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Human Nature - Chapter Six

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A Deal with God

Alexander knocked on the door of the bathroom. 'Bernice, have you drowned?'

There came a satisfyingly loud splash from inside and then a tired mutter: 'Fell asleep. What time is it?'

'Nearly midnight. I've made up the back bedroom for you. Would you care for a cup of cocoa or perhaps some Scotch?'

'A double, thanks. I'll be out in a minute.' When she came out, white, soggy and wrapped in a rather good silk kimono that Alexander had given her, he was waiting in the parlour with two glasses and a bottle.

She poured and they clinked glasses. 'So, may I ask as to the nature of your current troubles?' Alexander began, rolling the whisky around his mouth. 'You're proving to be a most exciting tenant. You are not, I take it, actually down from college?'

'No,' Bernice admitted. 'I'm not. Do you want the vague, generalized, believable version, or the absolutely ridiculous specific one?'

'Oh, the latter, definitely. I've been following the affairs of Constance and her like long enough to know that, once embarked upon, rebellion is a positive opiate. I mean that in two ways. Firstly, it's addictive. Secondly, it opens up whole worlds full of new dreams. Do tell me yours.'

'Right.' And, without sparing a detail, Bernice told the whole story of her life and adventures with the Doctor, right up to the present. Alexander's eyes grew wider, and his whisky consumption grew faster, every moment. 'And so, here I am,' she concluded, with a big smile. 'Do you know, I've always wanted to tell somebody all that. I'm sure I'm breaking some sort of rule. What do you think?'

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'This knight of yours - '

'No, no, I mean, do you believe me?'

'Do you really want me to?'

Bernice finished off the last glass and reached for another bottle with a swift wipe of her lips on the back of her hand. 'Yes. Rather terribly, actually.'

'Well, what proof can you offer me? What happens in the next ten years?'

Bernice shook her head. She'd anticipated the question. 'I don't think I ought to talk about that. Tell you what, wait a minute.' She hopped up and rummaged around in her pack. She returned carrying her portable history unit and handed it to Alexander.

'There.'

He stared at it then punched a few buttons. 'Now how does this work? There's a roller behind this little frame, operated by clockwork, and the words on it appear...' He fell silent. After a moment, he gently put the unit down on the table, and stared at it.

Then he started to laugh. The laugh grew bigger and bigger. He leapt up and swung Bernice around the room in a happy arc. 'It's true! It's true! You're from the future!'

'Yes, yes...' Bernice found that she was laughing too.

'Now put me down. We still have dizziness in the future.' 'Oh dear...' They slumped into armchairs. 'So, these people who are after you - are they from the future too?'

'Yes. Or at least, I think so. I think they've taken the object, the Pod, which could make my friend himself again.'

'Well, we must try and get it back. I could raise quite a good gang, if I tried.'

'No, you mustn't do that. These people have weapons which could level this place. We need to sneak up on them.'

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'Understood.' Alexander crunched up his face with joy, hanging on to his chair like a boy on a roundabout. 'This is fascinating! What a strange predicament your friend's got into. Why do you think he wanted to be human?'

'I'm not sure. I think he wanted a change, to have a holiday from being him.'

'Maybe there were things that he could only do if he was human. You describe him as a friend. Are you and he husband and wife?'

Benny laughed. 'No. He doesn't really do that sort of thing. He surrounds himself with female company, mind you, quite innocently.'

'And male company?'

'Occasionally. Equally innocently.'

'Well, perhaps he wants to fall in love.'

'He couldn't have thought of that when he did it,' Benny protested uncertainly. 'But you might be right.'

'Oh, I usually am,' muttered Alexander. 'God, I'm in danger of keeping you up all night. Listen, tomorrow the three of us, you, me and Constance, will go and find this Pod thing, all right?'

'Does Constance have a young man?'

'Well, my chum Richard says so. Not him, but I think there are a few in the Labour group who worship her.'

'Oh. Odd.'

'Hmm?'

'Nothing.' Benny got up and stretched. 'I'll see you in the morning. I gather that I should put a chair up against my door.'

'Dear girl, why should you?'

'Constance said that you believed in free love.'

'Not with those in distress, loved one! Or those in mourning.'

'Yes...' said Benny. 'Good night.'

After she"d gone, Alexander reached for the history unit again, turning it over and over in his hands. 'My God,' he whispered, 'I'm glad I lived to see this.'

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A little circle of boys had gathered around Timothy's bed, staring down at the body.

They'd tucked him in and told the Prep master that he was feeling ill. Then they'd turned off his bedside lamp and prepared the cold body for bed, folding him into his pyjamas like they were dressing a flaccid, awkward mannequin.

Anand had been locked in a chest and declared ill also. Phipps stared at Hutchinson's stoic features. 'We can't go on with this, Captain,' he said. 'They'll want him for OTC tomorrow. They'll come and see him.'

'Died in his sleep?' suggested Merryweather. 'They'll see the rope marks on his neck, for Christ's sake! And what about the darkie?'

'You could kill him too,' murmured Alton, seemingly amused by the whole business.

Hutchinson glanced up from the body, as if woken from a dream. 'I don't know what you're all talking about,' he said. 'He'll be fine in the morning.'

'Hutchinson,' Merryweather hissed, 'he's dead!'

'He's not dead,' Hutchinson fixed the younger boy with a glare, 'until I say so. Any objections?'

Phipps put a hand to his mouth. He'd been looking ill all evening. 'No, Captain,' he mumbled.

The others replied the same, one by one.

'Good,' said Hutchinson. 'That's decided. I suggest we all retire.'

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Somewhere outside of time, in the white void. 'Who are you?' Timothy asked Death.

Death glared at him. 'I'm the sister of Time and Pain and several more. We're the dreams of Time Lords. We leak out across the universe, and occasionally somebody like the Timewyrm gives us form. Certain Time Lords, in their nightmares, or in states like you're in, make sordid little deals with us. We might even take them on as our Champions. We make them pay a price.'

'Does that mean I'm dead?'

'Don't ask that too loudly. I'm waiting here for some- body particular. I don't have to deal with you. Do you know what a respiratory by-pass system is?'

'No.'

'That's all right then. You've just got one.'

Tim woke up and reached for his neck. He pulled the collar of his pyjamas aside and found the red marks where the rope had bitten him.

'I'm alive!' he gasped. Then the gasp became a shout. 'I'm alive!'

Phipps was the first one to wake, smothering a scream with his bedclothes when he saw Timothy sitting up in bed.

The others ignited their bedside lamps, and, seeing the - miracle that had occurred, ran to surround the boy again. , 'But you were dead!' Merryweather cried. 'You'd stopped breathing, there was no pulse!'

'I died,' Timothy told him. 'And then I came back.'

Hutchinson pushed his way through the crowd and glared at Timothy. Timothy met his gaze evenly.

After a moment, the Captain turned away. 'As I said,' he murmured. 'A lot of fuss about nothing. Don't forget it's OTC tomorrow, Dean. Make a man of you.'

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The others hesitantly followed Hutchinson's example and returned to their beds, many of them still staring at Timothy as they did so.

After the lights had all been extinguished again, Tim flexed his fingers experimentally, staring at his young hands. 'Too late...' he whispered.

Serif opened his eyes. 'I don't believe it!' he whispered. He was in a tiny, white-brick cell, with a solid metal door. One small barred window looked out on the darkness. The only light was that which washed under the door. On the floor in front of him sat a tray with some bread and cheese on it.

He jumped to his feet and hammered on the door. After a few minutes, a tiny slat at eye-level slid open. 'Oi,' said a voice. 'Be qui-et. Silencio. Get my meaning? You'll wake the other prisoners.'

'You - ' Serif rammed his hand at the little gap, but the slat slammed shut again before he could touch whoever was outside.

It was inconceivable, but somehow the ex-Time Lord had outsmarted him. He turned back to the interior of the cell and paced up and down, considering his options. He didn't carry any of the extravagant weaponry that the others favoured. If they'd only given him some meat...

Serif finally came to a bitter conclusion. He concentrated for a moment, then pulled off one of his gloves.

He put the revealed chalk-white hand up to the window and concentrated again. It took an hour, but, finally, Serif was convinced that he'd released the correct molecular messages into the air. Directing them would take longer still.

He just hoped that Greeneye wouldn't smirk about it.

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Sergeant Abelard carefully closed the partition and wandered back behind the desk of the small police station.

'You've been back and forth to that door all night, Sarge,' said Constable Bickerston. 'And you've been on the go all day. Shouldn't you be getting home?'

'No, Alfie, I'm not a happy halibut. Army lads'll be through here any time now. I want to know what's going on. We might be at war tomorrow.'

'War?' Bickerston looked up from his newspaper. 'What, you reckon it was the Germans did that to the hospital today?'

'Germans, perhaps. Austrians or Russians, more likely. You didn't see what that gas did, Alfie. Most of the patients and staff in one of the wards just vanished, melted like they were made of chocolate on a hot day. But it was the ones at the edges that had the worst of it. There were bits and pieces of them everywhere. I've persuaded Geoffrey down at the newspaper not to mention it tomorrow, not until we can find all the relatives. But there'll be no holding him if the news gets out to London. What with that, that business at the pub and our anarchist down in the cells...'

'You reckon they're all connected?'

'Well, I'll be damned if it's a coincidence, a gas bomb, a violent robbery and an assault on the same day. That, what, triples the crime rate for April in one go? No, I think we've got our man, but it'll be down to the Army how they treat him. I hope they - oh, hello, miss, what can we... do for you?'

A nurse had wandered into the police station, carrying a red balloon. Abelard and the constable exchanged glances.

'Excuse me, officers,' the nurse began, 'but I was wondering if you might have chanced upon a friend of mine. He's a tall, rather sinister gentleman, in a large hat.'

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'Are you a relative, miss?' asked Abelard.

'Why, yes, I'm his daughter.'

'Come now, miss, you can't expect us to swallow that.'

The nurse laughed and her voice changed. 'You said something funny. I'm tired of talking in that stupid way, so I'm going to talk like me now, all right?'

'That's absolutely fine, miss. Would you care to sit down for a while? Perhaps we could have a little chat.' Abelard opened the partition and showed the nurse towards the row of chairs that ran along the edge of the room. 'Now, were you in the hospital this afternoon when... when something awful happened?'

'Yes!' The nurse hopped up and down, smiling at him. 'I was because I did it!'

'Did you really, miss?' Abelard reached for his note-book, suddenly wondering if he ought to put in a call to the constables from Berridge, who were still helping to clear up at the hospital. No, this girl was obviously round the bend. 'What was it that you did, then, exactly?'

The nurse let go of her balloon, which floated up to the ceiling, and unbuttoned her cuff. She showed Abelard her wrist. 'Watch! Nothing up my sleeve, just like a real magician. And now... ta-dah!'

The inside of her wrist split open like a piece of meat on a butcher's rack. There was no blood, just a black capsule that plopped neatly out into her hand. The wrist swept shut again.

Abelard stepped back, astonished. 'How - '

'Now, here's the clever part...' The nurse began to unscrew the cap on the capsule.

'Sarge!' shouted Bickerston. 'That's the gas, it must be! Stop her!'

Abelard dived forward and wrenched the black capsule out of the nurse's grip. He stared at it for a moment. She glared at him, her hands on her hips. 'Oh!'

'For goodness' sake, hurry up, can't you, Aphasia?' August wandered in and shot Abelard through the head.

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As the body slid down the wall, he turned his gun towards Bickerston, but the constable had already dived under the counter, grabbing the telephone as he went. 'Balloon,' Aphasia sighed, recovering her gas capsule from the bloody wreck on the wall. 'Behind the desk.'

The balloon swept down from the ceiling and dropped below desk level, from where the sounds of frantic dialling issued.

'Hoff's back at the dome,' August told Aphasia. 'Have you seen Greeneye?'

'No, but I got a message from him.' The dialling had stopped, the receiver slammed back down again, and now the sound was a violent thrashing and muffled shouting. 'Did he say where he was?'

'No, but he said he had a new plan.' The sounds from behind the desk grew quiet, and then stopped. The balloon floated back to Aphasia's grasp.

'That's all we need,' August sighed. 'If it's anything like the last one, we'll all get injured this time.'

The telephone behind the desk began to ring. 'Go and get Serif, would you please?' August asked. 'Oh, and kill anybody else you find.'

As Aphasia ran through into the interior, he opened up the partition and squatted down. He nudged the body of the constable aside and plucked the receiver from his fingers.

'Hello? Yes. Yes, Major, I see. Very good. All right. See you then.' He replaced the receiver just as a ragged alcoholic scream came from one of the cells.

Serif stalked out into the duty area, Aphasia skipping behind him merrily. He glanced at the carnage against the wall. 'What took you so long?' he mumbled, and carried straight on out of the doorway.

August smiled at Aphasia. 'He could at least have said thank you.'

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They marched up into the forest to the dome, Serif keeping his distance ahead of August and Aphasia.

Hoff was looking up at the moon, idly picking twigs off the trees and eating them. He spun round as Serif stamped into the clearing, levelling his gun at the dark figure.

'Don't be so melodramatic,' Serif grumbled, opening the dome.

'Look who's talking.' Hoff smiled at August as he and Aphasia arrived. 'Should have left him there. Any problems?'

'No, except that I answered a communications link to an approaching military convoy. Quite wisely, they've come to the conclusion that events at the hospital were somewhat extraordinary and are on their way to investigate.'

Hoff shrugged. 'Could nuke them. One mini-missile would do it.'

'Yes,' August tapped his chin, 'but that would quickly bring the whole country down on us. At the moment, we're free to search for the Pod, but things would really slow down if this becomes a battle zone. That, and Greeneye's fears could come true. The Time Lords might notice a major conflict. No, I think we should just seal the place off. What have you got?'

'Heat barrier?'

'Bit showy.'

'Fear barrier?'

'We want to minimize panic and confusion, not create it'

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'Time barrier, then. Wall of temporal displacement. Two layers, each with time on one side a second earlier than on the other. You can walk through one from either side, but not through both. Anybody short of a Time Lord who tries to go through, it's like they're walking through a wall. If they keep trying, all sorts of bizarre effects start happening, many of them fatal.'

'Good.'

'Glad you escaped the hospital.' Hoff patted Aphasia on the back, and the nurse's body went flying, landing on the humus a few feet away like a thrown paper dart. Hoff laughed. 'Sorry. Should have realized that body wouldn't be very dense.'

'Well, I'm getting rid of the ugly thing!' Aphasia yelled. She leapt to her feet and ran into the dome.

'Invaluable as always, Hoff,' said August, following her. 'Oh, and could you check the security systems on the dome? This search of ours is going on far too long.'

'Perhaps Greeneye's found something.' August sighed. 'Perhaps cats will fly.'

So it was that in the early hours of the morning, a thin linear ripple appeared in the air on the other side of the hill, an impossible shifting of reality that gave off an atomic twinkle. It arced right over the town like a rainbow, and then fanned out, expanding in a circle to form a dome.

Then another layer swept out in the same way, following it exactly.

The walls of it swept round the outskirts of the town, slicing straight through trees and foliage, creating marks in wood that would still be visible decades later.

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A flock of pigeons were caught by it, and one of them spiralled to earth, its wing spinning off on the other side of the airknife.

An owl, hovering over a meadow in wait for prey, sensed the thing coming, and ceremoniously flapped town-wards to escape it.

Those that were awake to see the dome's sparkling progress, at the farms and dairies and post offices, thought that it was the aurora and smiled at it. It completed its arc, sparkled again for a moment, and vanished.

The town was cut off from the world.

The first person to notice was Mr Hodges, whose horses suddenly stopped and whinnied in the middle of the road in the darkness before dawn. He got down from the cart and quietened them, and told them that they had to get to town for market, give the stallholders time to unload the produce. But they wouldn't go any further.

Hodges took his cap off and scratched his head. It was - like there was something in the road that was scaring them. He knew that sometimes even the smallest animal in its path would cause a horse to startle. He took his walking stick from the seat and walked forward, knocking it along the ground to scare off anything that was lurking in the bushes. A fox maybe, or one of Mrs Deel's dratted dogs. In the back of his mind was the thought that perhaps it was the man who'd attacked that saucy young thing Bernice. But Hodges was a practical man, and he didn't get scared by unseen things in hedgerows.

The stick hit something with a resounding chime. Hodges stepped back, and swung it again, struggling to comprehend the idea that... there was a big sheet of glass here? He reached out a hand and touched it, unable to see anything. His fingertips passed through something, a light chill, and then encountered a smooth surface.

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He leapt back. A memory had heaved itself into his, mind: his Kitty, dead for ten years now, holding up little Albert for him to see. Everything had been clear, like a waking dream, but it was fading now... He looked round, horrified, expecting to see St Peter or someone in the dark roadway, but all that there was, was the approaching dawn and the distant cry of lambs.

Shaking, Hodges reached out for the barrier again.

Morning. Dr Smith woke at the sunshine through his curtains and winced at the pain in his finger.

He got dressed and wandered into the washroom. The events of the night before seemed like a nightmare. If he'd had a whole little finger on his left hand, he'd have written them off as that. What sort of burglar bites the end of your finger? He'd ask Joan to check the bandages today. Probably a good sign that it was still hurting. He stared at his face in the mirror then felt the stubble on his chin. Holding his damaged hand awkwardly away from the sink, he managed to wedge the pot of shaving foam in a comer under the mirror and worked up a useful amount of foam one-handed. He wasn't going to see Joan with a rough chin.

Oh, and he'd told bloody Rocastle that he was going to go to his OTC meeting today. Well, he could just manage without him. It wasn't in his contract to work on Saturdays. He shaved, being even more careful than usual with the big cut-throat razor. He remembered his first real shave as a boy, the barber on Espedair Street who smelt of tobacco, and kept talking about running away to sea, for some reason. His skin had felt wonderful afterwards, but very hot and red, and he'd woken up the next day with a face covered in acne. That always happened, his dad had told him. The girls would understand. Well, the Duchess - Verity - had, at any rate.

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He splashed some water on his face, wiping the foam away one-handed.

He pulled out the big metal tub from the cupboard and filled it with jugs of hot water in the lounge, picking up the local newspaper from the doormat on his way into the kitchen. There was no word about the hospital at all. They must have gone to press before it happened.

Odd. He clenched his teeth and glared at the absence. It was as if gears inside him were trying to engage but missing their wheels, an inch up the hill and then always a jerk back. This must be what Sherlock Holmes felt like when he was thinking about a problem... Good, actually, if Conan Doyle would write a couple more stories now, he could ask The Strand whatever fee he liked. Or perhaps this was just the common feeling of people now, that they were bloody missing something.

A finger, actually. That was the whole of it; he was still a bit shocked and the emptiness inside was a measure of that. A man in love shouldn't be blue.

A man in - God, enough time for foolishness later. Bath'd be good for shock.

He threw the paper across the room and dropped his dressing-gown over the back of a chair. Gingerly, he stepped into the hot water and, settling into it, sighed.

He watched the ripples of his arrival flow from his body to the sides of the metal bath, then bounce back again.

Yes, this mood was probably something biological, a funk caused by losing one's finger and all the fingery functions associated with it.

'Oh well,' he sighed. 'It could have been worse.'

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The dark mood stayed with him as he walked into town, despite the fresh sunlight of the Saturday morning. The market was setting up its stalls, and the Romany Punch and Judy man had parked his cart beside the oak on the green. The ice-cream boy with the cool cabinet on the front of his bicycle pedalled by, crying his wares. Smith stopped at the edge of the market square and folded his arms around himself, looking at all the people.

He could barely remember most of the rubbish that his attacker had come out with. None of it had really made sense, but it had still felt as if the madman was talking directly to him, as if there was some other essential John Smith that one might talk to and yet which John himself wasn't aware of.

He shook his head. Nonsense. He should stop reading lurid books and join in with the boys' sport a bit more. Exercise was the solution, and it might help his aching hand, too.

There was a bakery, Caldwell's, on the other side of the town square. Smith made his way to it, keeping his left hand carefully up against his chest and shaking his head at the barkers for the various stalls as they tried to sell him fish or vegetables or ice. A lot of the stalls seemed very empty this morning, and one or two of the owners were sitting behind empty displays, glancing impatiently at the road that led out of the square.

A wonderful smell of newly baked bread always permeated from Caldwell's, and that was what brought Smith there every morning before work, in search of his regular steak and kidney pie.

Well, that and Fiona. Fiona was a small, red-haired girl who always seemed to be smiling. She was second-in- command at the bakery, beneath the beaming Mr Caldwell, who, when he saw Smith, would always warble something in a thick Arbroath accent that Smith affected to understand. Fiona and Smith said three sentences to each other every day; they were always good sentences.

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Today, she stood patiently waiting as Smith hovered by the pastry counter, his finger moving to and fro over the pies. He was the only customer at the moment, the mid-day rush not having started yet, so he could afford to take his time.

'Not having your usual then, Dr Smith?'

'No. l wanted something... Oh, I don't know, Fiona.' He looked up at her appealingly. 'I keep wondering... I wonder why I wonder why. I wonder why I wonder. I wonder why I wonder why I wonder why I wonder... '

Fiona looked from left to right, went to the door and glanced outside, then went back to Smith and hugged him carefully like you'd hug a teddy bear.

Smith hugged her back, rather abashed, for a moment. Then Fiona brushed down her pinafore and went back behind the counter.

'Do you feel better now?' she asked. 'Yes,' he muttered, amazed. 'And do you know now?'

'Yes,' Smith grinned. 'Could I have a muffin, please?' Munching his muffin, and feeling a little better, Smith headed for the police station. On his way, he passed the gate of the little churchyard of St Anthony's, then paused. He glanced at his watch. He had time.

The inside of the church had that polished smell and the light scent of new flowers on top of it. No vicar about. Smith walked to the altar and looked up at the ribs of the roof that met overhead. His parents had been Presbyterians, very strict and conventional, and thus he'd grown up without religion.

Sometimes, it would be nice to have some.

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So he tried. 'God?' he asked the root. Something in him expected an answer. 'What is it inside me that hurts so?'

'Can I help?' asked a voice from the vestry. A kind looking vicar was smiling at Smith, extending his hands, welcomingly.

Smith glanced ruefully back at the ceiling. 'No,' he muttered. 'I was just a little lost.'

He doffed his cap to the priest and left.

So, what was left was Joan.

He turned the comer beside the police station, hoping to see her there immediately, but instead there was a cluster of police vans, and an ambulance crew carrying stretchers out of the place.

Smith stayed where he was, watching. He should go forward and declare himself, say he had an appointment, ask if there'd been an accident. But he didn't want to get involved.

'Got you!' Joan said, tapping him on the shoulder. 'How is your finger?' She was carrying a picnic hamper.

Smith took one of the handles, resisting the impulse to embrace her. 'Getting better.' He nodded towards the police station. 'I think we've come at a bad time. Shall we go?'

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'Well, no, we cannot. Not really.' Joan frowned at the confusion before them. 'Come on, let's explain ourselves and get it over with.' She led Smith towards the policeman with the most insignia. 'Excuse me. We were due here this morning to give evidence.'

The policeman took their details, and was suddenly interested when Smith revealed his identity. He took a full description of his assailant and went over certain aspects of it with him.

'I think that's right...' Smith pondered. 'Why do you want a description? Can't you see for yourself?'

The policeman flipped his notebook closed. 'I'm sorry, sir, I'm not at liberty to say any more. The station will be fully staffed again by midweek, and if you could return then, I'm sure they'll want to go into the more general matter of the break-in. Good day to you.'

As they walked away, Joan frowned at Smith. 'He's escaped. That's what's happened, isn't it? He must have hurt some policeman doing it.'

'Oh? Oh no!' Smith turned round urgently. 'But what if he - '

Joan took his arm reassuringly. 'Don't worry. Why should he come back? You said yourself that he was a burglar. That sort never visit the same place twice. And if he was one of these Balkan anarchists, he must have picked you quite at random. You've got no connection with middle Europe, have you?'

'No.' Smith still glanced over his shoulder at the ambulance. 'But why are they keeping it a secret? They didn't say anything about the hospital in the paper, either. It's as if something terrible\x92s happening. They won't tell us about it.' He squirmed electrically, wringing the air with his hands. 'I feel like I should do something.'

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'I'm sure they've got it all in hand. If you can do anything, they'll ask you. Now come on, I know the perfect spot for a picnic. Or don't you want to have a picnic with me in a quiet little meadow?' She raised a flirtatious eyebrow.

Smith patted her arm. 'That's one thing I'm still certain about.'

'I am rather glad you lost your finger, as a matter of fact,' Joan told Smith as they negotiated the hamper over the stile. 'I became so uncertain last night, that's why I wanted to drop a note off with your gloves. Suddenly having to look after you made it all so much easier.'

'You did more than look after me. You rescued me.'

'I suppose I did. Do you mind? I'm sure you'd have won the contest eventually.'

'Mind?' Smith helped her down into a meadow filled with dandelions, an old oak tree at its centre. The white seeds of the flowers scampered over the grass in the gentle breeze, and small birds chirped as they swung to and fro in the sky, snatching for the first bees to wake in the approaching summer. 'I owe my life to you. How could anyone mind that?'

'I'm glad you see it that way. I just could not stand to see you being beaten.' She turned aside, leaving the hamper on the stile for a moment. 'The truth is that I'm feeling rather overwhelmed, John. To have a sweetheart again. It's been a long time. I think I have forgotten some of the words.'

'Then close your eyes.' He went to her, and put a hand on each of her shoulders. 'And listen.' He did likewise.

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They stayed like that for a while, listening to the sounds of the birds and the distant calling of animals, and feeling the sun on their faces. Joan held his hand on her shoulder.

'Do you remember now?' he finally asked. 'They're singing this for you.'

'Is this our song, then? The call of birds?'

'Why have only one song?' Smith whispered. 'We can have them all. Do you remember how to be kissed?'

'Yes,' she said, and turned, pulling Smith to her, delighting in the feel of his hand in the small of her back and the complete contact of their bodies and strengths. Their mouths met and played with each other for a long time.

Finally, she let go, laughing. 'I think I've picked up several verses now, as well as the chorus!'

'You're blushing.'

'Am I?' Joan went back to the hamper and gamely picked it up, smiling all over her face. 'Jolly good.'

Bernice woke up refreshed and quickly got dressed, ready for the morning's expedition. She wandered out into the little kitchen of the apartment area, wondering if Alexander was awake yet, and was surprised to see him at the kitchen table, snoring loudly over it. It looked as if he hadn't gone to bed. An empty whisky bottle sat on the table, beside the portable history unit.

'Been there, done that...' Benny murmured, plucking the unit up from the table.

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She froze when she saw what was on the screen.

The Somme: Casualty Lists, Located and Missing.

One name was blinking away on the list beside a map reference, a regiment and an identification number.

Richard Hadleman, Cptn Dd, psn gas.

'Oh my God, Alexander... What have you done?' Benny sat down and deactivated the unit. She reached across to Alexander and gently shook him, waking him up.

He grunted, and then stared at her for a moment, bleary-eyed. 'How dare you?' he asked, gently and rhetorically. 'How dare you allow me to know?'

'I didn't even think about it. I'm so sorry.'

'This war. Can't you do something to stop it?'

'I'm marooned, Alex. I'm virtually helpless. If the Doctor was himself...' Benny stopped, stood up and went to the window. She looked for a moment at all the ordinary things outside, and remembered a dream she'd had that night about mud and armed men. 'No. No, I don't think he'd do anything either.'

Alexander stood up. 'The only reason for this war is so that modern capitalism can destroy the great empires. It's just a great shedding of men who would otherwise need jobs! Isn't anybody going to see that? Isn't anybody going to say that killing half the world over Serbia is insane?'

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'No.' Benny squared her jaw at him, finding herself defending history as if her pet dog had savaged a sheep. 'They all dive in like it's a great relief to them.'

'What if I went to Sarajevo? Shot the man who kills the Archduke?'

'Somebody had a go a few streets earlier. Somebody else would be around the next comer. Besides, it isn't really down to him, is it? As you say, the industrial world is waiting for this war. A way would be found. I'm just sorry you had to find out about it.'

Alexander sat down slowly. 'We could push for a revolution now, declare a workers' state. I always thought it could be real now, that it could be done. But there's no time. Damn it, if only you'd told me earlier! have to get a telegraph, there's only a few weeks before it all starts, have to...' He found that he was staring at his hands, and suddenly burst into great sobs. 'Poison gas? How can they contemplate poison gas?'

Benny went to him and held him. 'I'm so sorry. What have 1 done to you?'

'Did it to myself, loved one,' he said, quietening after a while. 'God, what do I say to Richard when I next see him?'

'There's nothing you can say. I don't want to raise false hopes, but it may not happen. His death, I mean. I don't know what records you were accessing, but if they're ones from the future, then all sorts of things may have happened in between. Time's very big. We don't get to see it all. That's all I can say, really.' Bernice was rapidly starting to feel as if she'd killed Richard Hadleman herself. 'Damn it, Alexander, I wish you hadn't looked.'

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Alexander pulled out a big spotted handkerchief and blew his nose, quickly wiping his tears away, though a hard emptiness remained. 'Why, if I may ask, did you and your friend decide to visit us here?' he asked. 'Are we morbid zoo creatures, on the brink of extinction?'

Benny leant on his shoulder. 'Wasn't my choice. He wanted to come here and suffer a bit, I think.'

The doorbell chimed. Alexander rose and visibly pulled himself together, buttoning his waistcoat. 'I'll have to go through all that business of going to prison,' he muttered. 'I might be too old to be conscripted, though, at least initially. What a winter it's going to be for us all.'

As he wandered downstairs, Benny grabbed the unit, and tapped out a request.

Shuttleworth, Alexander: No records.

She leant back and switched the thing off, hiding it in a deep pocket. She had already broken several laws of time before breakfast. Oh, and ruined somebody's life. She was definitely going to have words with the Doctor about this.

Assuming, of course, the Doctor ever existed again

Constance strode merrily into the room, wearing green velvet pantaloons. 'Put on my bloomers,' she explained. 'And how are you both this morning?'

Benny glanced at Alexander's deathlike face as he stamped back up the stairs. 'We've been better.'

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'So, are we going to go and get this thing of yours from whoever's got it?' Constance asked as Alexander led them through the darkened corridors of the museum, refusing to open any curtains.

'That's the plan. Alexander says he has something to help us,' Benny whispered, wondering why she was whispering. Despite everything, Constance's chirpiness was raising her spirits too.

'I do indeed, loved one!' Alexander boomed, overhearing. He was taking deep breaths, being immensely brave, They'd come to a locked room, for which he produced a vast and assorted bunch of keys to enter.

The room was a musty, wallpapered storage area, containing everything that the museum didn't see fit to display. Benny wouldn't have minded an afternoon in cataloguing the stuff; there were certainly a few pieces of old metal that might have been worth the trouble, but Alexander went straight to a packing case, and pulled out two revolvers and several boxes of ammunition. 'Belonged to an uncle who was at Spion Kop.' He glanced at Constance. 'I would have told your comrades of them, but I didn't want knocks on my door at all hours from maidens wishing to be armed.' He handed her one of the pistols, 'I couldn't face handling one; perhaps you can.'

'We have never used firearms,' Constance told him, slipping the gun into the pocket of her bloomers. 'But I shall not hesitate to do so in defence of my life. I should have you know though, Bernice, that we may commit arson and explosion, but have not murdered anyone. We are sincerely moral campaigners.'

'Fine. One day, I'll learn to talk like that, too,' Benny opined, checking the sights on one of the pistols. She spun it, loaded it and dropped it into a pocket. 'Busy day. Now, shall we - '

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An explosion came from upstairs. Dust detached itself from the roof in a solid layer, then fell.

'Oh my God!' Alexander yelled. 'Quickly, the back door!'

They ran through the museum and Alexander swiftly unlocked the door.

Benny put a hand on his shoulder. 'Calm down. Don't run.' She stepped to a window, and took a quick glance around the frame. The backstreet was empty. 'Now I really wish Ace was here. I should think they're firing some sort of heavy weapon from the field opposite. If we pop down the street and along the hedge, we might be able to get up to the forest without being seen.'

A trail of dark smoke was already drifting from the upstairs rooms. 'How do you think they found you?' asked Alexander, the door handle gripped in his hand.

'Probably a tracer of some kind. Beyond your ken, Alex.'

'Excuse me,' asked Constance. 'Do I take it that we are being fired upon?'

'Yes.' Benny grinned at her over her shoulder. 'Sorry. Happens to me every other week.'

'What an exciting life you must lead.'

'I have considered learning to type. All right, Alex, let me go first. Constance, when I say go, run as fast as your bloomers will carry you.'

Alexander opened the door and Benny hopped through it, glancing quickly left and right, the pistol up to her cheek. The little cobbled backstreet ended in a rough track that ran along the edge of a field. Big hedge, luckily. Behind it, she could see the glint of metal.

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A purple sphere rocketed from the field and burst through an upper window of the museum with a tremendous flammable thump. 'Go!' Benny called. 'Quietly!'

Alexander and Constance ran with her to the hedge, and, crouching, they raced up the muddy track.

Benny had that familiar sick feeling in her stomach again, imagining bullets snickering through the hedge and slicing them up. She really hated combat, hated the people who did this for a living and got close to enjoying it.

Well, there were exceptions, of course. She'd been too cold with Alexander. Despite, no because, he was in the same boat as her. Except he'd only lost a friend.

They ran flat out for a hundred yards, hedge to the left, backyard walls to the right, and broke out, thankfully, into a small copse at the edge of the woodlands. A chalky path wound upwards into the hills, and they followed it for a while, finally collapsing behind an uprooted tree trunk. Through the trees down-slope, a tiny length of fence was visible. In the field beyond it, strange figures were attending a silver cylinder. 'Another two of them,' Benny muttered. 'I wonder who they are?'

'You mean you don't know?' Alexander glanced behind them and forced a smile. 'I say, look, we're not alone on the barricades. It's Mrs Redfern's cat. Wolsey, isn't it?'

Wolsey was staring at the three humans from behind a tree. He had something in his mouth. Constance looked at him nervously. 'Do shoo it away,' she said. 'I can't stand cats. Now, Bernice, shall we find this object of yours, now we are free? Who is it that has it? Some friend who is keeping it safely?'

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Benny sighed. 'I haven't been clear about what I've got you into, have I? I thought that the two who attacked me had got hold of it. I was planning to nick it back off them. Unless the ones with the cannon are a different bunch, then they still must think that I've got it.'

'What is that in your mouth?' Alexander asked, holding out a hand to the cat. Wolsey stepped forward, watching Constance as he came. He dropped the thing in his jaws as he rubbed his head along Alexander's hand.

Alexander picked the muddied scrap up. 'Bit of lace collar.' He glanced up at Constance. 'Just like yours.'

'Goodness, so it is!' Constance turned to look, slipped the pistol from her pocket, pointed it at Wolsey and fired.

The shot just missed, and the cat leapt away, bounding off into the forest.

Benny jumped to her feet, but Constance jumped with her, shoving the revolver into her neck. 'Damned cats,' she muttered. Then she whistled.

From higher up the slope, two armed figures appeared, running quickly downhill and covering Benny and Alexander with their weapons.

'Allow me to introduce August and Hoff,' the being that had been Constance told the others.

'You're -' Benny shook her head in frustration. 'I should have realized.'

'Not at all,' said Greeneye. 'I thought we were getting on rather well. Resolving as a dew and all that. Tell me, do you prefer me as a man or a woman?'

'Do you do amphibians?'

Alexander looked between the three aliens. 'If this is a disguise, what have you done with the real Constance?'

'Stew,' August told him. He clapped Greeneye on the shoulder and took the revolver off him while Hoff disarmed Bernice. 'Now, since it seems that neither of us have the prize we're after, I think you ought to come back to our base with us and have a little chat, don't you?'