"Up and away!" With a whoop of pure glee, Jack slid into the pilot's seat of his spaceship, even as the blue glow of the teleport was still fading. "Grab a seat, Mike. We'll be out of here in no time. Anywhere you especially want to go?" There was no answer, and he turned around, surprised. The least the guy could do was to play along with the spirit of the moment, and show a little enthusiasm. "Mike?" But there was nobody else on board. Mike Yates was nowhere to be seen. "Computer? Where the hell is Yates?

"Captain Mike Yates is not on board." The computer sounded irritatingly unconcerned. Jack rolled his eyes.

"I case see that he's not on board. Where is he!"

"Probability that Captain Mike Yates is still inside the house - ninety-seven percent."

"He's still inside! I told you to focus in on his signal alongside mine. You were supposed to beam us both together!"

"Teleport is malfunctioning." Still she didn't care, his own frustration leaving her completely unmoved. "Shielding within the house affected the--"

"I don't care about the damn shielding!" Jack punched the nearest console, then swore when he hurt his hand, and caused sparks to shower down from somewhere. "Okay. So he's back there in the house. It's not like it's my fault, right? I mean, I didn't force him to come with me. His idea. And he'd have been dead back there by now anyway, if it hadn't been for me. So why should I worry about saving him now?"

"Preparing for flight," announced the computer, obviously taking his words to mean that they would soon be on their way. Jack nodded.

"Set a course for... Computer, can you get a fix on Yates?"

"Shielding prevents a fix on any object within the centre of the house. Captain Mike Yates is not detectable."

"You detected me! If you can get me out of there, why not him?"

"Emergency teleport device functions through most forms of screening. Captain Jack Harkness was retrievable." There was a momentary pause. "Commencing departure."

"Good." He settled back in his seat, then cast a glance over at the hologram that still hung in the air nearby. The house, with its tiny patrolling guards. Mike Yates was in there somewhere, at the mercy of a man that Jack knew to be extremely dangerous. That odd little man with the dark eyes and pointed beard had had an air about him of undeniable menace. "Wait, computer. Damn it."

"Awaiting orders." She fell silent, ready to do whatever he said. She was faithful enough, even if the rest of the ship was against him. Blasted teleport, with its predilection for only wanting to transport him. He was going to have to do something about that one day - and in the meantime poor Mike was alone back there, facing who knew what. And he had had such a nice smile, once he had been persuaded to use it. Jack sighed. "Computer, put me down there again. As close as you can get to the place where you zapped me out. Can you put me down inside the shielding?"

"Negative." There was a buzz and a whirr of computations, before the bank of controls that governed the teleport squawked softly. "Ready to teleport."

"Thanks." He scowled to himself. He must be mad, going back down there again. Even consoling himself with thoughts of the tallite didn't make him feel any better. Still - it was nice to play the hero occasionally. Perhaps a daring rescue would be fun. Fun or fatal, which wasn't much of a choice on the whole.

For the second time that night, then, he found himself inside the corridors of the Cornish house, listening to the thrum of distant machinery. The lights had stopped, though, and he soon realised that this was not the same machinery as before. This was something different; lower, quieter, more grumbling. A different stage in whatever process was underway, he assumed - then wondered why he was interested. He was only supposed to be here for the tallite. Mike Yates's fault, he decided. Cute soldiers with boy scout complexes had no business infecting him with their zeal.

"Okay, so you're an alien mastermind with a secret lair." Jack looked up and down the corridor, then tapped a few commands into his wrist-computer. "Where do you put your prisoners? Oh come on, you're inside the shielding, don't play that 'no data' game with me now. Widen the search field, and... There he is!" He frowned. "Okay, but where is that? Up? Down? Come on, it's always down. Let's have up for a change. Just not too high, 'cause his hair is way too short to do that Rapunzel thing." The computer bleeped obligingly at him, and he grinned. "Oh, well that's easy. At least I know the way." He tapped another control, checking up on the positions of the other people present, and scowled. "Okay, not so easy. Spread out, can't you? This is worse than some party where everybody's congregating in the kitchen." None of the tiny dots representing guards seemed obliged to accommodate his demand, so with an exasperated sigh he continued on his way. Mike Yates appeared to be in the control room, and Jack knew the layout of the route there. He knew where there were corners to be wary of, and he did at least have the advantage of knowing where the guards were positioned. Of course, for all he knew, Mike's bearded friend also knew exactly where he was; but that sort of problem was the kind best ignored. It wasn't as though he could do anything about it right now anyway.

The corridors were deserted, just as they had been before, and the guards were remaining in the control room as far as he could tell. He tried running a scan for similar scanning equipment, to see if the enemy was looking for him, but came up witha blank. It didn't reassure him. Pressing on, he tightened his fingers around the butt of his laser pistol, and tried to concentrate on every little sound. Returning was a damn silly thing to do. He should have gone scooting off back into space, and left Mike Yates to sort himself out. Captain Jack Harkness was not in the rescue game. He was an idiot, he decided, as he edged his way forward, seeing in his mind's eye the big black door that awaited him just around this last, lonely corner. The guards would all waiting be for him there as well; ten of them, according to his wrist-computer, which was pretty much the house's entire compliment of black-uniformed, heavily armed bullies. Which left him with two options - hurl himself around the corner with his gun blazing; or surrender and hope that everybody was in a good mood. He decided that he didn't especially like either option, which left him at something of a loose end. Unless, he mused to himself, he could take two uninviting options, and turn them into one rather more pleasant one. Or a slightly less suicidal one, at any rate.

"You'd better appreciate this, Yates." And he'd better not turn out to be dead. Nothing put the dampeners on an heroic bit of rescuing than leaping gallantly to the aid of what turned out to be a corpse. He'd found that out more than once in the past; which was rather a worrying batting average for a man who didn't generally do rescues. Making a few small adjustments to his laser pistol, he took a deep breath and stepped slowly around the corner. Five rifles were pointed straight at him, and he smiled as confidently and as charmingly as he could. Which was extremely charming, even if he did say so himself.

"Hi." He made sure that all five of the guards got an equal share of the charm offensive. "I was thinking I might surrender. If it's all the same with you."

"Throw down your gun." One of the men had a leadery quality to him - although with this group of men that probably only meant that he had managed to scrape together an IQ rating above 90. Jack let him take the full force of the Harkness Grin.

"Sure. No problem. I'll just... throw down my gun. But first I want to know how Mike is. Tallish guy, kinda cute? Purple shirt, red trousers. Not always the best combination, especially for creeping around in the dark, but then it is the seventies I guess."

"Throw down your gun." The lead guard took a slow step forward, and Jack made what he hoped was a placating gesture.

"Okay, okay. That's fine. Here, I'm throwing down my gun." He hesitated a moment, then with a silent prayer to the god of misguided idiots, threw the weapon down - and dived for cover. Somebody fired after him, and the bullet ricocheted off the wall above his head, but the echo of the report was lost in an instant by the sound of the laser gun bursting into life. Flattened against the wall back around his corner, Jack heard a panicked yell as the gun fired wildly; in his mind's eye seeing it as it spun around under the force of its own shots. He could imagine it blasting away in every direction as its power-pack built up to overload, and knew well what kind of damage it would be doing in the process. Blue light glowed around the corner, laser fire crackled; and in a sudden burst of white heat, the weapon blew up. A sharp, acrid smell filled the corridor, and fighting off a coughing fit Jack rolled back around the corner, threw himself over the smouldering relic of his unfortunate gun, and snatched up a fallen rifle. He didn't know who it had belonged to. He didn't have time to care. Rolling neatly to his feet, he threw open the big black door and ran into the room beyond. A bullet cracked into the wall above the door, and he sent a single shot flying towards its source, then dashed for the cover of the nearest console. A totally disinterested scientist pressed controls and watched readouts a few inches away from his head. Jack tried to ignore him. Hypnotised boffins were not his concern right now.

"Mike?" He shouted the name loudly, ducking back as he did so. He had expected gunshots to come in answer, but none did. "You there, Yates?"

"He's here." It was the voice of the man with the beard - he recognised it instantly, with its superciliousness and ability to annoy. "Throw down your weapon, and I'll see about not shooting him."

"You'll see about not shooting him? That doesn't sound like such a great deal to me." Jack peered over the top of the console, wishing that there was some point in snapping at the scientist to get out of the damn way. He could see the man with the beard, standing in the middle of the room as though he had nothing to fear. Four men in black were spread out around him, a fifth sitting nearby, trying to keep hold of his gun. He had been hit in the hand by the look of things, and Jack silently congratulated himself on a good bit of shooting. He had no idea how badly hurt the five men outside the door were, but for the time being at least it seemed that he had more than halved the threat of the guards. That wasn't bad for less than ninety seconds. The bearded man laughed lightly.

"It's Jack, isn't it. Believe it or not, Jack, I have no particular intention of killing either one of you. You in particular could be very useful to me. But I can't risk any damage to my equipment here, and I'd rather not lose too many of my little band of scientists. So if you cause trouble, I will have both you and the good captain shot. It would be far more sensible to merely throw down that rifle and step out here."

"Sounds about as sensible as skinny-dipping in the acid lakes on Morox V." Jack chose to ignore the enemy, and raised his voice again. "Mike?"

"I'm here, Jack." Yates sounded perfectly calm. "Don't listen to him. You can't trust a word that he says."

"Now really, Captain Yates. Is that any way to talk about an old friend? I could have killed you so many times in the past, but I never have. Doesn't that stand in my favour now?"

"Not killing me doesn't cancel out all the times that you've tried to destroy the Earth, or kill half of the people on it. I wouldn't trust you if we were the only people left in the world."

"Which, believe it or not, we may soon be. Oh yes, Captain Yates, you did hear me correctly. Speeding towards this planet as we speak is a representative sample of the Tragovian fleet. Perhaps your American friend has some idea what that means?"

"The Tragovian fleet?" Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You called in the Tragovian fleet!"

"Not in as many words, no. I confess to a certain... moral ambiguity, yes, but not to any kind of personal insanity. The Tragovians will cheerfully kill me along with the natives of this lamentable planet; and since at present I find myself incapable of leaving, I would rather do what I can to discourage the fleet from coming here. That is what this equipment is for. That is what the tallite is for... although I admit that it wasn't its original purpose. Perhaps now you see the problem, gentlemen? I do not have the time or in the inclination to fight UNIT right now. I'd rather survive."

"You've heard of these Tragovians?" Mike was directing the question to Jack who, very slowly, was rising up from behind the cover of the console. It was a gamble, but nobody fired at him. For the time being, at any rate. He nodded.

"Yeah, sure. Everybody's heard of the Tragovians. They're lethal. Exterminators. They wipe out whole planets, even whole solar systems, as part of their empire building operations. A lot of races are strong enough to keep them from trying anything, but Earth doesn't have a chance, certainly now. Another thousand years or so, maybe."

"They're that bad?"

"Sure they're that bad. Listen, I was out near Delta VII just before the Tragovian fleet sent the local star supernova. There had been some evacuations, but there wasn't much warning. One minute the fleet is coming, the next - fire, as far as the eye can see it, like everything in the galaxy is burning. I don't want to see it again any time soon, and certainly not here. And certainly not three thousand years before I'm born. That kind of thing'll cause some serious jet-lag."

"Three thousand years?" A dark eyebrow raised itself in an affectedly casual interest. "You're a long way from home, Mr...?"

"It's Captain. Captain Jack Harkness, and you are...?" The dark eyes gleamed, and he felt the waves of their power wash over him. Impressive. Right now, though, the bearded alien had no real interest in hypnosis.

"I am many things, Captain Harkness. I am known as the Master."

"Not by me, you're not." Jack looked over to Mike. "You okay?"

"Yes, fine. As fine as anybody is when they nearly get their head blown off by enemy fire, and see their only ally disappear in a beam of light." Yates joined them, the suspicion he felt towards the Master shining in his expressive eyes. "Jack, this is madness. You don't know this man the way that I do. He can't be trusted."

"I don't doubt it." In many ways Yates was still an unknown commodity, but Jack trusted his judgement - certainly more than he trusted a man whose very presence was sinister. "But we can't take any chances right now. The Tragovians... they're one of the most warlike races in the whole of this sector of space. They kill everything that they come across. Out at Delta VII the authorities were able to evacuate some of the population, but you couldn't even begin to do that here. Three people on a rocket? It's hardly enough to rebuild humanity somewhere else. Even if you could hope to get the rocket out of range in time."

"We couldn't." Mike was no expert in space travel, but he had followed the developments within the space programme in recent years, just like the rest of UNIT. It was frightening at times just how far behind so many other races humanity lingered. "If this fleet is as powerful as you say it is, then by the time that the alert is sounded, a rocket probably couldn't even be in the air before it was too late. I could call UNIT and sound the alarm--"

"Do that and there's no hope for any of us." The Master was smiling patiently, but his eyes showed no such poise, and his voice hinted at the contempt that was forever only just beneath his smooth veneer. "Using the tallite, I can create a field around the Earth that should hide it from detection. In a sense. The Tragovians will see nothing but lifelessness solar system - provided that your Martian neighbours are true to form and stay quiet - and shouldn't realise that the solar system is inhabited. They'll leave it alone. If you start beetling around firing off rockets and trying to escape into space, we don't have a chance." He smiled, the mockery bursting forth into a broad, cruel sneer. "Besides, Captain Yates. How precisely will you organise this evacuation? Who will leave, and who will remain behind to accompany this ghastly little planet into oblivion?"

"Will you get a seat on a rocket, you mean?" Mike could hardly begin to match the other man's monumental disdain, but a fair approximation of it glimmered now in his eyes. "Hardly. Don't think I don't know that you're behind this somehow. Whatever that fleet is doing on its way here, I'm more than sure that you're responsible."

"Me?" The Master's amused, entirely false innocence leant his voice a new kind of mocking tone. "But you'd never do it anyway. Some half-baked escape plan, that could only ever hope to save a few? I know your type, captain. All those millions left behind to perish? That's no plan. My way we can save everybody. All your precious human souls, and me as well."

"It's almost worth letting the Earth burn, if it finally gets the universe rid of you." Mike looked away. "Do you know what he's talking about, Jack? Using the tallite to hide the Earth from detection?"

"Sure. It could do the trick, I suppose. Like I told you, tallite is used in transmitters. Communications technology, you know. Set up the right kind of feedback, and it should be possible to block or even manipulate the fleet's scanners. They'd get here and see whatever we want them to see. A dead planet is probably better than no planet at all. They're less likely to fall for that."

"Very good." The Master inclined his head in entirely false praise at this display of reasoning. "So, gentlemen. Do I take it that we're going to stop trying to shoot each other, and start making some attempt to save all our lives?"

"I still have a lot of questions." Mike was suspicious about a lot of things - not least the hypnotised scientists, and the heavily armed guards. He didn't like co-operating with the Master, and he certainly didn't like the idea that nobody else knew about it. He should be reporting in to the Brigadier. He should be alerting UNIT, and making sure that there were troops here as back up in case anything went wrong. It was still hard to remember that he was no longer a part of all of that. The Brigadier was no longer on the other end of the telephone. Security protocols would have changed, just like the rule books said. He had no way of calling anybody now.

"Questions later." Jack was looking about the room with the air of a man about to take control. "Do we know how far away the Tragovians are?"

"At their present speed, as far as my equipment can tell, they'll be within range of their own scanning capabilities in a matter of hours. After that, whatever we can do won't make any difference, as they will already know what this region of space is really like." There was the flash of a challenge in the Master's eyes; the look of a man who wanted to know just what this new arrival might know, and how well he was equipped. Jack nodded slowly.

"And how far along are you?"

"With my workforce here working every hour on the clock, I've been able to get most of the way. It's difficult, though, with such unskilled labour. Some of the finest scientific minds on this sorry little planet, and most of them don't know enough to even begin to be of real use."

"Yeah, well. It's the nineteen seventies. You've gotta cut them some slack." Jack nodded slowly, casting a speculative eye over the silently toiling scientists, and the hovering, suspicious guards. This was apparently the first that the strong-arm men had heard of the true nature of the project they had been assigned to protect, and they were beginning to look decidedly uncomfortable. Talk of men from three thousand years in the future, and from different planets altogether... talk of fleets coming to destroy the world... They were hardly cut from the finest intellectual material to begin with, and this was all a little too much. "So how long do you think it's going to take you to finish?"

"Another twenty-four hours, at our current pace. I've been trying to speed things up a little, but already the pace is too much for some of my older... guests." The Master smiled a particularly oily smile at his use of the euphemism. "I had one die just this morning, and they're getting hard to replace. People are bound to notice, if too many more scientists disappear." He scowled, looking decidedly hostile. "And then I shall have the forces of that blasted organisation hounding me again. Your people, Captain Yates. And a certain scientific advisor of theirs."

"You can forget the suicide squad tactics." Anticipating Mike's outrage as though he had known the other man for years, Jack stepped neatly in to prevent an argument. "It's too wasteful, and it's not really going to achieve anything anyway. You need somebody else who knows what they're doing. That'll speed things up a hundred-fold."

"Perhaps." Not the kind of man to admit that he needed the help of a lowly human, the Master sounded unimpressed. "Just what kind of equipment do you have, Captain Harkness? And might I inquire exactly what sort of ship?"

"Smooth. Real smooth." Jack flashed the Time Lord a typically sparkling smile. "But just a little too eager. You crash your own ship, or just forget where it's parked?"

"Hardly." For a second ice gleamed in the powerful, dark eyes - then the Master smiled as though it were all nothing. "A minor technical malfunction. A problem in one of the circuits. I can fix it, but not before the Tragovians get here. It will take me weeks of very precise and exacting work, which I hardly think that you will be able to understand. Not even if you were from one hundred thousand years in Earth's future."

"Yeah, well you're not taking my ship instead." Jack scowled. "Great. A desperate scurry to save the Earth, when we could all just make a run for it. Isn't this everybody's favourite way to spend a Friday night?" He sighed, in a display of irritation that Mike Yates wasn't at all sure was entirely false. "Okay, show me what you've got, Fred. Let's see how can speed this along."

"Fred?" Displeasure was etched onto the Master's brow. Mike felt a sudden urge to giggle, although at the same time there was definite malevolence in the Time Lord's expression. Jack shrugged.

"Hey, do I look like I need a master? Just show me what you got. We'll talk about names later."

"Very well." The smile was tight and polite, the voice perfectly composed. Jack wasn't fool enough to miss the note of danger behind the composure, though. There was something else that the Master would be wanting to talk about later, or he was a Myridian marsh beast.

"Jack..." The Master was walking away across the room, clearly expecting the human to follow him, but Mike called out before he could do so. Jack nodded.

"I know. 'Don't trust him'."

"He's evil. And very clever."

"I can see that." He flashed the Englishman one of his best and biggest grins. "It's okay, for now. He needs us. Until he can get this transmitter thing up and running, or steal my ship, he can't kill us." He shrugged. "Or he can't kill me, anyway. You're a little further up the expendable end of the scale, so play it careful. Keep an eye on these guys in black. And I had to sacrifice my blaster to get in here, so unless they're going to play nice enough to give you your gun back, we've only got the one weapon between us." He tossed Yates the rifle he had appropriated in the corridor. "Keep all your eyes open."

"You don't have to tell me that." Mike smiled faintly. "Same rank, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember. Now I'm going to go play with the scary guy for a bit." He grinned, and his eyes danced teasingly. "Don't get jealous."

"I wasn't going--" But Jack was already walking away. Mike watched him go, wishing that he didn't find the other man so unsettling. Jealous, indeed. Jealous of what? He couldn't deny, though, that he felt a certain something as the other man walked away. He didn't especially want to think about what it was.

"Hey honey." Sliding into the seat next to the Master, Jack favoured him with a grin that usually melted any amount of ice. Somehow he couldn't see it working with this man, but he tried it anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. "Miss me?"

"No." The Master's face was like stone. He was sitting at a bank of controls, that he gestured to somewhat perfunctorily. It was a simple test to find out just how advanced Jack's technological knowledge was, and he didn't bother to diguise that. Jack nodded slowly, but didn't give anything away.

"What are you using to generate your power? This can't all be coming from the mains supply, or the electricity people would have been banging on the door by now." He frowned suddenly. "Unless they already did. Did you kill the electricity people?"

"I do not require the primitive power supplies available on this pitiful planet." The Master typed a few brief commands into the console in front of him, and a bright display flashed up on the screen in front of them. It was the screen of a very basic computer, but clearly it had been greatly modified. "All of this is being run from the central generator aboard my own ship. We have limitless power. Unfortunately that is all that I can use from my ship. The stabilisers have been damaged, and it would be dangerous to attempt to use it further."

"So you're running a system that's, what, ninety percent Earth equipment of the period, on a limitless generator from this amazing homeworld of yours?" Jack whistled softly. "Isn't that a little dangerous in itself?"

"Yes. But not as dangerous as attempting to use the local power supply. Had I done that, we would still have weeks of work to do. Now is there anything that we can use from your own ship?"

"Not really." Jack took over the keyboard, typing in a few instructions of his own. "It's a little temperamental. Actually it's very temperamental, and quite a lot of it is still angry with me for having stolen it." He abandoned the cobbled-together computer in front of him, and tapped a control on his wrist-computer instead. Lights flashed, and a holographic projection appeared in the air in front of him. It looked like a big box, bathed in blue light, and spinning slowly on it axis. "This is what you're building?"

"You have a portable scanner." The Master was eyeing the wristband contemplatively, though with none of the acquisitiveness that he had displayed when speaking of Jack's ship. "What is its range?"

"Good enough, especially if I bounce it off the scanners on my ship." Jack tapped out another order, and the box disappeared. Instead three spaceships now floated in the air, mere projections in blue light, like the box that had preceded them, yet still exuding an air of menace. "They're close."

"Tell me where your ship is, and we can escape. Bring your pet soldier with you if you want. I'll do my best not to pitch him out of the airlock."

"No deal, Fred." There was genuine regret in Jack's voice. Running was definitely an attractive option. "Like I said, the Earth gets destroyed now, I never get to be born. I don't plan on tying myself up in paradox knots, or killing myself before I even exist. No. I'm stuck here, for better or for worse."

"We'll see." The Master rose to his feet. "I have circuits to check on, and machinery to adapt. If I were you I would find something and work on it. We don't have very much time."

"Gotcha." Jack snapped the cover of his wristband shut, cutting off the hologram and banishing the image. The Master was heading away towards a bank of highly peculiar-looking instrumentation, clearly the result of a fusion of technologies. There was Terran equipment alongside what looked to Jack like cybertronic components from halfway across the galaxy. He couldn't identify everything that he saw, and he wondered where exactly the bright-eyed alien came from. It might be interesting trying to find out - or it might not. He got the distinct impression that too much of his particular brand of friendliness might get his throat cut.

"Anything I can do to help?" Mike was coming over, obviously deciding that he would rather be doing something more practical than standing around waiting to see if the guards were going to get dangerous. Jack shrugged.

"I don't know. A-level Physics, you said. That any good?"

"It beats O-level Physics. Beyond that..."

"Never mind. You can connect positive to negative, and front to back, right?"

"If I know which is positive and which is negative, yes. Does this stuff even have positive and negative?"

"Good point." Jack offered him a grin that, under the circumstances, seemed entirely unsuitable. "Any good at improvising?"

"Improvising. Jack, is the Master lying? Is there any reason to assume that this is some kind of trickery? Some way of throwing us off the scent somehow?"

"No." Jack frowned. "The Tragovians are definitely coming. My sensors picked them up." He tapped the leather band on his wrist, as though making some significant point. "Does that effect your ability to improvise?"

"No. I just want to know where we stand. How serious this is. You're still acting like this is some grand day out for all of the family, and I want to know whether I should be playing along or breaking your jaw." Yates sighed and looked away. "So the Earth really is in danger?"

"Yes. You'd really play along if it wasn't?"

"No." For the briefest second Mike almost smiled, such was the glint of light he had seen in Jack's eyes. "Does the Earth really mean that little to you?"

"Hardly. If it got blown up now, the repercussions..." He shrugged. "Hell, I don't know. I'm not an expert in all that Time stuff. It complicates matters for me, though, and that's what counts."

"Succinctly put. You're a bit of a bastard on the quiet, aren't you."

"There's nothing quiet about me, gorgeous. Now go on over there to that big white cupboardy thing. I think it's a computer, and believe me you're going to prefer the ones that are heading your way in the near future. Take the front off and disconnect all the wiring. I'm going to connect it up to this thing here."

"And that'll do what?"

Jack shrugged. "Best case scenario? It'll tie in with what it looks like Fred is doing, and help us to set up a relay that'll cut a few corners and get that signal buzzing."

"And the worst case scenario?"

"I don't know. A very complicated cat's cradle that one of us trips over, so they wind up breaking their neck? Look on the bright side, Mike."

"Bright side. Right." Mike Yates, a man who was no longer sure that he had a bright side, nodded slowly, and headed across the room. The computer unit whirred at him, and its large wheel of tape spun round in circles. To a man who had seen inside the TARDIS, such a piece of equipment seemed horribly outdated - but then to a man who had seen inside the TARDIS; travelled inside the TARDIS; seen all that UNIT had had to face - much of the world now seemed outdated. Outmoded. Small. To a man who could see no place for himself in that world now that his old life outside of it had gone, the end of everything might not have seemed quite so bad. He cursed himself once again for such dark and destructive thoughts, and set about pulling off the front of the machine. He needed to work. With luck it would keep his brain from travelling to places he would rather it did not go.

And far, far up above him, the Tragovian fleet entered the solar system.

xxxxxxxxxx

There were wires everywhere. Mike didn't have a clue what Jack was doing, and if Jack was any better informed he gave no indication of it. He peered at wire after wire, shrugged, and reconnected them with nimble fingers, brazen confidence, and an apparent disregard for any kind of logic or forethought. The tape reel on the computer was still whirring round, pausing every so often so that a stream of paper could chunter its way out of a slot on a neighbouring unit. Mike had looked at the paper once, only to find a long, unbroken block of text that meant nothing at all to him. He pulled a piece of it off and offered it to Jack, who peered at it, frowned, turned it up the other way, frowned again, and nodded. Mike felt worse than useless, but given that there were four and a half armed guards in the middle of the room who looked like they were in a daze, he was at least sure that he wasn't alone in his confusion. He offered to help Jack, and got sent away to dismantle some other piece of equipment. Since it was a coffee machine, Mike was not entirely sure that it would prove to be of much use.

"Hey, am I a genius, or am I a genius?" Popping up on the other side of a great swathe of multicoloured wiring, Jack offered the room and its assorted occupants a spectacular grin. Most of the people in the room were hypnotised and didn't notice, and at least one other was evil and likely a psychopath, and also gave no response. Jack didn't seem to care, though.

"Have you finished?" Busy trying to remove the pouring spout from the bottom of the coffee machine, Mike looked over at the jury-rigged piece of equipment with more hope than faith. With luck some of it would make sense, and he would have some idea of what his companion was trying to do. Unsurprisingly, though, it meant nothing. He had thought that he was used to being out of his depth, given his many and varied associations with the Doctor, but the Doctor at least was an alien. A very old, very intelligent alien, with all the universe in a little blue telephone box. Jack was a human being. A very human being. Somehow it seemed worse to be outclassed by him.

"Finished? No. I need that stuff you've got over there before I can finish what I'm doing here." Jack clambered over bits of wiring, and three metal chairs that looked as though they were a part of whatever it was that he was building. Cobwebs dangled from his hair, and he brushed at them irritably. "Nobody's tidied up in here for years. You'd think Mr Sunshine over there could have had the place spring-cleaned before he turned it into his evil lair."

"Strange, isn't it, that he's got so much equipment. Some of it seems to have been in place for months. Can he really have been working that long on finding a way to stop the Tragovians?"

"Are you kidding? No way. He's known about them for a week. Ten days, tops. He's adapting equipment that was installed here for another reason."

"Then he was up to something before."

"Of course he was. Did you ever doubt it? Right now, though, I don't give a damn about that. We've got a planet to save." He grinned again. "That always sounds so cool. Or possibly corny."

"Urgent would be more to the point." Yates held up a handful of components that he had already removed from the coffee machine. "These any good to be going on with?"

"Yeah. Great." The other captain clambered over more bits of equipment in order to reach him, then took the pieces and turned them over in his hands. "Nice work. Just what I need."

"You do realise that this is a coffee machine?"

"Yeah. Good stuff, coffee. Very handy in an emergency. You ever get caught in a self-destructing ship, with fire above you, angry Redellians below, and empty space all around - head for the coffee machine."

"And that'll help?"

"Only if you get lucky, like I did, and it turns out that there's a life pod docked just nearby." He shrugged. "But coffee machines are still useful. Here. This bit goes on the generator sub-unit, and these bits can be wired into the main processors. It won't be pretty, but it ought to work."

"Ought to?"

"Yeah." For once Jack's grin was not huge and broad, but instead barely more than a smile. "You a gambling man, Mike?"

"No. Not really."

"That's probably very sensible. If this works..."

"That 'if' is really encouraging."

"Sorry. It's just that I'm serious here. There's a very real possibility that it won't work. That this time tomorrow planet Earth could be nothing but space dust and dissipating heat. And if that happens, neither of us is going to be around to worry about gambling. But if it does work... drinks down at the local? Maybe some of those fish and chips that everybody seems to like around here. Had some of them once, in Truro in 1957."

"The world could be about to end, and you're thinking about fish and chips?"

"Yeah. And coffee and computers and transmitters and signals and tallite and your psycho alien buddy over there. I got a lot on right now. Be nice to me."

"If the world doesn't end, we'll get some fish and chips." It sounded like something that he was going to wind up regretting, but somehow Mike didn't feel that he could refuse Jack this. "But if does end--"

"If it does, I'm done for. Never born. You could take my ship and make a break for it, though."

"If you were never born, your ship won't be here."

"Good point."

"And thanks but no thanks anyway. The last human? I don't need any more guilt than I've got already." He held up another handful of components. "Here. Go and do something with them. Fish and chips or not, we do still have a planet to save. And you're right. That does sound rather... 'cool'."

"You've got to work on that delivery, soldier boy. Relax a little. Stop being so stiff."

"Go away." Mike pushed half of a dismantled percolator into his hands. "Go and build something useful."

"I'm wounded." Doing a fair impression of a man hurt to the core, the American retreated back to his workstation, and Mike turned his attention to the last few screws that needed undoing. He was smiling as he worked, though he made sure that his back was turned to Jack. There were enough complications in his life, with the Master to contend with and a planet that faced imminent destruction. He didn't want to be thinking about Jack Harkness as well right now.

"Busy?" The soft, oily voice was unmistakable, even to somebody who had only just met the Master. Once more deep in his work, Jack took a moment to react, then looked up from the midst of his wild tangle of wiring and shrugged.

"Pretty much. Time's a-wasting. You know."

"Yes, precisely." There was a light smile on the dark face. "I thought perhaps that we should compare notes. It won't do any of us any good if we're working in opposite directions."

"Fair point." Jack gestured expansively. "You should be able to tell what I'm doing, though. You're no twentieth century human."

"True." The Master peered more closely at some of the cross-patched circuitry. "Very good. For a human."

"Thankyou. As compliments go, I've had better. How's it coming along at your end?"

"We are progressing quite satisfactorily. With you working over here, we should be able to cut our working time substantially."

"So there should be a few less scientists dropping dead. Always good."

"You care?" Stooping to connect up a few loose wires, the Master wound up a section of hanging cable and plugged it into a vacant socket. "I was under the impression that all of this was of minimal concern to you."

"Mike cares. And so do I, I guess. Death isn't nice."

"It's not really supposed to be." The Master was smiling at the back of Jack's head, as though willing him to turn around again. For some reason, Jack did. "You did intimate, though, that you didn't really care about any of this. That if it wasn't for a minor quibble about the timeline, you'd be quite happy to run off and leave the Earth to its fate."

"Yeah. And the great thing is, neither of us will ever know whether or not I meant that." Jack smiled briefly, though without his usual zest. "I'm not running out, and you're not having my ship. So why don't you go back to fixing up... whatever it is that you're fixing up?"

"Perhaps I will." The Master made no attempt to move away, and his eyes flicked over to Mike. The former UNIT captain had finished dismantling the coffee machine, and had started on a second computer. If he was aware that the Master was speaking to Jack, he gave no sign of it. Alone of those working in the room, Mike seemed affected by a genuine sense of urgency. "What if I could guarantee the safety of your timeline? What then?"

"If you could what?"

"Don't behave like a twentieth century primitive. If I could ensure that, even were the Earth destroyed now, you would not cease to exist, would your answer differ? Would you agree to make an escape now?"

"You could do that?" The idea was a fascinating one. "Wouldn't that cause all kinds of paradoxes? Or whatever the hell the plural is?"

"It might. There are those of us, however, who have a far greater understanding of such things; a far greater control, you might say, of matters relating to Time. I think that I could secure your safety, with a little..." he smiled, quite bewitchingly, "a little cosmic sorcery, shall we say."

"Wow." Jack grinned, his enthusiasm restored. "You really know how to turn a guy's head. You're practically offering to rewrite the history of the universe. For me."

"Then it's a deal?" The Master's eyes glittered. Jack sighed.

"No. Sorry. I mean, it's a great offer, don't get me wrong. I'm touched. But it's just a little tainted, you know? If you really were offering to do it for me, you might just have got me. As it is, it's still screaming self-seeking desperation, and that's not very attractive. Unless it's me being the self-seeking one of course. I'm used to me being selfish."

"I don't make an offer twice, Captain Harkness." The Master's voice was like a knife, stabbing at the air. Jack nodded. He had already identified the alien as someone that he shouldn't cross. Sometimes, though, there was no choice. He could only hope to minimise the damage.

"Help me get things sorted here, and you won't have to worry about making an escape. We all live, then. Or are you really so desperate to see the Earth blown to smithereens?"

"It has a certain appeal, yes. I would very much like to escape this world, and see it and the people upon it obliterated. One of the people in particular. As a plan I prefer it much more than staying here and waiting to rest all of my hopes in a transmission that might not even work. By the time we know whether or not it will do what it's supposed to, it will be far too late to escape. We couldn't get far enough away in any craft that you're likely to own. Not in time."

"Maybe you underestimate my ship." The beginnings of an arrogant smile curled at the corners of Jack's mouth, but never quite got the chance to get started. The Master gave a low chuckle.

"I doubt that. And I plan to escape, captain. I will not die on this planet. One way or another, I will get away, and one way or another, you're going to help ensure that it happens."

"One way or another, I..." Jack frowned, blinking suddenly. "Hey. No hypnosis. It's not fair on the inferior species."

"That is rather the intention." The Master smiled suddenly, brightly, cheerfully. "So what is your answer, captain? I would have to protect the timeline to some degree in order to take your ship. It might as well be with your consent, rather than against it. I could merely protect the ship itself, and you would blink out of existence."

"I'll pretty much be doing that anyway, when the planet blows up. No." He was finding it harder to speak, but he was still clear on that point. "I'm no hero, but this is... this as much pure, good old-fashioned self-interest as anything else I've done recently. I don't want to... never have existed..., and I don't especially want the planet to blow up. I might not spend much... much time on it nowadays, but I'm still kinda f-fond of the old... place." He shook his head. "Hypnosis. I said... said to knock it off. Why... why can't I--?"

"Jack!" It was Mike's voice; Mike's hands on his shoulders, shaking him hard. "Jack!"

"Huh?" The voice came at him from a great distance, as though his ears were filled with thick soup. "I... Mike?"

"You were looking right into his eyes, you idiot. He's not some night-club hypnotist, with a stage show and a lot of silly tricks." Mike shot a furious glance over at the Master, who merely smiled at him with glittering eyes.

"You knew that I would try it, Captain Yates. Your... friend here has something that I want. Something that I intend to get."

"Not when Earth is at stake. We're all in this together, Master."

"Really." The Master's voice was suddenly as cold as any that Mike had ever heard. "You and I, captain, will never be together in anything. This isn't over." He turned smartly on his heel and walked away. Mike let out a long sigh.

"I think he just promised to kill me."

"Yeah?" Jack was fighting back to some semblance of consciousness, and blinked at Mike uncertainly. "Well that's good."

"Not quite how I would put it. That man is more powerful than any human. I don't think for a moment that I could defeat him, if it came to any kind of a fight."

"Oh, it won't be a fight. He'll probably just stab you in the back, when you're busy thinking about something else."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." The former Time Agent blinked, and shook his head. "Boy. I feel like I drank way too much last night. Did we do anything I don't regret?"

"Hardly. And don't pretend that you don't know what just happened. Who was it who warned who about his tricks?"

"Yeah, I know." Jack sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "He's sneaky. I wasn't expecting anything that..." He gestured rather vaguely in the air. "Anything that powerful. Fast. I've been trained to resist mind control."

"Me too." Mike looked suddenly distant. "That's not always how it works, though, is it. Now come on. There's still work to do."

"Yeah, great. Just what I need, with a head full of cotton wool and sixteen tonne weights. I don't suppose you have any special knowledge of massage techniques?"

"Even if I did, I wouldn't be trying them out now, nor on you. Now get back to work. I've got part of another computer dismantled."

"Really?" Jack brightened immediately. "Initiative. I like that. Drag it over here then, and we'll see what we can do with it."

"We?" Mike looked doubtful. "A-level Physics doesn't cover the improvisations of Captain Jack Harkness."

"Shame. But it doesn't matter. You can turn a screwdriver, right?"

"Right."

"Good. In that case, Mike, you're going to get your first lesson in fifty-first century computing. Just don't go spreading it around when we've finished. The rate I'm going, there'll soon be a whole trail of humans throughout history with inappropriate scientific knowledge. Anybody ever finds out, I get to spend the rest of my days printing space station signs in a penal colony nobody's ever heard of."

"You don't often make a lot of sense, do you."

"With a smile like yours turned against me, soldier boy, it's a miracle I'm even speaking in actual sentences. We'll work on the intelligibility issues later."

"Let's not." Mike pointed him towards the mess of wires and equipment. "Fifty-first century computing. Remember?"

"Yeah, sure. Earth in danger, Tragovian fleet. I remember. Nobody ever said a guy can't save the world and have fun. Deadly danger and flirting don't have to be mutually exclusive."

"I'm not even going to bother starting to argue. Just..." Mike gestured at the wires, wishing that Jack didn't twist his brain into quite so many circles. "Just get to work."

"Sure. Look, it's pretty simple. I need you to take these red wires, and wire them into the tape reel on the front of that second computer unit. I'll show you how in a minute. Then you take these green wires, and you twist them into the mains lead that the computer runs from. Best turn it off first. I don't want to fry you on the first date. Then you take these yellow wires, and you run them back here, and fix them into these empty contacts right there. Got that?"

"I think so. And that'll do what?"

"If I'm right, it'll broadcast the energy signal of the charged-up tallite in every direction. Up, down and round about. Then when the Tragovians get closer, they'll see what our instruments tell theirs - which is that this place is deader than Garonymous XII after the Merchant Wars. And they'll go right on by."

"But they do have scanners, though. Surely they'll have seen the Earth by now?"

"I don't think so. The Master can track their progress because he's got some pretty fancy equipment. I could pick them on up my scanners because I have a Chula ship to back me up. And the Chula were one hell of a race. The Tragovians, though - they can't compete with that kind of technology. Not yet anyway. Give them another thousand years or so, and you'd really have something to worry about."

"Because we don't already?"

"You know what I mean. They're thugs, Mike. All muscle and no finesse. Powerful weapons but none of the frills. Another couple of millennia and they'll have some of those kinks ironed out. As it stands we've got a real chance this way."

"I don't know. It doesn't seem quite right. If they don't already know about the Earth, why are they coming here in the first place?" Mike frowned suddenly. "Unless somebody told them to come. They can't see what's out here - but if somebody gave them a set of co-ordinates, they could still find a planet, couldn't they?"

"Yeah. That could be one of the things that the Master was getting up to, all the time he's been here."

"Great. It's not the first time he's got some other race to do his dirty work, but it still seems pretty underhanded, even for him." Mike felt like hitting something, but knew too well that there was little point. He certainly couldn't take out his anger on the Master. "If his ship hadn't malfunctioned, and put him into this situation, we'd never have known a thing."

"Then be glad it did. And start working those red wires into the computer. Here." Jack pulled what looked like a screwdriver out of his pocket, and flicked a switch in the handle. A little red light glowed in the screwdriver's head. "It's like a kind of soldering iron, just without the solder. Fix those wires in round the magnet in the tape drive. I'll be trying to fix our little contribution here onto the Master's machine over there. That's the tallite. I just hope he's got it all ready to go."

"How long now?"

"Till we can test drive this, maybe half an hour if you work fast. Till the Tragovians get here? A few hours, max. So get working, soldier boy. If we can test this thing fast enough, we might have enough time to think of something else if it doesn't work."

"Right." Mike turned about, toying with the screwdriver briefly to get the feel of it. He didn't bother watching to see what Jack was doing, and focused his attentions purely on the wires. It was good to be doing something more constructive. At least now he felt as though he were able to contribute something to the plan.

"Do you approve of what you see?" The Master appeared at Jack's shoulder whilst he surveyed the equipment that the hypnotised scientists had been working upon. Jack nodded slowly.

"It's good work. You could almost do it without all your drones."

"A risk that I would rather not take." There was a sharpness to the Master's voice, and even though Jack did not trust himself to look at the other man, he knew that there was a bright glint in the dark eyes, and a tight little smile on the expressive face. "Are you ready to test our work?"

"Nearly. We have to hook up first. Marry your stuff to mine."

"And you propose to do this yourself?"

"If I have to. Co-operation might be a better idea though." Jack pointed to a big grey box. "The tallite is in there?"

"Yes. There's five hundred kilograms of it. It should be sufficient, if the equipment that we have here is capable of bearing the strain. I have my doubts."

"Human engineering isn't all that bad."

"In your time, perhaps. This is the nineteen seventies, and I have nothing but contempt for the period. And for its engineering." The Master turned away. "Do your work, Captain Harkness. I will see to the final checks elsewhere."

"If you trust me."

"Oh, I trust you. You will see to it that this work is completed in time. But do you trust me?"

"You tried to hypnotise me into running away. You're probably planning to try again, and the only reason I'm here for you to make the attempt in the first place is because you asked the damn Tragovians to come. I'm not stupid, and I sure as hell don't trust you. But I do trust you to make those checks. You're a practical guy."

"Yes." The voice was sharp again, though not without a trace of humour. "Practical and determined. I do not give up, Captain Harkness."

"Good. Because there's a couple of billion people whose lives are depending on that. And some of them are my ancestors." Jack pulled another screwdriver from his pocket, and turned towards the box housing the tallite. He didn't want to spend any more time talking to the Master than he had to. A low chuckle echoed behind him, but he ignored it as he walked away. The Master might have further tricks planned, but they couldn't be any kind of priority right now. The Earth came first. The Earth, and the future that came with it.

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