I'll go in first, Shadow. I don't like the thought of you watching out for me." She paused, squinted back into the spotlight of Shade's torch beam. "Not after what you did." Polly noticed a slight tremble in Shade's shape not far from her. From the shaky hiss of his breathing, it wasn't with anger, but with fear. He followed Lindey into the tunnel.

"What was all that about?" Polly muttered to Odie.

"Intrigue. Always present whenever there's humans," the answer came, and Polly smiled, despite herself.

"You're human too, you know."

"Ah, so I am." The two chuckled, shakily. As they went to follow them, the toe of Polly's boot knocked against something. She cried out, and fell into Odie, who immediately hugged her. Shade spun round, gun raised.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Shine your light here," she whispered, tapping the protruding object with her toe. It was a little pile of rocks. Polly recognized it instantly.

"That's ours!" she breathed. "Our marker. We must've come this way." She frowned. "I'm sure it wasn't so dark before." Odie released her and squatted next to the heap of rocks. Beside it was one much larger.

"There's been some sort of subsidence, the tunnel we went through has been sealed off." She paused. "Polly, I think the place with the countdown is on the other side of the rockfall."

"Come on," Shade said. He sounded preoccupied. "I mustn't let Lindey get too far ahead." Polly shrugged but gave no argument. Their crunching footsteps set a mournful tempo as they set off after her.

"Have you known her long?" Polly asked tentatively.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shade said with a sideways glance.

"Nothing. I just wondered. With you being a team and all."

"Well, then, no. I haven't known her long. I haven't known a lot of this crowd long. We're soldiers. What's to know? We fight till one day we die." When Lindey's scream tore through the blackness, Polly thought her heart would give out. There was movement in the dark. Shade gripped her arm, as if not wanting her to run away and leave him.

There was a heavy rushing noise, a pressure in her ears, and Polly's perceptions seemed to skew. She glimpsed something in Shade's torch beam: some grotesque, squat little figure, then a pale face falling away into the darkness like a stone down a well as Lindey, still screaming, was snatched away at unnatural, frightening speed.

It was the wrong person Shade had grabbed. Polly saw Odie charge towards the place Lindey disappeared in the torchlight.

"Odie, wait!" Odie came to a skidding halt where Lindey disappeared, turning her head towards Polly. She seemed surprised Polly had called.

"We have to help her," she said, confused, as she squatted down, looking around. Shade raised his wrist to his lips. For a few moments he just breathed, deeply and shakily, before speaking.

"Marshal Haunt. Have lost Lindey." There was nothing but static.

"Oh no," murmured Polly.

"Marshal Haunt," Shade repeated. "Respond."

"Maybe..." Polly swallowed nervously. "Maybe whatever it was got Haunt too." The static stopped, replaced by the heavy silence of the tunnel.

"Shade?" Haunt's voice from the communicator made them all jump.

"Marshal, it's Lindey. Dragged off, it was so fast…"

"Get after her," Haunt snapped. "I'm on my way. Out." Odie grinned eagerly, and she reached out her hand.

"Gimme the torch. I'm faster than the two of you," she asked.

"'That a fact?" Shade asked, obviously not trusting Odie. Polly groaned, rolling her eyes. A wounded pride really could make men intolerable. She grabbed the torch from him and threw it to Odie, who caught it easily.

"Come on then," she said, already running.

Shade took Polly's arm as they ran after her. It was easy enough to follow Odie, as the torch gave her away easily. The rock walls were moth-eaten with entrances to other tunnels, gaping open like mouths ready to suck them both inside. There was a sudden scraping, rattling noise, and Shade ducked down. Polly gave a short shriek of alarm, and the torch's light was turned to them, as Odie had turned around. A moment later Shade was up again.

"It's all right. I dropped my palmscreen." Odie sighed.

"Seriously?" In the sharp light of the torch, Polly could tell Shade was blushing.

"Let's just go."

They didn't have much further to run before the darkness suddenly gave way to a thick, porridgey light. Odie had paused, turning off the torch. Polly and Shade stopped next to her, looking into a vast vaulted chamber. It had five walls, stacked high with the familiar dark slates, though one was partially obscured by another of the extraordinary glass tapestries. The ceiling was heavy with the luminous weed. It hung down in sticky strands, and here and there on the smooth stone floor it lay in glowing heaps that were clustered with the pale insects. Five tall stone columns reached up from the stone-paved floor like huge candles, each one crowned with a pair of massive stone sculptures. Eerily lit from above, they reminded Polly of Renaissance cherubs grown fat and gone to seed. It must've been a statue of some kind she glimpsed back in the tunnel.

The chamber was otherwise empty and silent, save for the ghostly chiming of the tapestry fragments, disturbed as if by a breeze. There was no sign of Lindey. Footsteps behind them made Polly jump. She saw Haunt tearing towards them, rifle raised, staring wildly around.

"Where is she?" Haunt demanded of Shade. Shade shook his head but said nothing. Haunt glared at Polly.

"Did you see anything?"

"There was no time," Polly murmured. "It all happened so fast."

"Too fast," Shade agreed. "She was just... taken."

"Taken by what, for God's sake? By a droid? By the hand?" Haunt's voice rose a notch, and she slapped a palm angrily against Polly's shoulder. "By the colour of this stupid spacesuit?"

"Would you just shut up for a second?" Odie asked incredulously, and Polly shrieked as Haunt brandished her rifle in Odie's face. Odie's face didn't move, but Polly could see her body stiffen.

"Listen to me. You do not speak to me like that. Never." Her eyes were dark, unblinking. "You follow me?" Odie still didn't move, just stared the marshal in the eyes.

"What is happening here?" Polly could have cried with relief as the Doctor's voice rang out imperiously around the chamber. Haunt widened her eyes in one more silent warning, before lowering the rifle. Polly immediately went to Odie's side, grabbing the other girl's hand. It was trembling.

"There's no sign of Lindey," Haunt snapped. Polly saw she was ignoring the Doctor and talking to Shel, who stood behind him. "Could whatever took her have got past you?"

"No, Marshal," Shel answered. "We saw nothing."

"These tunnels interconnect," the Doctor added. "We crossed from ours to join yours. I imagine all the passages are joined, it's quite a labyrinth." He nodded decisively.

"Terrific. So Lindey has vanished, just like Denni. You saw nothing. Shade did nothing."

"Again," Polly heard Shade whisper. He absently itched one of the black ridges in his face, and quickly screwed up his eyes as if in pain. As she wondered whether or not to place a consoling hand on his shoulder, she noticed his palmscreen fastened securely to his chunky belt. And, peeping from his jumpsuit's hip pocket, the shiny corner of an identical computer.


"Are you all right, you two?" the Doctor had crossed, as quiet as a cat, to join her and Odie. Odie nodded mutely, but she noticed Odie's trembling had stopped as soon as the Doctor was near. Polly steered the two of them discreetly over to one of the stone pillars.

"Doctor," Polly whispered urgently. "I think Shade has got Lindey's palm computer thing. She must've dropped it when she was..." Her voice dried up, and she swallowed. "I think he found it in the tunnel and pretended it was his." The Doctor frowned.

"Are you sure, child?" She nodded.

"So why hasn't he told Haunt?"

"Why indeed?" muttered the Doctor. "I wonder..." Odie's eyes widened.

"Doctor. When Polly and I first met him... When we were running from whatever that thing was that chased us away from the countdown..." Polly's eyes widened, when she realized what Odie was talking about. "It was Shade who brought the roof down on us, stopped us leading anyone there to see for themselves."

"You must tell me all that happened, girls." Polly gladly obliged. It felt good to be able to tell the outlandish tale just as it happened and know that she was believed without question, taken deadly seriously. The Doctor always did that; made you the centre of his world whenever he looked at you. When she'd finished, the Doctor simply nodded.

"It sounds to me as if the two of you stumbled upon a power source of some kind. Perhaps the very core of this subterranean citadel." He nodded again with satisfaction at this summation.

"And someone else had found it too," Polly said, remembering the figure she'd seen through the blue haze. "Oh, this is a terrible place!" She scratched the back of her neck. "There's something here with us, I'm sure of it. Something... evil. Watching us all the time." The Doctor patted her absently on the shoulder.

"We have eyes too," he said, "and we must use them well." Around her feet the white fleas hopped mindlessly. High above, the cherubim balanced precariously as if frozen in the midst of some joyful dance.


Ben felt like piggy in the middle, stuck between Tovel and Roba. The two men joked to keep their spirits up, but the conversation went right over Ben's head. A good foot shorter than either of them, perhaps it was no surprise, he mused ruefully. Suddenly the laughter stopped dead. Ben heard a scraping sound ahead of him, then silence. There was a sound like a generator charging up, and then confused movement about him in the dark as Tovel pushed past to join Roba.

"Keep down, Ben," Roba shouted. "Kill-Droid approaching."

A red glow was creeping round the corner of the tunnel. Then it was lost in the flare of laser fire from the two soldiers. Ben shielded his face as splinters of rock showered over him, smelt chemical smoke from the glowing barrels of the guns. A large stone fell from the ceiling and struck his leg.

"Go easy!" Ben shouted. "You'll bring the roof down on us!" The gunfire stopped, as if they'd actually listened to him. The air was thick with dust. For a moment, all Ben could hear was Tovel and Roba's ragged breathing.

"We got it," Tovel said. "Sharp shooting, marksman." Roba coughed.

"You sure we got it?"

"We must've got it." Cautiously they advanced on the bend in the tunnel. A rush of crimson coloured the walls. Something slammed into the two men, knocking them back. In the red haze Ben could see a nightmare figure rounding the corner. It was huge, filling the tunnel. Its head was a great glass cylinder, the source of the infernal glow. Its body was the size of a chest freezer, chrome and gleaming, bobbing about on countless spidery limbs that seemed fashioned from tensile steel.

The machine whipped out a metal tentacle that ended in a cruel spike, one that looked easily big enough to skewer two heads in one go. Roba brought up his gun but the robot's spike hooked it from his grip. With a flick, the gun clattered out of reach behind the thing. Ben scrambled to his feet.

"Here!" Tovel shouted, and hurled his own rifle Ben's way. Before he could grab it, the robot flung out another tentacle and caught the gun like it weighed nothing. Ben scooped his own gun from the tunnel floor and fired it, aiming for the thing's head. There was a noise like bullets firing and a lacklustre light flashed out from the gun's tip, but he felt no recoil and the effect on the robot was disappointing to say the least. Ben thought the droid wasn't even going to notice his attack, but finally its head rotated slowly round to face him.

"That thing won't scratch a Kay-Dee," Tovel gasped.

"We must've damaged it," said Roba. "Or else why ain't it firing no more?" The robot now used Roba's rifle as a club. Ben dived to the floor as the weapon whooshed over his head and smashed into the wall. Tovel and Roba were using the distraction to try and scramble out of the Kill-Droid's way, falling over each other in the enclosed, suffocating space, choking on smoke and dust. When the thing advanced on them, Ben found himself directly in its way.

Desperately he wormed through the robot's tangle of sinewy legs. His skin felt scorched by the fierce heat radiating from the machine's gleaming body. He cried out as something hooked on his ankle and the flesh started to tear. But with his arms at full stretch, he felt the cold, solid bulk of Tovel's rifle. Grabbing it, he jammed its barrel up what he hoped was the part of the Kill-Droid where the sun don't shine.

This time when he fired, the results were a lot more spectacular. Like a firework going off in a jam jar, the monster's head exploded. A fog of red smoke escaped the shattered glass. Sparks shot out of the blackening neck. The twisting limbs stiffened and then buckled beneath the weight of the great chrome coffin above. Ben tried to work his way clear of the bulk as it teetered and rocked alarmingly above him, but something was still hooked in his left ankle, anchoring the thing to him.

"Don't let it fall on me, for God's sake!" Ben gasped. "I'll be flattened!" In the sputtering light of the sparks, Ben saw his own terrified reflection staring him out from the robot's gleaming back. His distorted features grew closer, clearer, as the dead weight of the thing finally fell to crush him.

Inches from his face its fall was halted.

"Get yourself free quickly," Ben heard Tovel gasp. "This thing weighs a ton." Ben felt for the hook in his ankle and yanked it out. Raising himself on his elbows, biting his tongue to stop himself whimpering with the pain, he worked his way backwards a few feet along the tunnel.

"All right, I'm clear!" he yelled, but his cry was drowned out by the clang and clatter of the Kill-Droid as it smashed heavily into the ground, inches from his feet. Ben breathed a long, long sigh of relief. "Thanks, fellas."

"Thanks yourself," Tovel replied, and Roba nodded. Despite the pain in his ankle, Ben felt a giddying rush of triumph. He'd sorted the War Machine's big brother, and earned his place in the barracks. Having the friendship of this pair should make his stay here, and that of Polly, Odie and the Doctor, a little easier. Roba studied the Kill-Droid's inert body.

"This thing's loaded with different weapons, but the charges are all still full. Not a shot fired. Why didn't it use them?"

"It probably heard me telling you the whole roof would come crashing down," Ben called, gingerly feeling round his injured ankle. It didn't feel too bad now. It just itched like hell.

"You reckon this thing cares about a ton of rubble on its head?" Tovel clearly didn't think so. "No, it must be the one me and Shade met before. We must've hit it."

"Whatever," Roba announced, raising his wrist to his mouth. "Looks like we've got a hell of a trophy to take back to Haunt."


"Good work, Roba. Out." Haunt smiled in triumph as she swung round to address Polly, the Doctor and Shade. "Roba reports a Kay-Dee down."

"No static blocking communications this time," the Doctor observed quietly.

"Is Ben all right?" Polly asked. Haunt nodded.

"The droid attacked them in the tunnel." She paused, "It must've killed Lindey first." Polly saw the Doctor shake his head at this.

"We don't know that for sure," he said.

"You said yourself, these tunnels are connected." Haunt stared him down. "Can you give me an alternative explanation?"

"Very well, if the droids did indeed kill Denni and Lindey," the Doctor said quickly, "then that mystery is solved. Will you now accept it is essential we learn our destination with all possible speed, and attempt to find a way of signalling for help from outside?" Haunt seemed to consider his plea.

"Shel, take the old man and the girls back to the control room," she said at last. "I'll contact the others. We'll search on for the bodies of Lindey and Denni and meet you back there." Shel looked pale, his face covered in a sheen of sweat.

"Marshal." They left Haunt in the vast chamber, alone with Shade, both as silent and still as one of the statues balanced on top of the pillars. Odie walked next to the Doctor, her arms linked to his. Polly thought it'd do her good to be away from Haunt. She imagined Haunt would have gladly pulled the trigger on Odie.

"If it wasn't the droid that murdered Denni and Lindey," Polly said nervously, "then what did?"

"Or who?" the Doctor muttered darkly. Polly decided not to pursue her line of questioning. She was scared enough as it was. She shivered as Shel led them down the same tunnel that she had taken with Shade.

"I do wish you could've seen the blue place, Doctor," she sighed. "I'm sure you would've understood it."

"Maybe so," the Doctor agreed loftily. "Young man," he added turning to Shel. "Would you be so kind as to attempt to contact someone on your communicator, hmm?" Shel looked at him curiously but contacted Haunt. Her voice crackled through in response, partially obscured by the rhythmic shushing of the static.

"A test only," Shel reported. "Out."

"The power source you mentioned, Doctor," said Polly. "Does that mean it's growing fainter?"

"Perhaps. But without a good deal of excavation, there is no way of retracing your footsteps to discover the truth. We should continue to the main control room." He sighed heavily, impatiently shrugged off his frock coat. He gave it to Odie, who wrapped it to a small bundle and hugged it to her chest as they walked on. The Doctor's long white hair was clinging to his damp forehead. "We must see what is happening back there."

Polly nodded, and followed after the silent Shel. Her arms itched. The fleas, she thought. They must bite. She ruminated gloomily on the red lumps that would soon cover her as they trekked back to the control room. They'd got as far as the bullring when the itching was replaced by a prickling sensation at the sound of flashbulbs charging.

"Down!" screamed Odie, flinging herself and the Doctor to the rocky floor. Polly copied them, her cushioned suit protecting her from the gravelly floor. She felt a heat like sunlamps on the back of her neck. All she could see was a crimson wash filtering into her vision, and the rising whirr of something huge and heavy approaching.

"D-Droid." Shel reached for his gun. Polly stared in horror as this 'droid', a chugging red colossus as big as a department store lift, stole into the rocky ring on angle-poised legs and swivelled its heavy glassy head from side to side in search of what it could crush first.

Shel levelled his rifle and fired blast after white-hot blast at the robot. The droid hunched on its many legs like a spider that knows itself discovered, then lashed out a steel tentacle that swiped the gun from Shel's grip. A splatter of blood from his arm slopped onto the floor, but Polly heard no sound of a cry. The Doctor was back on his feet. Having taken his frock coat from Odie once more, he flapped it at the creature like a matador waving his cloak before an enraged bull.

"Run, girls," the Doctor insisted. He looked at her pointedly, sheltering behind his coat. Did he think that if he couldn't see the robot it couldn't see him? "As fast as you can."

Odie rose to her feet, grabbed Polly's arm and prepared to run for the jagged hole in the ring that led to the passageway stretching back to the control room. As she did so, a metal fist punched the Doctor through his coat. Silently he doubled up and collapsed.

"Doctor!" Odie screamed, immediately sliding to a halt. Polly almost fell forwards, had Odie not neglected to release her grip on Polly's arm.

"Odie, we can't do anything, we have to go," Polly implored, attempting to pull Odie forward, but Odie fought her way out of Polly's grip, and ran back to the Doctor. Polly watched the robot sidled up to his prone body. Two flexible probes that ended in gleaming surgical blades emerged from its silvery trunk and hovered over the Doctor, as if about to carve a roast. Odie grabbed one of the Doctor's lifeless arms, and attempted to pull him away from the droid. He was too heavy, Polly thought, there was no way to get him out of there in time.

Then a grating noise somewhere between an alarm clock and an egg timer burst out into the shadowy bullring. Polly saw the woman called Frog come charging into the rocky arena, screaming. She fired blast after blast from a rifle she clutched in just one hand.

The robot spun round to face her, leaving the Doctor unguarded. Polly swiftly ran over to Odie's side, and gripped the Doctor's other hand; it was cold, clammy, heavily veined. And as he rose she saw his face. Lined, parchment-thin skin. Eyes like dark beads rolling in his head as he recovered his wits. For a moment she wanted to recoil from him as something almost alien, but he held his hand out to her, a pathetic gesture for help, and she took it. His grip on her arm was feeble as he held on to her, gasping for breath, an ordinary old man again.

Frog had been joined by Creben and Joiks, each firing their guns at the droid, trapping it in a circle of fire, blasting at it again and again until its devil-red haze faded, its movements became weak and clumsy. Unable to resist the hail of fire, its legs splayed and it crashed heavily to the ground.

The Doctor seemed to draw strength from the mechanical creature as it flailed helplessly on the floor. His breathing became more regular, and he smiled at Polly with something approaching pride, as if every breath he drew demonstrated superiority over his fallen foe. He scratched at the back of his neck, reminding Polly she was still itching all over too. Just her luck if the fleas were poisonous.

Odie slung her arms around the Doctor's neck, hugging herself close to the old man, and Polly once again saw the Doctor whisper in her ears, calming her. For a second, it made Polly feel sort of like a third wheel. Then the Doctor looked at her with a grateful smile, and the feeling was gone again. Shel stared down dispassionately at both the silent machine and at the puncture wound in his arm. Joiks shot a pointed glance at the Doctor.

"I think he could use you."

"I am not a doctor of medicine." The Doctor shook his head wearily, as Odie released her strong grip on the old man. "However, his combat suit will compress the flesh around the wound, will it not? To stem the blood flow?" Creben nodded.

"And this should help. Medikit." He pulled a slim metal box from a pouch on his harness and stepped forward to examine the wound. Shel recoiled, began nursing the injury as if he'd only just become aware of it.

"It doesn't hurt," Shel informed them. Looking a little awkward now Shel had rejected his help, Creben discarded the first aid box and turned instead to the droid.

"Is it dead?"

"Looks like it," Frog gurgled. She prodded the thing with her foot. "I ain't seen one that size before." She gave a filthy chuckle. Polly shuddered.

"That was the second droid," Shel muttered. "T... Tovel destroyed the first in the tunnels back there." Frog slapped her palm against Joiks' in a victorious gesture, her bulging eyes shining with delight.

"Two down, Game Over," she said with a gappy smile. She scooped up Creben's first aid tin and rummaged inside. "Celebration time. Got anything recreational in here, Creben?"

"Frog, stop." Shel shook his head slowly. "The droid had already k... killed Lindey."

"Lindey too?" Her voice buzzed out just as loudly, but everything else about her seemed fragile and quiet for a second. Joiks stared at Shel.

"You saw this?"

"No."

"Got a body?"

"Her body has not been found."

"She was grabbed, wasn't she?" Joiks started pacing up and down. "It just took her, whatever it was. Took her away, just like Denni. No body." He kicked the droid savagely. "No damned body." Creben pointed to one of the robot's barbed flexible arms, lying uncoiled now like a steel snake.

"If it snagged Lindey and Denni with one of these at full stretch, it could simply have retracted the limb. They'd have been dragged away at quite a speed."

"But where would it have hidden the bodies?" asked Polly. "And why?" Creben tapped a nozzle protruding from the cracked glass façade covering the droid's metal midriff.

"Disintegrator. Nice and clean."

"You seen something like this thing before, Creben?" Joiks asked suspiciously. "Thought this droid was meant to be some kind of new secret design." Creben shrugged.

"I've come up against disintegrators before. Just never on a droid."

"Let me see." The Doctor stooped and delved into a split in the glass to remove a tiny circuit. Once he had finished scrutinising it, he straightened and faced Creben. "A neat explanation, young man, yes, very neat," he said, still a little breathlessly. "But I'm afraid you are incorrect." Creben raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yes?" The Doctor held up his circuit.

"This tells us that the disintegrator hasn't been fired."

"Then the other droid did it," Creben countered smoothly. "It probably obliterated the Schirr body in the control room too."

"Nah," Frog buzzed. "Marshal Haunt said that was resonance or something. Vibrations from the take-off."

"No. Shel said that," Polly ventured before she could stop herself. She found herself feeling a little guilty to be kicking a man when he was down and bleeding, but she felt things should be set straight. "Your marshal just agreed with him."

"You got a problem with Haunt's decisions?" Joiks screwed up his flattened nose. "Jesus, what is it with you women?"

"I don't got a problem with Haunt," Frog announced. Joiks laughed unkindly.

"You ain't a woman, Frog, you don't count."

"Would you shut your trap, you caffler?" Odie snapped. All in the room turned to her, eyes wide in surprise. She was pale and cold sweat drenched her forehead, but Polly remembered the look on her eyes. It was how she'd watched the Egyptian soldier in Alexandria about to cut Polly's head of. "First off, Frog jus' saved the Doctor's life, so you got a problem with 'er, you've got a problem with me. Second, anyone who 'ave a problem with yer precious marshal just 'as their brains in the right place, capiche?"

"Please," the Doctor said, cutting across their bickering, and making Odie take a deep breath and look away. "I am sure you wish to report this, er, victory to your Marshal, and I suggest you enquire as to whether the other Kill-Droid's disintegrator has been used. In the meantime, I must return to the control room, quickly." He looked beseechingly at Shel. "Will you not tell them, sir, that Marshal Haunt gave us such instructions?" Shel looked at the Doctor dumbly for a few moments before recovering himself and nodding slowly.

"There's m... much to be done," he agreed.

"You need a medic," Frog said, rattling Creben's tin with one hand and placing the other gently on Shel's injured arm. He pulled away from her, gripped his wound more tightly. "I'll go with them, Creben," Frog continued, undaunted, "and patch up Shel. You and Joiks get back to Haunt and the others with the good news."

"Two of us for two of them," said Creben, staring at the fallen robot. Joiks snorted.

"That's profound, man." Creben shrugged.

"Simply an observation."

"What you saying, that we drew here today? The squad's down by two but we didn't lose more than they did so that's OK?"

"We're alive. So that's OK. Now do you want to tell Marshal Haunt we took out the droid or should I?" Joiks glared at Creben for a few moments. Then he raised his wrist to his mouth and spoke into it.

"Marshal. Met a droid in the bullring. Hit status terminal, confirmed. No one down…" Polly turned and helped the Doctor along the rough stone of the passageway, with Odie on the other side. Shel and Frog followed on behind. The Doctor's brow was furrowed in fierce concentration as he walked. Not for the first time, Polly wished she knew what he was thinking.


"Welcome back. Finally." Haunt's caustic voice called to them from the dimly lit passageway ahead. The rest of the welcoming committee comprised Joiks, Creben and a very miserable-looking Shade. He had his fingertips pressed to his face like he was trying to give himself a massage. Roba and Tovel greeted their squad, gratefully dropped the droid's gun carriage, and spent a few moments scratching themselves all over. It had to be the fleas, Ben decided. He wondered vaguely if his naval malaria jab would cover him for alien insect bites.

"Where's Polly?" Ben asked, darting a quick look at Earthman Shade. "And Odie? And the Doctor?"

"Back in the control room with Shel and Frog," said Creben, already crouching over the discarded panel and digging a knife of some kind into the cracked glass. It split open noisily, and Creben retrieved a tiny circuit. "The Kill-Droid we came across hadn't fired its disintegrator, but this one..." He tailed off as he scrutinised the circuit.

"Let me guess." Joiks sounded even surlier than usual. "This one didn't either." Creben only nodded.

Like him, no one said a word.


Frog and Shel led the way back to the control room. With the Doctor too absorbed in his own thoughts to make conversation, and Odie still looking a bit pale, Polly set her mind to memorising their path from key parts of the architecture. The golden doors they passed through now she knew led on to the big, tomb-like hallway. The amazing tapestry of glass-fragments hanging down from the cavern roof tinkled softly as it caught some tiny breeze. The weed began to encroach on the ceilings here.

Without its fleshy, glowing leaves, the huge abstract stone figures that guarded the final, narrow corridor would remain unseen, looking blindly on the likes of Polly as she passed. Sure enough, the giant statues soon came into view.

Polly frowned. She hadn't noticed the winged cherubs here, clinging to the great rough heads. Each cherub was the size of a man, but the proportions of the body were those of a pudgy child, with smooth fat arms and swollen stomach. The faces were hard to discern, high up as they were. Polly decided she didn't like the figures; but since little else in this place seemed to be remotely attractive, she wondered if that perhaps was the point.

Everything in the control room was just as they had left it.

Except another Schirr body had vanished from the dais.

"You've got to be kiddin' me," Odie whispered hoarsely. The hairs on the back of Polly's neck rose. She'd known it even without taking in all the detail; a sense that the place was not as they'd left it. It was the one at the end, this time, on the left-hand side. The one so soaked in gore it might've drowned in its own blood.

There was a sickly, decaying smell in the room. The corpse in the chair, Polly realised. The air must be getting to it now. But what was getting to the bodies behind the barrier? Frog swore, dropped the medicine tin and drew her gun. She looked around, uncertain where she should be pointing it. Odie walked to her and gingerly placed her hand on the gun, lowering it.

"There's nothin' to point it at, Frog, so don't bother," she said slowly, looking around the room with a cautious expression.

"No vibration could have caused this." The Doctor announced, nodding to himself as if he had expected this latest development all along. "It's interesting, very interesting. Two of them for two of you."

"Well, if the droids had anything to do with this, then we're OK," Frog said. "They're screwed. They can't do nothing else now."

"Tell me." The Doctor turned to Shel. "These killing machines of yours you brought here to fight. How were they transported?"

"In the hold," Shel answered softly. He staggered over towards the remaining bodies, transfixed. "The droids were a new design, crated up so we wouldn't see. When Haunt gave the signal, they released themselves into the drop zone to take up pre-programmed positions."

"So." The Doctor paused impressively. "You have no way of knowing if something else came aboard your ship with them."

"And left when they did," Polly murmured, "when no one was allowed to see..." No one said anything for a while as the implications sank in.

"Even say that's true," Frog said suddenly. "Sure, they might wanna kill us. But the Schirr are dead already. Why take them?" Polly shuddered.

"They must be dead, mustn't they? Shel, you said they were," she added petulantly. Shel nodded.

"My instruments informed me that was the case." He reached for a gadget in his belt with his good hand and waved it in front of the Schirr bodies. Polly was afraid to watch too closely in case they suddenly pounced on him. He handed the device to the Doctor. "See for yourself." The Doctor took the gadget gingerly, and took a few seconds to familiarise himself with its functions.

"You put a good deal of trust in machines," he observed, before handing it back with a smile. "But I prefer to draw my own conclusions." With that he started to peer at each Schirr in turn, muttering under his breath and occasionally holding a crooked thumb up at arm's length, like an artist gauging a measurement. Frog looked glum. She scratched the patches of stubble that were all that remained of her hair and stared about, her boggle-eyes wider than ever.

"Who wants to tell Haunt about all this?" she warbled.

"Shouldn't we agree on what to tell her first?" Odie asked.

"I should do it," announced Shel distantly. But he didn't, he just stood there, staring at the bodies, swaying. He tottered forwards and leaned heavily on the nearest control panel, not far from the corpse in the chair, as if about to have a conversation with it.

"Uh-oh," said Frog. "I told you, Shel honey, you need a medic." She pulled something from her pocket, the size and shape of a boiled sweet, and then threw it down on the ground behind Shel. There was a crack like a starter's pistol, and Frog leapt back. A translucent rectangular bubble the size of a couch had appeared out of nowhere. Odie stared in surprise.

"Force mattress," Frog explained with a wink at the Doctor. "We all carry them, honey. Never know where you might need to bed down for the night." Polly watched in fascination as Frog helped Shel, unprotesting, to lie back on the bubble. The force mattress moulded itself to his body like it was made from putty. Her patient in place, Frog retrieved the first aid tin and pulled out what looked like an aerosol. Shel plucked it from her hand and applied the spray to his wound himself. Frog shrugged and left him to it. She raised her gun again and started swinging it about, but one look from Odie made her holster it again. It impressed Polly how Odie interacted with others. She and the froggy woman seemed to have crafted a sort of friendship in two seconds. The Doctor gripped his lapels and nodded.

"I feel quite certain we shan't see it here again just yet." They all look at him, confused, but Polly quickly caught on to his meaning.

"You think the Schirr disintegrated like the other one?" Polly asked hopefully. Before the Doctor could respond, Shel groaned loudly. A pale yellow foam now coated his bloodied arm, some sort of space-age bandage Polly supposed. He was pointing with his good arm at something under the control panel beside the dead Schirr in the chair, something only he could see at that angle. Frog gave an excited squawk as she peered under the control panel herself.

"He's right, look at this! Come and see!"

"What?" Polly asked nervously. Something in the woman's voice put Polly in mind of the horrible boys back at school when she was little, who always tricked her into looking at the dead spiders or slugs they were holding, just to hear her scream. But in the end she relented. The sickly stench from the corpse got stronger as she approached, all Parma violets and rotting peaches.

Polly was relieved to find that the fuss was over little more than a box; a small, bronze casket had been fastened to the underside of the console. A couple of wires ran out of it, lending it the appearance of an ornate junction box. An angular symbol had been etched into one side. The Doctor came to join her and stooped to see.

"Fascinating," he said appreciatively. "It is similar to the symbol burnt into Pallemar here." His expression hardened. "Isn't branding a prisoner somewhat barbaric for humans so evidently advanced, hmm?"

"It's done when a prisoner is chipped. Pentagon Central's file on the subject is encoded at the same time into the flesh."

"And this chipping, as you call it, is not punishment enough?" Odie asked curiously. For some reason, Polly thought, she didn't look nearly as disgusted as she should.

"DeCaster and his disciples revived an ancient Schirr religion," Shel explained. "They celebrate the physical form as part of their magic, a kind of cult of the body. They've made themselves physically perfect in their own eyes." Frog giggled.

"So when we got them, we hit them where it hurt." She made a hissing, sizzling sound. With the underlying grate of her voice simulator Polly found the noise truly disgusting.

"The mark translates as 'dissident'," Shel went on. "So we can tell. They... They all look so similar."

"How very enlightened," said the Doctor. "But if you had these criminals in your custody, how did they escape?"

"At the time of Pallemar and DeCaster's incarceration, no one had any idea of their significance in the Schirr uprising. The Ten... Ten-strong was able to free itself with ease. And like all Schirr dissidents, they wear their brands as... as a mark of pride." Shel abruptly switched his focus back to the unit. "It looks like s... some kind of plug-in module."

"A good guess." The Doctor straightened back up with a wince of pain. "Yes, it's a quite recent addition. I would say it was intended to expand the functionality of this console."

"How?" asked Frog succinctly.

"It's most interesting, yes," the Doctor assured them, but wouldn't elaborate further. It hadn't taken Polly long to learn that he could answer the most complicated questions with extraordinary ease – but a simple answer to a simple question was pretty much entirely beyond him. "Speaking of expanding functionality," he went on, "Polly, could you please check the navigational console? I believe the reducing equations I routed into the drive systems should soon be showing results." The Doctor chuckled almost mischievously. "We shan't be ignorant of our final destination for much longer, however much our hosts would wish it."

Polly trotted off to the console against the far wall, eager to put some distance between her and the huge, fleshy bodies. She found herself transfixed by a small display screen. It glowed the prettiest shade of blue that Polly had ever seen.

"Well, child?" called the Doctor a little brusquely. On the screen was a single eight-digit figure. Polly called it over to him. The Doctor stiffened, turned away from them all, back to the bodies on the dais. Polly felt her stomach tie a knot in itself.

"What does it mean?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. The Doctor didn't turn back round. When no answer came, Odie approached the old man, putting hand on his shoulder.

"Doctor?" A pale hand grabbed hers, patting it.

"If Tovel was correct in his placing of our relative spatial position, it seems we are not being steered toward Earth's empire after all." Now he turned to face Polly, and she saw his eyes were agleam, his interest fully engaged. There was even a rueful smile on his face, a chess player acknowledging his being outwitted by a worthy opponent. "It would appear this asteroid is on a direct path leading into the Morphiean quadrant."


Shel wasted no time reporting the situation to Haunt, though he kept the news as vague as possible. Probably to not give anything away to the soldiers with Haunt, until they knew exactly what was going on. Haunt had announced she was coming their way, and that they should just sit tight. Odie took this literally, as she sat with her back against the TARDIS. When Polly noticed tears in her eyes, Polly settled next to her.

"What's wrong?" she asked gently, and Odie smiled through the sudden gloom.

"The TARDIS," she muttered. Polly blinked, confused. Odie turned to her, tilting her head to the side. "I can't feel the hum." With a shock, Polly realised Odie was right. The usual background hum the TARDIS gave off wasn't there. The box was quiet.

"I'm sure it's just the force field getting in the way," Polly said, willing herself not to panic. Odie nodded slowly, as she leant back against the box. They both sat there, in quiet, until Odie began humming. Polly blinked, looking at her through the corner of her eyes. Odie was tapping the ground with her feet and moved her head in tact with the music she could hear in her head.

"... a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way ... had a boogie style that no one else could play ... the top man at his craft, but then his number came up and he was gone with the draft..." Polly smiled, as she realized she knew the song. It was from a movie her father had watched when she was a child. 'Buck Privates', she thought the name was. She nudged Odie gently with her shoulder, and Odie looked at her, still humming. With an encouraging smile from Polly, Odie's mood visibly lifted. "A root, a toot, a toodlie-a-da-toot. He blows it eight to the bar in boogie rhythm. He can't blow a note unless a bass and guitar is playin' with him. And the company jumps when he plays reveille. He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of company B," she sang quietly, and Polly applauded her quietly.

"You sound great," she complimented, and Odie smiled.

"Thanks." They both looked up as Haunt entered the room, and Polly noticed Odie's face settle in a disdainful manner. Polly grabbed her hand, as they both watched her walk to her squad members and the Doctor. Upon finding another missing corpse from the collection in the control room, the marshal's cosy theory of natural disintegration was strained to breaking point; much like her patience with so many events all beyond her control.

The Doctor was talking to Haunt now, quietly but forcefully outlining their recent discoveries and their position as he saw it. Polly could see it well enough herself. They were being toyed with by some unknown power. Body snatchers, taking the living and the dead. She didn't want to think too closely about the possible reasons for that, nor why Morphiea appeared to be the asteroid's destination.

Nor why Shade and Shel, two soldiers who should've been in the peak of physical fitness, now seemed so sick. Shel's pain went beyond his injured arm. He was twitching all over on his invisible bed, like a cloud of the fleas outside had followed him in and were biting like devils. Shade, on the other hand, was lying alarmingly still on the floor a short way from the TARDIS. He had collapsed pretty much the moment he'd entered the room. It seemed Haunt had finally lost her shadow. Frog had burst open another force mattress to make him comfortable, but thescanner thing she'd brought out of the first aid box showed nothing untoward.

Polly decided the Doctor was right not to trust these people's machines. The skin on Shade's face was like sticky red polythene stretched tight over dozens of tiny black limpets. His green eyes flickered open from time to time, looked blankly up at her. She couldn't help staring at the tiny computer sticking out of his pocket. Lindey's computer.

Frog sat beside Shel, her scarred round head in her hands, looking bored. Occasionally Haunt would raise her voice at the Doctor, incredulous or angry, Polly couldn't tell. And Shade's eyes were closed.

"The Spooks have destroyed whole worlds to try and get their stupid secrets back!" Haunt's voice boomed out like gunfire as her patience reached its limit. Odie got to her feet, and Polly followed. She had no doubt Odie was preparing to jump between the old man and the trigger happy marshal, should the need arise. "Why would they want to drag a tiny rock with ten soldiers in training to the heart of their empire?" The Doctor gave as good as he got.

"I am simply postulating, madam, as to why we should be going to Morphiea if not at the Morphieans' behest!" he thundered. She didn't answer back straight away, so the Doctor pressed home his advantage ."If the Schirr were to be captured by Morphiea it would mean certain death." He gestured sadly to the bodies behind their invisible barrier. "Perhaps they saw what was coming, and arranged for their own destruction." Haunt nodded, suddenly subdued.

"It's possible," was all she would concede. "How long till we arrive?"

"There's no way of telling," the Doctor announced, shaking his head. "Now, tell me. How did the Morphieans make you aware that they were responsible for the atrocities they committed?"

"They made..." Haunt's lip curled scornfully, and Polly noticed one hand was clutched to her side. "They made what our poor little frightened scientists called 'constructs'. Fleshy things, animated somehow. Don't ask me to explain. The constructs were projected direct to Senate. They gloated, threatened us... The Spooks don't care how many of us they kill. We're just animals to them." The Doctor looked at her steadily, ignoring her mounting anger.

"They don't have bodies as we do?"

"Flesh is just a tool for their magic."

"So, the Morphieans have a mind force of some kind." The Doctor chuckled suddenly, and turned to Frog. "I was considering the old, old links between the Schirr and the Morphieans you mentioned. One born, perhaps, from cult of the body on one side, and an elevation of the mind on the other." Frog looked less than impressed with the Doctor's theory. Shel, still convulsing silently with his lips bared back over his teeth, almost seemed to be laughing.

"How would that ever bring them together?" wondered Polly.

"Each extreme still needs the other," said the Doctor. "Now. So far we only have part of the puzzle. For the bodies to have vanished from this platform, the protective force field must've been breached somehow."

"By the minds of the Morphieans?" Odie asked, tilting her head.

"Perhaps," the Doctor agreed genially, "but I'd rather like to try myself." He crouched down with some difficulty to study the newly discovered junction box beneath the corpse's console. "Yes, this perhaps could be what I'm after..." Haunt looked on, rubbing her side more aggressively now. Maybe the insects had bitten her too. Remembering the pale, squashy fleas put Polly back in mind of her own discomfort. She gritted her teeth and resolved not to scratch. As the Doctor cautiously tinkered with the junction box, Shel suddenly stirred from his feverish shaking.

"No," he said faintly, then again more forcefully. "No, stay away from that." The Doctor looked up in surprise.

"Young man, I assure you I am perfectly qualified to -"

"Away." Shel got unsteadily to his feet. His eyes were narrow slits, his breath pushing out in sharp puffs. He was aiming a pistol at the Doctor. Polly opened her mouth, but couldn't decide if she should beg him to put down the gun or just scream. Odie had taken a step forward, her entire body tensed to the brink. Haunt was looking apoplectic.

"Shel, what the hell are you doing?"

"It's him." Frog held herself still as a statue, just a few feet away from the gun in Shel's shaking hand "He picked this place for us... he killed Denni and Lindey."

"That's impossible," Haunt snapped. "Put the gun down, Shel."

"It must be him!" gurgled Frog. Shel said nothing. It seemed to be taking all his concentration to keep the gun pointed at the Doctor, crouched before the junction box. The Doctor gazed fearlessly back at him.

"What is the meaning of this, Shel? Answer me!"

"Put the gun down, Shel," Haunt ordered, her voice rising. Shel convulsed, his face twisted in pain. There was the sound of a gun firing, and Polly gave a short, high yell as Odie sprang forward. But the Doctor was unharmed. Haunt bellowed with rage.

"No!"

Frog was clutching her own pistol. She'd shot the gun from Shel's hand. His mouth flapped open and closed now as he stared down at the bloody stumps of his fingers. Frog stared too, apparently fascinated. Polly looked away, sickened. Haunt leaped forward and held Shel in a necklock, as Odie arrived at the Doctor's side, crouching by his side, to make sure he was all right. The Doctor ignored her fumbling fingers searching his face and shoulders. Polly was surprised.

Had it been her or Ben who'd been like that, the Doctor would've pushed them away with an insulted look on his face.

"Be careful with him," the Doctor advised Haunt.

"Look!" Frog moaned. "His arm." Polly looked automatically, and her hand flew to her mouth. Metal points stuck through Shel's gory finger-stumps. The skin hung away from a hole in the wrist, too, and Polly saw gleaming silver shafts and coloured wires.

"He's got an artificial arm," Haunt said, transfixed.

"Away," Shel croaked. "Away." His cheek twitched faster and faster until a tiny metal coil burst through the skin, flecking his face with bright blood.

"It's not just his arm," Polly whispered. "It's all of him. He's a robot too." Shel's face twisted with anger. Polly bit her lip as he pulled Haunt's arm from his neck and shoved her backwards with inhuman strength. She rolled over and over across the floor.

"We've been set up! Shel's gonna kill all of us!" Frog brought up her gun and fired again. A spark leapt from Shel's chest. He swayed, then bashed the gun out of her grasp. Frog overbalanced and knocked against the Doctor, who gasped as he tried to stop her falling. He staggered back against the body in the chair, which skittered away on its castors. Odie followed, helping them up from the ground, while keeping an eye on their assailant.

Shel swung round to face Polly.

"Don't hurt us," she pleaded. His eyes were unfocussed, glassy – or perhaps just glass.

"Leave Polly alone," the Doctor commanded. "Whatever your purpose here, this girl has done you no harm." Shel ignored him. He raised his rifle with his good hand. Polly backed away closer to Shade, who lay still and oblivious. Haunt was back on her feet. Her own rifle was aimed at Shel's twitching head.

"Put down the gun." Shel lowered the rifle without bothering to turn round. "If you want to live, start talking." Haunt took a step closer. "Who sent you?" Another step. "Who pushed you on to me?' Polly wasn't sure if Shel's mouth was opening with any intent to speak, or if whatever machinery controlled his lips was giving out like the rest of him. The Doctor slowly advanced on him, his arms raised.

"Why are you really here, Shel?"

"Doctor," Odie called, a worried look on her face. She obviously didn't like the Doctor approaching Shel, for any reason.

"He's here to kill all of us," Frog whined. "Whatever's going on, he's planned it all." The Doctor looked at Shel more sternly, and swept an arm at the dais behind the console.

"Did you arrange all this, sir?" Shel swung the rifle up and fired. The Doctor reeled back instinctively. Polly screamed as a bolt of light shot into the console beside him. At the same time Haunt opened fire on Shel, who staggered under the impact. He turned and ran for the exit, firing the rifle behind him apparently at random. A blast scorched past Polly's shoulder before she could even react. Then something grabbed hold of her leg, and pulled. Mid-scream, she went down, as another blast shot overhead.

Shade relaxed his grip on her calf. She almost wept with relief that nothing more sinister had got a hold of her, and wriggled over on her front to shelter beside his force mattress.

"Frog, after him," Haunt bellowed. Polly decided it must be at least a little safer to get up now. She squeezed Shade's hand to say thank you and cautiously rose to her feet. She glimpsed Frog as she sprinted through the doorway. Haunt had already vanished. The Doctor stood by the shattered console with Odie close at his side, inspecting the blackened hole carved out by Shel's wild shot.

"That could've been you," Polly said shakily.

"Yes, I dare say it could," murmured the Doctor. "We must find out why. Shel's badly damaged, he shouldn't get far." He tutted. "Just look at this vandalism! Odie, dear, would you check our new discovery beneath the console is undamaged, hmm?" He rubbed his back meaningfully. Polly felt a little uneasy at the way the Doctor could seemingly forget all the violence they'd just lived through to concentrate on a bit of broken technology, but was not surprised when Odie did as she was asked.

"No good, Doctor. Shel's blast got it good," she observed, crawling back out from under the console.

"He's managed to fuse the controls." The Doctor grimaced. "Dear, dear. And just as I was about to deactivate the force shield and study those bodies!" Polly looked at him doubtfully.

"That was probably the point, wasn't it?" Stamping feet made Polly turn. Haunt had re-entered the room. From the look on her face, Shel had got away.

"Where's Frog?" Odie asked, a worried look on her face.

"Outside, guarding the corridor," she said. "We couldn't catch him. He moved too fast, even wounded like -" She caught herself. "Even damaged like that." Polly wondered how long Haunt had known Shel, how many secrets she'd trusted to him. She shook her head, walked over to the Doctor.

"He was a most convincing human being," the Doctor murmured. Haunt snorted bitterly, as if suddenly recognising there had been something blindingly obvious about Shel's deception all along.

"You realise that only someone at the highest level in Pent Central would have access to the kind of technology needed to make a thing like that," she said quietly. "Frog's right. They assigned him to my unit so he could lead us into this trap. We have to find him. Find out what he's been planning, and why." She raised her wrist to her lips. "I'll alert the others to be ready for him." She began by calling Creben.

Nothing but reedy static greeted her in response.

"Tovel? Joiks? Roba?" Polly felt a chill shiver down her. If anything, the shushing of the static was growing louder, angrier. Haunt swore. "Right. I'll just have to tell them in person."

"You're leaving us here?" Polly asked. Haunt paused briefly in the doorway.

"Watch the bodies. Watch Shade." That said, she turned and left. Polly waited until she was sure the woman had gone, then ran over to the TARDIS. The door wouldn't budge. She let out a heavy sigh of disappointment.

"If you'd shut down their invisible barrier thing, we might've been able to get back into the TARDIS."

"Yes, quite so," the Doctor agreed. "I do wish I knew what sort of a stasis field is operating here. Until I do, and can find a way to counteract it, I'm afraid none of us are really safe."

"Safe," Polly said numbly. The word seemed to have lost its meaning. She leaned back against the police box's stubborn doors and stared up. The endless fragments of glass set into the high ceiling sparkled reflected light at her eyes, and she closed them wearily. "I do hope Ben's all right." Odie smiled slightly, walking to Polly.

"I'm sure he's fine, Polly," she promised, and Polly looked up at her. Watching the blind faith in Odie's eyes, her blind faith in the Doctor, God, fate or whatever convinced her everything would be fine, Polly felt a warmth in her own heart.

"Yes... Yes, I'm sure he is." They both jumped in surprise as Shade cried out suddenly. She found it hard to believe such a high-pitched, childish sound could come from a man so big. 'Watch Shade,' Haunt had told them. Polly thought back to her earlier suspicions. They seemed somehow foolish now. Shel was the bad guy, not Shade. Hadn't Shade saved her life when the guns were firing, dragging her to the floor? As she walked back over to the Doctor, her cheeks prickled. She realised she was blushing.

"Are you all right, my child?" the Doctor asked, glancing up at her. Caught off guard, Polly gave her cheeks a token scratch and shrugged.

"My, er, skin. It feels sore, itchy. Like sunburn." She smiled ruefully. "Only I could get a sunburn in the middle of an underground cavern." The Doctor could only be half-listening, because he seemed to take her perfectly seriously.

"It isn't the sunburn that causes the itching," he said. "That is caused by the skin healing itself." Polly politely mulled over this nugget of information until Shade shouted out again. Odie was crouched next to him, talking calmly to him. She was caressing his hair, with tears running down her own cheeks. Polly only had to come a little closer to realize what was wrong.

His skin had become a sticky black mess. Fresh blood dribbled steadily down into his ears, teeth and hair. His teeth were clenched, every muscle she could see was bunched up with tension, and his body shook as if racked with silent sobs. It looked like his face was tearing apart, she realized in horror, as she scratched the back of her itching neck.


After all the endless trudging through the dank tunnels, stooped and squashed and single-file, Ben was pleasantly surprised when Roba led him, Joiks and Tovel into some kind of vast vaulted chamber, roughly pentagonal in shape.

The luminous weed hung down in thick strands, danced around by the usual attendant fleas. There were even piles of it on the floor. In the far wall was another tunnel, as dark and uninviting as all the others. There had been several narrow channels leading off from the main passage on their journey, but they'd decided to stick to the A-roads first. If they had to double back up a B-road and scarper at any point, Ben wanted to know what they'd be running into.

So for now it was the five towering stone pillars dominating the room that grabbed Ben's attention. They were arranged in the same pattern as the dots on a dice or a domino. At the top of the two columns nearest Ben, there rested duplicate pairs of oversized stone babies with angel wings. They looked like they'd scoffed a few rusks too many. Nothing crowned the pillar in the centre, nor the one behind it to the left. But the final column supported four of the ugly statues, crowded together with their backs to any onlookers, like they were up to something. The overall effect of the design left Ben feeling strangely uncomfortable. There was no logic to it. Modern art, he supposed.

It seemed the others agreed.

"This is different," said Joiks, without much enthusiasm.

"This stinks," Roba said more succinctly, and Tovel nodded. Creben stayed quiet, just walked about and shone his torch diligently into the five corners of the chamber.

"Nothing," he announced. Then he stopped dead, staring over Ben's shoulder. Ben spun round in alarm, but while his eyes scanned the wall behind the hanging glass tapestry, he could see nothing untoward.

"Look," Creben urged the others.

It finally hit Ben.

"The tunnel," he breathed. "It's gone!" Roba folded his arms, with the air of someone not about to fall for a joke.

"How can a tunnel go anywhere?" Ben walked up to the wall. It looked solid, and when he kicked it, he knew for sure.

"Search me, mate. But it ain't where we came through."

"We must've come through that one," Roba said, pointing to the tunnel they could all see. "We just lost our bearings."

"Uh-huh. Thanks for that, Roba," said Tovel dryly.

"It was here," Joiks murmured. Creben nodded.

"It must be some kind of secret passageway, one that can't be detected from this side of the wall. These doorways could be littered all over the place."

"Great," said Ben sourly. "So our little search won't be over till we've accidentally gone through every one of them." Creben shook his head.

"I imagine we'll have reached our destination long before then."

"Always there with a cheery thought, ain't you."

"We'll just have to look harder in the places we can see," said Tovel decisively. "Starting here." Even as Tovel spoke, Ben noticed with a jolt some dark fleeting movement on the pillar behind him.

"What's that?" Tovel protested mildly as Ben shoved him aside. A thin black trail had appeared on the pillar. It stretched vertically down from top to bottom, where it resolved itself into a sticky liquid pooling round his boots. "Blood out of a stone," he murmured nervously, while Tovel just swore in disbelief.

"Where's it coming from?" Creben demanded, unholstering his gun. The others followed suit.

"Up there," said Tovel. Ben took a few steps back and several shaky breaths. Whatever was at the top of the column, spilling blood, it was obscured by the huddle of statues crouched over it.

"If we want to see what's bleeding," Ben said grimly, "we're gonna have to climb for it." Joiks laughed briefly.

"You're crazy."

"You volunteering?" Roba said expectantly as he knitted his huge fingers together into a makeshift stirrup. Ben looked round anxiously.

"Well..."

"We've got to know what's there, after all," Creben said mildly.

"He's right," said Tovel with the faintest of smiles. "Reckon you can make it?" So, it was time to earn his place with the boys again. Fair enough. The column was broad, but there were occasional chips and ridges that could give him footholds.

He put his right foot in Roba's hands and the giant propelled him upwards. The trail of blood smeared against his body as he wrapped his arms round the pillar, holding on tight while he kicked about for a footing. He heard whistles and claps, shouts of encouragement, urging him on. His breath pushed out in ragged gasps through clenched teeth, his heart was racing, but slowly he was scaling the column.

The rough stone scuffed and stung his palms as he searched for cracks and ledges he could use to help lever himself further up. His feet caught in crevices, and some were pronounced enough to take his weight. He was going to make it. Then he tried to imagine what grisly scene was waiting for him at the top, and felt less elated. Far below, the lads still shouted their encouragement. The sounds echoed strangely up here, were almost lost under the rustling of the vegetation, thick with fleas, and the ghostly clinking of the glass tapestry. As he climbed the final few feet, the shadowy statues at the top loomed above Ben. He saw their wings, their smooth stone backs lit with a gentle radiance.

"I made it!" he shouted.

One of the statues twisted round to look down at him.

Ben's pounding heart nearly stopped dead. He wanted to shout out, but the sound died in his throat. The statue's stone eyes were wide and innocent. Its thick lips were smiling at him benignly. A scrap of wet, dark material tell from its huge bloody hands, flapping like a bat past Ben's face.

In the thick shadows at the statue's feet he thought he glimpsed a human hand, slender fingers twisted and outstretched.

The smiling stone angel reached for his neck.

Ben slid painfully down the column as fast as he could go, resisting the instinct to abandon it altogether and take his chances with the fall. He caught crazy corkscrew glimpses of the angel as he spiralled downwards, the pitted rock clawing at his arms and legs. Around him, bolts of energy shot up into the ceiling, pounded into the pillar, caught the statue full in the face. Slowly, the other enormous cherubs reacted to the onslaught. Heads cocked to one side. Arms reached slowly out towards the soldiers. Stone wings began to flap, and the air twittered with movement.

Lazily, the smiling statues launched themselves into the air and drifted down after him, like falling leaves.

Ben leaped down the last ten feet, fell awkwardly. Roba stopped firing long enough to scoop him up and push him towards the mouth of the tunnel.

"Out!" yelled Tovel. The soldiers scattered as the angels drifted after them, pushing through the air like swimmers through water. The air seemed alive with the soft, rhythmic sound of their wings beating. Ben pelted for the opening in the rock. He was almost there when a bolt of searing brightness shot from out of the darkness. It nearly took his face off. Finding himself under attack again, Ben threw himself instinctively to the ground and landed in a pile of fallen fleaweed.

"There's something in the tunnel!" he yelled, his voice cracking in panic, the pale fleas dancing about him, crawling and jumping over his face. He crawled away, spat them out, saw the grey angels as they floated ever nearer. Two more yellow bolts whizzed into the room. Then Ben heard a familiar voice, and realised he'd almost been killed by the cavalry.

"What are they?" Haunt was standing in the mouth of the tunnel, brandishing her rifle, looking on appalled.

"They were statues before," Roba said, backing away until he stood beside her. "Just statues." Haunt's voice was barely audible.

"Constructs. Morphiean constructs."

"There's a girl's body up there," Ben said, the words tumbling off his tongue. "I dunno whose, I only saw the shadow. God knows what they'd done to her."

The angels bobbed closer in utter silence. Their smiles were compassionate. Their fingers dripped blood.

"Come on." Joiks led the way out of the chamber, and Tovel and Roba pushed through after him. Haunt stared at the creatures, revulsion on her face, clutching her stomach like she was going to be sick.

"Angels," she said. She seemed transfixed by the drifting statues. The nearest of them was almost close enough to touch.

"What are you waiting for?" Ben almost screamed. He grabbed Haunt by the arm and dragged her out of the room after him, without looking back.


Shade roared with pain as Odie pressed a sort of surgical wipe to his face. Polly was helping her now, thank the heavens, as she held the medikit open in her lap.

"You'll feel better soon, I promise," Odie muttered, but she wasn't sure she believed herself. She had no idea what was wrong with him. It was like a horror story out of the Bible. She used one hand to quickly make the cross in front of her.

It was far worse than the blood. Blood she could handle. God only knew she'd seen enough of it, both at home and on her travels in the TARDIS. But Shade's current condition was beyond anything she'd even seen before. His entire face was an open wound. His blood was bright red, watered down with a sticky clear fluid. As fast as the two girls could mop it up, it kept squeezing back out.

Odie wasn't sure how much blood was in a human body, but she was certain Shade's amount of loss had far outgone it by now. Polly was in shock. Odie would have imagined she'd be a sobbing mess at this point, but she just sat there, her face paralyzed in a helpless state.

"Pain... kill..." Shade croaked. For a second, Odie thought he asked her to kill him. Evidently, Polly did as well.

"No," the blonde girl told him. "No, you'll be fine."

"Killer," Shade said more desperately. Odie caught on to what he meant in a heartbeat. Shade didn't seem the type coward enough to kill himself to avoid the pain. Then again, she didn't know how much pain he was in right now.

"What does it look like?" she asked feverishly. She couldn't tell one doodad from the other thingy in that damned medikit.

"Big hypo." Polly understood and scrabbled through the medikit until she found something that fitted the description: a sort of metal syringe with odd ends attached. Odie had no idea what to do with the thing.

"Doctor!" she called, feeling hysteria press her voice into a soprano. The Doctor was promptly at her side.

"How is he?" he asked, and Odie widened her eyes and shook her head in disbelief. He had to ask? She was surprised Shade's roars hadn't triggered another rockfall. Polly looked up.

"Terrible," she replied sadly.

"Doctor, how do you- It's a painkiller of some sort," Odie said helplessly, as she gestured to the hypo in Polly's hand. The Brit handed it to the Doctor, who studied it for a moment curiously. Then he twisted a dial and jabbed a wide nozzle into Shade's neck. The soldier yelled again, louder than ever, then started to convulse. Odie threw her upper body onto Shade, attempting to hold him down.

A few moments later, Shade relaxed and he lay back, eyes closed, his breathing swift and shallow. The Doctor looked down at Shade and tutted to himself, as Odie sat back up again.

"Remarkable," he murmured. "His body seems to be rejecting the dead tissue in his face, forcing it out through his skin."

"Is he going to die?" Polly whispered. Odie looked down at Shade, making sure he was passed out or asleep. She didn't want to worry him.

"I don't think so, my child," the Doctor said thoughtfully. "No, I don't think so. But his body is reacting to some kind of stimulus..." His eyes narrowed. "A force of some kind. A force that we have not yet identified, and yet may be all around us."

"Is that why Shel got sick too?" Odie asked.

"It could well be, yes."

"But if he set all this up... How come he didn't make himself immune to this... whatever-it-is?" Polly asked, as she glanced over at the Schirr bodies. Odie did the same. Had they been immune? Had they killed each other in some terrible madness? And Polly had to ask the one question Odie didn't want answered: "Will the rest of us get sick?"

"I'm afraid I cannot tell," the Doctor confessed. The three of them sighed together, which brought faint smiles to their faces. They spent a few moments silently with their thoughts. Gradually, Shade's breathing began to ease. "The worst of the pain is over for this young man," the Doctor announced. "He'll need rest, but he should recover."

"In time for what," breathed Polly.

"Now, if you don't mind watching over him alone, my dear, I should like Odie's help to..." His voice trailed off. Something was wrong. As if in slow motion, the girls turned to see. Odie's eyes widened.

The corpse in the chair had vanished.

So had yet another body from the platform.

"DeCaster," muttered the Doctor. "Their leader."

"How the hell..?" asked Odie, now officially scared beyond her wits. "The stasis field is jammed on. The console and the junction box are ruined!" The Doctor seemed not to hear her.

"He is at large again, it would seem." Polly grabbed the Doctor's sleeve, just as scared as Odie.

"But how? We never left! We only turned our backs on them for a few moments!"

"The one in the chair," blustered the Doctor. "DeCaster's most trusted disciple. Shel called him Pallemar..."

"He can't have been dead," Polly said in a small voice.

"But he was. He was dead." The Doctor sounded furious, like a cheated child. "I examined the corpse myself. Death has its own posture and appearance..." He shook his head, as anger gave way to bewilderment. Odie was terrified. Her world-view, a healthy mix of religion and science thanks to the Doctor, was clear; walking dead was not a good thing. Especially not wanted criminal-dead.

"Six of them left, now," the Doctor mused, a little more calmly. "Only six. But how? How did they do it?"

"I would prefer it if you found out quickly, Doctor," Odie begged in whimper.


Haunt pulled her arm savagely from Ben's grip as they ran together down the tunnel. One of the stone figures floated out of the gloomy chamber and into the darkness of the tunnel, trailing after them like a balloon gusted on the wind. Haunt accelerated, beat him to the junction where Tovel, Roba, Creben and Joiks were anxiously waiting with Frog, ready to go. Haunt must've put her on sentry duty here while she went on ahead.

"It's Shel," Joiks shouted as they approached. "Frog says it's Shel!"

"Get moving!" Haunt bellowed, eyes flashing. "Go!" Her moment of hesitation back in the chamber had passed. She was back in charge, all right. They raced down endless tunnels, lit only by the juddering beams of the soldiers' torches. Every shifting shadow seemed to conceal something more sinister, ghostly hands reaching out to tear at them as they passed.

Ben picked up the pace, imagining the gory stone fingers of one of the statues reaching up behind him, groping for his throat. At last they approached the great metal doors that led to the centre of the complex. Once the threshold was crossed they came to a panting halt, too breathless to speak, making do with mute and frightened eye contact. Ben saw Roba had clamped one giant's hand around his forearm. There was a tear in his sleeve.

"You all right?" he puffed. Roba nodded fiercely, but there was a look in his eyes that suggested he was less certain.

"Cut myself getting out," he muttered. "It's OK." The crowd set off again. Ben gritted his teeth, prepared to make after them, but his legs were cramping up. He felt like one of those marathon runners, he needed someone to run up to him with a cup of weak orange and a big blanket. What he got was Frog, who turned away from the pack, and came back to help him along. She slipped an arm round his waist.

His shoulder pressed against her chest. He felt her breath on his face, surprisingly sweet. Her big bulging eyes met his uncertain gaze for a fraction of a second. Then she looked away, half-carried him along the shadowy path.


Polly's heart leapt as Haunt sprinted back into the control room. She held her side as if she had a stitch. Polly frowned. It only seemed like a few minutes since she had left.

"Back so soon," the Doctor observed, as if picking up on Polly's thoughts. He gestured to the empty chair and to the latest empty space on the dais. "But I'm afraid not soon enough." Haunt stared at the bodies. Her face slowly screwed up as if the absences were causing her physical pain.

"DeCaster... Pallemar..." She seemed utterly dumbfounded. "Both gone? What happened?" The Doctor looked troubled.

"We turned away for a few moments only. When we looked back..." More footsteps heralded the arrival of the rest of the soldiers. Polly looked anxiously as first Creben, then Joiks and Tovel, and finally Roba entered through the glowing pentagonal doorway.

"Where's Ben?" she called, her voice higher than she'd intended. Right on cue, he entered. Half-carried, half-dragged along by Frog. Polly watched sceptically as the ugly little woman helped him over to one of the consoles. He clutched hold of it, smiled his thanks at her. As the others gathered round the depleted platform of corpses in sullen disbelief, Polly ran over to see Ben. He saw her coming, and made an effort to stand unaided.

"All right, Pol?"

"I'm so glad to see you." She smiled at Frog. "Thank you for helping him." Perhaps her smile had come out a little tighter than she'd planned. Frog shrugged.

"All yours now, honey," she muttered. "Enjoy." Then she walked away to join the Doctor and the others as they exchanged updates and information. Odie greeted her with a shaky smile, and Polly noticed Frog patting Odie's shoulder. Anyone would notice Odie didn't look good. Polly half-listened as she waited for Ben to catch his breath; caught occasional words: "Shade". "Sick". "Cyborg". "Chase". "Blood".

She was grateful for the chance to have a more personal catch-up with Ben. She told him about Shel going mad, and about Shade, who was sleeping peacefully now. Ben blew air out of his cheeks, not sure what to make of it all.

"What happened to you?" Polly asked in turn. Ben shuddered, leaned back against the console.

"Statues. Dirty great flying things. Came for us, didn't they." Polly felt a tingle run down her spine.

"Flying statues?"

"I swear to you. And they had a body up on their pedestal." He shook his head. "Denni or Lindey, I'm not sure which." Polly felt her mouth go dry.

"But, Ben, there are statues of the cherubim right outside!" Ben stared at her.

"I didn't see anything... I mean, I wasn't looking, but I don't reckon..." He stood back up again, felt nervous energy twitching at his muscles. "Marshal Haunt! Polly says there were more of those things earlier, perched right outside!" Haunt's head snapped round to face them. Polly prepared to defend her opinion, but the Marshal simply nodded.

"Frog. Joiks. Check it out. Creben, Roba, I want a barricade up outside. See what you can safely rip out of this place." Polly was more than a little surprised at this quick acceptance, and she saw Odie sent her a shaky smile. She'd noticed it too.

"Not a lot." Creben glanced around at the banks of equipment dotted about, and the ornamental trellises railing in the ducting round the walls, out of reach. "The console housings, maybe."

"We don't know what this stuff does," Roba grumbled. "What if we disconnect life support or something?" Creben smiled wanly.

"We put it back together. Quickly."

"You're funny," Haunt told him. "Now get on with it. This is going to be our base, and we're going to make it as secure as it can be. Tovel - see to Shade. Sounds like his face needs stitches."

"He's asleep," Polly called over. Tovel smiled ruefully, tapped the medical kit.

"Not for much longer." The soldiers moved to obey, without further question. Polly and Ben nervously joined the Doctor, Odie and Haunt.

"I wonder," the Doctor mused aloud. "What intelligence is co-ordinating this affair, and to what end?" He nodded, pursed his lips. "Yes. Yes, that is what we must ask ourselves."

"It's madness," Haunt muttered. "A madman's scheme."

"I can't believe Shel was a..." Ben trailed off. "What was he?"

"A cyborg." Haunt's voice was hollow. "They're only used for intelligence work. Programmed never to give themselves away." She looked pained, pale. "I never knew what he was. My last adjutant was reassigned six months ago, and in all that time I never knew..."

"No one could have guessed his true nature," said the Doctor. "But now that we do know, we must decide how it affects our judgement of the situation." Polly remembered now what the Doctor had been talking about earlier.

"Until both DeCaster and Pallemar vanished," she pointed out, "there was one Schirr missing for each person missing." The Doctor steepled his fingers together.

"Quite so. And the Morphiean sciences - as practised by these Schirr also, let us not forget - place the emphasis on the body."

"What're you saying, Doctor?" Ben asked uncertainly.

"It's a known thing, isn't it?" Odie asked, trying to focus. Polly saw the thoughtful creasing on her forehead, as she attempted to put her wits back together. "It's in a lot of religion, and such. To give life back you have to take a life?" Ben shrugged.

"Figures. Ten Schirr for ten soldiers."

"Before we came along," Polly pointed out. "But in any case, there's eleven of us now - if you can even count Shel since he's a robot – and six of them. How does that work?"

"And even with the stasis field jammed in place thanks to Shel's handiwork," said the Doctor, "the corpses seem able to come and go as they please." He considered the problem, his eyes darting from side to side. "Then there's the sickness. Again, affecting the body. Severely so in the cases of Shel and Shade. I imagine the interface between Shel's flesh and circuitry has begun to break down as the effect increases."

"Making him crazy?" Polly asked.

"Presumably, having brought you all here and set events in motion, his task is complete..." The Doctor swung round to Polly. "My dear, do you still itch all over?"

"Well, yes," Polly said worriedly. "But I feel fine in myself." She considered. "I feel better than fine."

"Me too." Ben chipped in, scratching his arms. "I feel like I could go on forever." Haunt's eyes were red-rimmed, her face shiny with sweat.

"You think our own bodies are being affected by something on board?" The Doctor agreed with her genially, as he might if someone had offered him a sweet sherry.

"Yes, I'm afraid it's possible." He turned to Odie. "What about you?" Polly could tell Odie was confused. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen Odie scratch herself even once during the time they'd been there.

"I don't feel anything unusual. And certainly not an itch," she answered. Polly jumped as Roba leaned in over her shoulder. He looked furious, sweating profusely.

"Who gave you all the answers anyway, old man?"

"No one gives me answers, sir," the Doctor retorted. "I seek them out for myself, as anyone can."

"Great, OK - so what's gonna happen to us?" Roba was fidgeting, uncomfortable. "Seeing as our bodies are being affected."

"I don't know yet." He half-smiled at Roba. "But the truth will come in time, I have no doubt."

"Think you're so smart," Roba hissed. "But we still don't know a thing about you."

"No, indeed, you do not." The Doctor seemed almost amused by this comment. There was a long tear in the sleeve of Roba's combat suit, and Polly could see a bandage beneath it. He'd been hurt. Maybe that was why he was acting like a bear with a sore head. Ben scowled at the huge man.

"Ain't you got a barricade to build, Roba?" Polly looked to Haunt to break this up before it got any nastier. But the marshal's eyes were shut, her lips pressed together. She looked fit to drop.

"Haunt?" Odie asked, approaching the woman. And just as did, the marshal really did drop. Her head smacked into the solid stone floor. Her eyes snapped open, unseeing, and a trickle of blood stained her lip as she bit her tongue. It wasn't enough to stifle her low moan of pain.

Polly turned to Roba, expecting him to lift his fallen marshal. But he just stood there and stared at Haunt in hurt disbelief. Like a child learning there's no Father Christmas, no such person as Superman.

"Dear, dear," fussed the Doctor. "We must help her, quickly."

"Shel's force mattress," Odie said, surprisingly calm. She crouched down, lifting the marshal halfway up by the arms. "Someone help me get her there." Tovel rushed over from Shade's side with the medical kit. Creben came over to join Roba, staring on in astonished silence as Odie and Ben lifted Haunt over to the force mattress. Polly could see the muscles in the woman's arms and shoulders twitch and clench despite the battlesuit she wore.

"Take more than instant sutures to fix this," Tovel breathed.

"What do you think's wrong with her?" she heard Creben ask behind her.

"A physical malaise of the most extraordinary kind," was the Doctor's utterly unhelpful diagnosis. As Ben tried to straighten out Haunt's sweaty form on the mattress, she gave a rattling gasp of pain. He snatched his hand away.

"What is it?" Odie asked.

"Not sure," Ben said. "A big lump or something, above her hip."

"She was holding her side before," Polly remembered. Tovel took a scalpel from the kit and cut with difficulty through the damp fabric of Haunt's combat suit. The pale skin beneath was dominated by a huge red swelling, like a mosquito bite gone septic.

"What we gonna do?" Roba whispered hoarsely to himself over and over. He stared down at Haunt, fearfully. "What we gonna do?"

"Is something inside that thing?" Ben wondered. The Doctor had by now arrived to investigate, shooing them out of his way as he peered closely at the swelling through Victorian-looking pince-nez.

"I don't think so. It is more likely to be an abnormal growth of some kind."

"A tumour?" Creben didn't sound convinced. "She'd never be on active service with -" The Doctor interrupted him, removing the pince-nez.

"I imagine it has never been detected before. This effect I've been speaking of, it must drive out impurities in the flesh."

"You mean like attempting to drive the shrapnel out of Shade's face?" Odie asked, and the Doctor nodded slightly. Polly glanced at Tovel.

"How is he?"

"Better than he should be," Tovel muttered. "Those sutures sting like nothing else, but he didn't even stir." Ben, predictably, seemed less interested in Shade's welfare, still grappling with the Doctor's explanation.

"You mean this tumour or whatever is just being..." Ben groped for the right words. "Pushed out of her?" The Doctor nodded.

"It's remarkable, quite remarkable."

"I'll do what I can for her," said Tovel, rummaging in the medical kit. "Jesus, what the hell is happening to us?" Roba turned, pushed roughly past him. He got back to building his barriers.


Odie heard the sobs ahead of the stumbling footsteps. Creben and Roba both stood up, drew their guns, barely sheltered behind the flimsy barricade they had erected. She tensed as Frog was marched into view by Joiks. One hand was twisted behind her, tight in the big man's grip, and the other clutched at her gaping suit. Joiks shouted over the alarmed babble that started up at their entrance.

"She's changing!" Everyone fell quiet. Odie looked at the Doctor by her side. He was watching closely, his beady eyes narrowed. Ben rose to his feet, glanced uncertainly at Polly.

"Changing?" Creben questioned.

"Her skin. Big patch of it ain't even human." Joiks looked wildly into Creben's eyes, into Roba's. "Looks like Schirr skin."

"Schirr?" Roba's eyes widened.

Frog shook her head mutely, fiercely. Then she hung it.

Joiks tried to force Frog through a gap in the barricade ahead of them. Her thigh caught against a sheet of metal from the back of a console. The clanging it made as it fell woke Haunt from her feverish sleep. She stared round, bewildered. Tovel rested a hand on her shoulder to try to calm her. Odie's face twisted in a sneer.

"What's your game, Joiks?" Ben shouted. "You're hurting her!"

"Am I?" Joiks sneered. "She's changing. How long before she tries to hurt us?"

"Get off 'er, you jerk," Odie ordered, as she jumped forward. Polly knew what was coming before anyone else. She'd seen her do this in Alexandria. Landing on one foot, Odie pivoted and smacked one foot against the side of Joiks' face. He was sent clamouring into the barricade, as Frog fell forwards. Odie grabbed her, but there was a visible difference in how she grabbed her, and how Joiks had.

She quickly pushed Frog behind her, protecting her from Joiks who had gotten up and brandished his rifle at Odie.

"You little bi-"

"Stop right there, young man." The Doctor's voice was loud and booming. Everyone stopped whatever they were doing in response. The Doctor came forward, stopping next to Odie. "I will not have you speak to a woman like that." Odie turned around as Joiks lowered his rifle, still with an angry face, and she looked at Frog. She was in shock, her beady eyes rolling round in their sockets.

"Frog?" she asked. No reaction. "Frog!" With a little startle, Frog's eyes zeroed in on Odie, who was smiling at her. "Let me see," she asked. The other soldiers gathered in a group behind her, as Frog looked around the room. Anywhere else than Odie's face. "Please," Odie continued, taking hold of Frog's shoulders. "I want to help."

"Help her?" Joiks echoed, having regained his valour after the Doctor's thunderous echo dimmed. His face was pearled with sweat as he clung grimly on to her. "Look at her! Look!"

"Would you shut up?" Odie screamed at him, before turning back to Frog. She was ignoring the others now, just staring at Odie. "Don't worry, just show me. We'll figure things out," she promised, and Frog nodded, slowly. She pulled up in her tanktop beneath the battlesuit, and Odie could feel the revulsion ebbing out of all the others. She ignored it, and her own, as she looked closer.

There was an enormous sticky patch of raw, shiny flesh, a deep pink like new skin growing back round a wound. It was puckered with the ridges of strange, powerful muscles, and pulsating like a new heartbeat beneath it. The patch of skin was identical to that of the Schirr on bloody display on the platform. Odie looked up, as she saw tears streaking down Frog's face. She smiled, reaching up to dry them away. She then turned to the old man at her side.

"What do you think, Doctor?" she asked.

"Hmm..." The Doctor cleared his throat. "I would say massive cellular disruption resulting in spontaneous tissue generation. Her genome is being aggressively altered by some alien influence." Both Ben and Odie looked at the Doctor like he'd just spoken Spanish.

"Come again?" Creben acted as interpreter.

"She's becoming a monster." Polly span round at this.

"No!" she said helplessly.

"What did I tell you," Joiks spat. Odie turned around like a lightning bolt, and Polly took a step back. If she had ever doubted Odie could kill anyone, she was certain now.

"I swear to God, Joiks, if ya don' shut yer trap, I am goin' to kill ya. If you've got nothin' better to do than stand there and run yer mouth, go play fetch with them angels for all I care!" Joiks actually seemed scared of Odie at that moment, but the electricity in the air only lasted for a few seconds, before Odie turned back to Frog. Ben, in turn, turned to Tovel.

"Ain't there something in your box of tricks you can give to her?"

"Yeah, Tovel?" Roba joined in. "We can stop this thing, right?"

"It is a sickness," the Doctor said, nodding. "Whereas your leader and Shade have had impurities driven from their bodies, Frog is becoming contaminated in some way." His voice wavered: "I am sure we can reverse the process."

"You don't sound so sure to me," Roba said. Joiks shook his head.

"Reckon the only cure for her's right there in Creben's hand."

For a long, long second, Creben looked down at his gun. Then a reaction came. While Tovel swiped the gun from Creben, causing it to skitter across the floor, Odie turned once more. Joiks stepped back, obviously not having forgotten the last time Odie lashed out. As if in slow motion, she raised her leg. Joiks reached up to block it. Ben saw a flicker of a grim smile on Odie's face, before she pulled her leg down halfway through the kick, leaned back slightly and instead delivered the full force of the kick to Joiks' gut.

He was sent reeling into the wall of the room, where he fell unconscious. There was complete and utter silence for a long while following this. Even Frog had stopped crying. Tovel cleared his throat.

"Anyone else want to have a go?" he asked flatly. No one stepped up, with Odie still looking like a bloody thundercloud. The Doctor suddenly moved, and all the soldiers held their breaths. He put a hand on her arm, but Odie didn't seem to realize.

"Odie," he said calmly, and the ivory girl looked back at him, breathing heavily. "I think you should calm down." There was steel in his voice, and for a minute, Ben honestly thought Odie was going to attack him too. Then it all fell apart, and Odie's face was like that of a child, who'd just smashed their mother's favourite flowerpot.

"Oh god," she whispered. "What's happening to me?"


Okay, in all honesty; how many of you knew something was off with Odie before I made it obvious? XD

A couple of times while I read this in the book myself, I was startled... Like when the angels moved. Creepy... Have fun 'till next time! :D This story only gets creepier, I promise!