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  The floor suddenly trembled beneath them, and everyone in the stunnel chamber simultaneously turned to look at the screen. One of the saucers was spitting purple fire at the pitted grey surface of Charon, and Rachel recognized it as the discharge from an ion cannon. Trust the Black Fleet to be early: she guessed that the base now had about three minutes before the real earthquakes began.

  ‘Done it!’ Felice shouted. ‘The stunnel must resolve now.’ And, confirming her words, the banshee screaming from the stunnel mouth transformed into a mellow hum, while the green and red void beyond the meniscus deepened to turquoise.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here now!’ insisted Chris, appearing behind Rachel. ‘Charon won’t stand a chance with the sort of ordnance they’re bringing to bear on us.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know that!’ She entered the instructions into her station and watched as the simularity – an out-ofscale map of the solar system – showed a straight green line between Charon and Ultima – the stunnel. Meanwhile, in the huge, oval, peristaltic waves of phosphorescent blue pulsed up and down the infinite tunnel.

  Despite the attack, Rachel couldn’t help grinning. After all this time, after all the false starts, they’d finally succeeded. ‘That’s it, everybody. The stunnel’s open and stable. So get your arses into gear!’ Another tremor – a damned sight more violent than the last one – almost knocked them all to the floor. Rachel grabbed the work-station for support. ‘And get a fragging move on!’

  As the fifty-odd colonists filed up to enter the stunnel, Rachel glanced back at the simularity and gasped. The green line suddenly wasn’t connecting with Ultima any more; it was bending back, deep into the solar system, in a sweeping hairpin arc. ‘Belay that! What the hell’s going on?’

  Felice was next to her. ‘We die if we stay here, Rachel.’

  ‘But the other end -’ The stunnel’s exit terminus was hurtling back through the solar system, past Neptune, Uranus, Saturn...

  Chris added his support to Felice. ‘Any destination is better than here.’ He pointed at the ‘scope screen, where all three saucers were firing incandescent streams of orange light at Charon: photon impellers, capable of reducing a planetary crust to ionized plasma within minutes.

  ‘We’ll end up as frozen corpses floating in space if we go through now,’ Rachel protested, but she knew that their current predicament had only two solutions: possible death or certain death. And even the slightest chance was better than being buried under a million tonnes of molten rock.

  ‘The stunnel’s being dragged off course by something,’ said Felice thoughtfully. ‘And that something might be a safe haven.’

  ‘And it might be the invaders’ base,’ Chris pointed out. To drag a stunnel away from its destination required a massive source of electromagnetic, gravitic and subspace radiation, all in one handy package. Mankind hadn’t created anything like that, so the invaders were the logical culprit. Not only were they bombing Charon to hell, but they were grabbing the survivors into the bargain. But what choice did they have?

  The explosion that erupted outside the main doors threw them all to the floor: Rachel didn’t like to think what the surface of the planet looked like now. As she pulled herself to her feet, she realized that only the osmidium walls and doors which enclosed the sealed stunnel chamber were protecting them from the inferno which Rachel’s instruments told her now engulfed the base.

  ‘We haven’t got a choice,’ said Chris, echoing her thoughts. ‘If we don’t go through now, we’re all going to die.’

  That was it. Only one option. ‘Into the stunnel, everyone!’ she called over to the colonists. It was stable, but that was all that could be said for it. The other end was currently somewhere in the asteroid belt, passing by Ceres on its route to who knew where.

  Rachel, Felice and Chris watched as her fellow colonists filed through the pulsing blue corridor into subspace. But where would they materialize? Was she saving them from one death, only to condemn them to another?

  Another tremor. Rachel picked up her rucksack and made her way towards the stunnel, supporting herself by swinging from work-station to work-station. She looked at the ‘scope screen as she passed: it was a square metre of interference, the aerials of the ‘scope having disintegrated along with most of the surface of the planet. The temperature had risen to unbearable levels over the last few minutes, and Rachel knew that Charon’s life expectancy could be measured in seconds. With relief, she saw that the last of the colonists was passing through the meniscus – but where were they all going?

  ‘Come on!’ Rachel grabbed Felice’s arm and pulled her towards the stunnel entrance, impressed that she had stayed her ground. Felice was followed by Chris, and they all ran towards the blinding glare of the entrance.

  As Rachel prepared to enter the stunnel, she gave the chamber a final once over – and saw Dortmun, unconscious under a toppled work-station. Rachel was horrified; she hadn’t even realized that the woman hadn’t been with them.

  ‘Dortmun!’ she yelled.

  ‘Leave her!’ shouted Felice. ‘We’ve got to go.’

  ‘No,’ said Chris, running over to the prone woman.

  ‘Chris!’ shouted Felice, but her protest was cut short as part of the ceiling cracked open into a wide crevice. The osmidium shell of the stunnel chamber was buckling; the molten rock that was all that remained of Charon would come raining down in moments. One of the stations burst into flames as a slab of ceiling hit it, and that was the last thing that Rachel saw as she dragged Felice into the stunnel to their unknown destination.

  No, not quite the last thing. The last thing was Chris, sweeping Erica Dortmun into his arms and running towards them. And then she was through the subspace meniscus and into the stunnel, and whatever lay beyond.

  A second later, the chamber was crushed like a wet cardboard box as a billion tonnes of lava pressed in from all sides, obliterating the last bastion of subspace research in the solar system. Charon had reclaimed its own, its surface now a radioactive and roiling mass of liquid metals, shot through with the faintest traces of osmidium alloy. For thirty thousand years, the wafer-thin inhabitants of cold Pluto had crawled across the frozen ammonia surface, edging their crystalline bodies cell by cell towards the thin veins of methane ice that they called food. Distant Charon was nothing but a dim light in the dark sky, glowing with the reflected light of a sun too far away to be of any use.

  When Charon ignited like a new star, its fatal radiation washed over the day-side surface of Pluto. The population died en masse, screaming as their delicate bodies ruptured and boiled along with the ammonia and methane. It took less than a second for the ancient culture to become nothing more than ionized gases, leaving nothing to mark their passing.

  Their mission accomplished – Charon was nothing more than a globe of radioactive slag – the three saucers spun out of orbit and headed back towards Venus for refuelling and new orders. They had completed their mission; they were now the undisputed masters of subspace, Earth, the solar system...

  And, when they claimed the GodEngine, they would be the masters of the galaxy as well.

  Chapter 4

  The giant steps of the causeway led the Jacksonville expedition from the high parapet to the suburbs of the City of the Sad Ones; the vast staircase, cut into the amber of the huge bowl, was inclined at a comfortable angle towards what Roz Forrester hoped was their long-deserved rest. Okay, so she was an Adjudicator, combat-trained to deal with most things; she was also human, and totally exhausted. Then again, she could still be impressed, and the walk to Ikk-ett-Saleth was definitely impressive.

  The walls that towered above them on either side of the causeway were decorated with detailed carvings, illustrating what she could only guess were episodes from the history of the city. At the top of the stairs, it had shown the founding of Ikk-ett-Saleth, with hundreds of caravans ferrying thousands of Martians through the labyrinth of caves and tunnels beneath the surface – from the look of them, they
were natural caves and tunnels; this was well before the extensive tunnel network had been established. Twenty steps later, the pictures showed the area around the aerothermal geyser being carved out with sonic cannons; the pyramid was built some little time – about five steps – later.

  As the illustrations recorded the growth of the city, Roz compared them with what lay before them at the foot of the staircase. At the height of its glory, Ikk-ett-Saleth had borne no relation to the collection of uninspiring low hexagons that now made up the majority of the city; half a million years ago, if the carvings were to be believed, it had been a place of stunning architectural beauty, with spires and minarets reaching to the very roof of the cavern, almost touching the inlaid symbol.

  ‘A tragic loss,’ muttered Esteban, gazing at the same picture, his voice reverential. ‘T’Ran-ikk-Liis – the Dwellings of Triumphant Majesty – was the largest and most glorious city in the Northern hemisphere, but a tactical strike with a burrowing thermonuclear warhead soon put paid to that. Still, modern Ikk-ett-Saleth is a perfect example of Giis-lon dynasty architecture – dull as that might appear. Those hexagonal dwelling units afford optimum space while -’

  ‘Are we liable to see any of the older cities before we reach the Pole?’ Roz interrupted, not really that interested, but even less interested in hexagonal dwelling units.

  ‘Wait until we reach Sstee-ett-Haspar; I have not seen it myself, but according to Professor Furniss’s research it is truly magnificent,’ he sighed.

  Roz smiled; Esteban’s obsession with Martians and their culture counterpointed her own feelings about aliens. Only her travels with the Doctor had tempered her xenophobia, but she still felt the occasional twinge of unease in the company of extra-terrestrials. Then again, the Martians she had met at Benny’s wedding had been charm personified, and, in a way, she was hoping to meet more of the race – after a good night’s sleep, though. Travel really does broaden the mind, she concluded. Then she thought about the TARDIS, and wondered how much more travelling she would be able to do without it.

  ‘This is the pivotal period in the city’s history,’ Esteban pointed out, and Roz returned her attention to the murals. Wars, alliances, famines, plagues; all of them had cropped up in the carvings up till now; half a million years of history, condensed into a series of detailed pictures which encapsulated each episode in the lengthy and often dramatic saga of the city.

  But ten thousand years ago – and currently alongside them in mural form – a civil war had begun, and the illustrations changed dramatically and accordingly. The carnage was like nothing the city had faced before; through the murals, Roz observed the city burning after bombardment from the Proud Warriors, the bacteriological backlash, the execution of the Eight-Point Table... and then the rebuilding – this time, as Ikk-ett-Saleth – in the disappointing form that lay before them. All of this accompanied by Esteban’s ongoing travelogue.

  ‘These pictures are horrid,’ squealed Carmen Santacosta, and Roz shook her head; the Goddess knew how the singer would react if she was faced with a real crisis. She turned to Esteban.

  ‘Did the city ever recover from the civil war?’

  ‘No. According to the oral traditions, it lost its soul after the Eight-Point Table was executed. A city without a soul; one of the saddest traditions in Martian culture,’ he said sadly.

  Like the Overcities, she thought bitterly. Their souls were sold for material gain, leaving the heart of the Empire empty and meaningless. Something that she would eventually deal with. Then again, if she was stranded in the twenty-second century, what hope did she have of reaching her own time again?

  Esteban suddenly frowned, and seemed to have read her thoughts. ‘Martians and humans have so much in common,’ he sighed. ‘Things could have been so different.’ He fell silent, and remained that way until they finished their descent.

  As they reached the foot of the staircase, Roz was able to appreciate the city better. What there was of it. The majority of Ikk-ett-Saleth was devoted to parkland: beds of orange lichen, adorned with copses of lilac shrubbery and skeletal red trees. But there was still room for thousands of clusters of hexagons, red-stone buildings laid out in what, at first glance, appeared to be no particular pattern. But closer inspection revealed that there was a pattern; one of aesthetic beauty that spoke directly to the soul. Roz was pleased; it proved that, unlike the city, she still had one. And it reinforced the feelings that she had had about the Martians at Benny’s wedding, feelings that the Doctor had reinforced earlier; they were creatures whose passion for warfare was only matched by their passion for beauty.

  The staircase finally ended, depositing them in one of the parks. Roz noted that the lichen was spongy beneath her feet; a pleasant relief after the stone steps, the stone tunnels, the dusty surface... She knew that she could hardly keep her eyes open, she was so exhausted.

  ‘We should head for the nearest buildings,’ advised the Doctor, pointing at a group of the red-brick hexagons about three hundred metres away. ‘And then bed down for the night.’ And it was night; the output from fungal sun had diminished considerably since they had commenced their descent, and it was now a dull, orangy glow that populated the city with deep, dark shadows.

  ‘Although one of us should keep watch, naturally.’ The Doctor nodded at Madrigal, who nodded back. Roz was puzzled; hadn’t it been the Doctor who had assured them that Ikk-ett-Saleth was completely deserted? Perhaps he knew something that they didn’t.

  ‘Keep watch against what?’ asked McGuire, saying what she had thought. ‘Are you suggesting that there are still Greenies about?’ He looked around the park suspiciously.

  Esteban interrupted any reply that the Doctor might have been composing. ‘From my researches, this city was definitely abandoned, Antony. An expedition came here in 2115 – they didn’t find anything.’

  ‘It may have been deserted forty years ago, but what about now?’ asked Santacosta. ‘It could have been reoccupied since then.’

  The Doctor coughed. ‘Excuse me, but you are all very tired. With Madrigal on watch, we can all be tucked up safely in our beds without a care. If any Ice Warriors do turn up – and that really is very unlikely – I am sure that we can deal with it.’

  Taking the lead, he set off for the nearest hexagonal dwelling, jauntily resting his umbrella over his shoulder. ‘Off to the land of Nod,’ he muttered.

  Roz couldn’t be quite as nonchalant; from virtually promising that Ikk-ett-Saleth was deserted, the Doctor was definitely backtracking. Was the city abandoned, or did the Doctor – as usual – know something that he wasn’t telling them? Ever since the destruction of the TARDIS, he had been distant, distracted, as if the problems of mere human beings were below him.

  Deciding that she was so tired that she didn’t really care whether she slept with an Ice Warrior or not, she followed him into the hexagonal dwelling. She hoped that even the Doctor would benefit from a good night’s sleep.

  While studying for her doctorate, Felice had experienced most forms of matter transmission – Travel-Mat, Transit, stunnel – but this was nothing like any of them. With them, you were there, and then you were somewhere else, end of story. Felice had never been one of those people who found the concept of having her body reduced to elementary particles anything to worry about; understanding the science that lay behind the technology took the mystery out of it.

  This was different.

  The moment that Rachel had dragged her through the weakened subspace meniscus and into the stunnel, Felice had known that something was wrong, and her entry into subspace had proved it.

  Immediately she had been immersed in the dimension, she had felt as if her hands and feet were at the ends of million-kilometre-long arms and legs, her body smeared across subspace – but that was not what it was meant to be like! From her degree and doctorate in physics, she knew that human beings couldn’t survive for more than about fifteen minutes in the warped reality of subspace before their molecules flew apart, bu
t she no longer had any sense of time; she could have been in subspace for minutes – or hours, come to that. All she knew was that this wasn’t what she had expected.

  Perhaps she was trapped in subspace. Perhaps they were all trapped. She laughed; or rather she tried to laugh. But since her mouth felt as if it were sixteen light-years wide, and her brain had no control over her body – a peculiar quirk of subspace meant that the human body was in stasis but the consciousness remained active – it was a rather pointless exercise. But the possibility remained: had they escaped the destruction of Charon, only to suffer a lingering disintegration in subspace?

  Actually, that possibility was far too acute; Felice couldn’t see anything, she couldn’t hear anything, she couldn’t feel anything... For all she knew, Chris’s dissociated body could have been floating next to her, or even mingling with her, atom to atom. Ironic, she thought: what if the closest they ever got to sex ended up as a quirk of subspace physics?

  She suddenly sensed a change, a twisting, nauseating change that rushed along her infinitely long limbs before exploding in her brain like a thunderbolt. Felice discovered that she had eyes again, and those eyes revealed that she was hurtling down a tunnel of light towards a blindingly bright destination, a rainbow maelstrom that pulled and tugged at her barely corporeal form.

  And she wasn’t alone. She didn’t know how, but she could sense the others alongside her, spectral figures falling towards what she assumed was the other end of the stunnel. But her relief at the presence of her fellow survivors was tainted by a sickening foreboding. Had the stunnel resolved properly? If so, what would they find there? The vacuum of space, the inner sanctum of the invaders? What was waiting for them?

  She hit the incandescent exit point of the stunnel.

  Every particle of her being – and Felice knew the scientific name of each and every single one of them – turned inside out and collided, transforming her from a vague subspace shadow into -