Part 2 (1/2)

'Doesn't look much, does it? But Downstairs Downstairs always have an eye on it.' always have an eye on it.'

'You mean the High Council?'

'Among others... The place must have some strategic significance, but I've never worked out what.'

Jomdek's face suddenly lit up with proud realization. 'And that's where the transduction beam is directed!'

14.On its pad, the cube turned blue.

'That'll be the beam now,' said Hofwinter. 'It seeks out the cerebral ident.i.ty of the subject on the sealed orders.

Rather like looking for a lynchet in a thatchpile, but it can needle out one brain pattern in a population of several billion.'

Concern was starting to cloud Jomdek's face again, or it could have just been stupidity. 'But the orders are secret.'

'It may be cla.s.sified,' complained Hofwinter, 'but who'll get the blame if it goes wrong, eh? I first kept tabs on cla.s.sified accessions in this bureau when Mazwen the Last was in office. Only four more years in this post and I get my millennial service boon. And in all that time nothing has ever gone amiss.'

He looked for something brittle to break for luck, but found only reinforced carbon, silicon and mica dust.

An alarm rattled the confines of the office. The cube turned flame red. Hofwinter swallowed hard on a suddenly dry throat. The G.o.d of Fate has to be tempted. Like the fish in the icy rivers of Gallifrey, it takes only the juiciest of bait.

'What's happened?' said the captain. 'Have we been found out?'

Hofwinter began to flick the instruments on the port. 'It's gone,' he croaked.

'What's gone?'

'The beam. Something's cut across it. Cut it off. We've lost the subject.'

Jomdek was confused. 'So what do we do?'

'Nothing!' snapped Hofwinter. 'We merely initiated the sealed orders as instructed. We do nothing and know nothing!'

Where are you going?

'Home. I'm going home,' she thought.

Dorothee was drifting without sense of touch or inner feeling. Just her thoughts cut loose. She had to hang on to them or they'd unravel off into the darkness. The same way her body and her bike had gone.

Where's home? came the other voice. came the other voice.

'Earth. England. No, now it's France. Paris.'

Better make up your mind, hadn't you?

'Paris,' she insisted.

You reckon you'll see that again?

The interrogator's voice was hard and mocking. Another woman's voice locked inside her own thoughts. It was turning her thoughts over and tras.h.i.+ng them. They were al she had. 'What do you want?' she thought.

You tel me.

'I want to go home!'

And that's Paris, is it?

'Yes!'

15.Liar!

'No one calls me that.'

No one calls you anything.

'You just called me liar.'

Must be your name then.

There's no chance to think when someone's already in your thoughts. 'Fine. Cal me Liar,' protested Dorothee .

'What about you? What do you call yourself?'

Don't you know?

Dorothee could feel the grin in the voice. A childish laugh, cruel the way only kids can be. It both frightened her and was comfortingly familiar.

I'm your worst enemy. I'm just behind you, it sneered. it sneered.

'Where? Who are you?'

Tell me who you want me to be.

'What I want is to go home!'

Tough!

'Jesus crukking Christ!'

Dorothee sat on the low bed. The white room was empty and cold. Six blank wal s. No windows or doors.

A noise behind her. She turned round.

The girl was in black, a plain black bodysuit and boots. So black, the light found no surface on it. In the shadowless room, the girl's face was lost in dark obscurity. It appeared formless, unfinished or undecided.