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"Oh, yes it is, Noni," said Shonnzi. "You'll soon see why. But I was too young to remember it."

Ace sat up. Very clever, Shonnzi, she thought. This is all for my benefit, isn't it? Beside her, she saw that he had left her another biscuit on a white shell that acted as a plate.

There had been silence for a few moments. Then the younger woman said, "We need a tale, Pekkary. We need the same memories to stay as a crew. If not, we're cut adrift from each other."

"I don't remember it well," said Pekkary. "There are changes each time it is told. The truth mingles into the wishes of what might have been."

Ace watched their shadows settle. She bit gently into the biscuit, which tasted like spiced chutney. Get on with it. Pekkary, she thought. I'm sitting comfortably.

"Once before this time, when we were younger and our thoughts were shared, we flew in a ship between other times and we lived in a different world. The memories of that world are locked away from us, but one day we will find a key to release them.

"Now on one flight our ship was beset by storm and mutiny. It foundered in the oceans of the infinite. Another ship came upon it and seeing its predicament, sought to capture it as booty.

"In that empty ocean between times, where nothing exists outside thought, the two ships rammed and slid together like passing ghosts. They were shattered and lost, and the crew was pitched into the tumult.

"But the Gods, the Menti Celesti, who know all things, sheltered us from the storm in their cupped hands and we awoke on a new land. There we beheld many wonders and works of great mystery. All this world was a great City where Time flowed strangely and was fed by many tributaries. It is the terrible world of future legends where people meet their memories, and the full of their lives is spread before them. In this place, our thoughts were turned in on themselves and were no longer shared. Each one's thoughts were his alone and we despaired."

There was another long silence as the shadows sat unmoving, wrapped in the general gloom.

"That's not the end," complained Shonnzi. "What about the last bit?"

"It's not a bit," said Pekkary. "It's a stanza."

The bulkiest shadow leaned forward and stretched out its arm.

"Reogus Teleem," said the tall shadow of the older woman, "that is your second biscuit."

"He's hungry," said the younger woman" s voice.

They sat and waited. For a moment, Ace imagined she heard the muffled chittering of insect voices. Then Captain Pekkary began again.

"Now the Process that created this world had a cold, dark heart and sought to enslave us. For the cruel Doctor, who was Captain of that other ship, had, by some caprice of the Gods, also come to this world. And by his arts, he had stolen the Future from the Process. There is only Now."

"Now, there is only Now," interrupted Reogus, his mouth full. "You forgot."

"And other details have changed as well," added the younger woman.

Ace saw Pekkary's shadow shift uneasily as he continued.

"The Process fought a great battle with this Doctor and swept him away. But nowhere could it find the stolen Future. It was angry and sought to exact its rage on others.

"Amongst us there was one whose thoughts grew darker. He betrayed us to the Process in exchange for his own freedom. And now we are the monster's slaves. Trapped for ever until the Future is found and we remember."

He paused for a moment and then their voices all intoned, "The tale goes no further. It awaits its ending."

"And you've got most of it wrong," said Ace as she emerged from behind the screen.

10: Daleks Don't Like Finger Biscuits

A cry of rage echoes through the portals of the Watch Tower. Strings of slimy gossamer sing as the shriek plucks at them.

Here, where all the time threads of the City are woven in a plexus, it feels the disturbance. A tremor on the strings in its mind, like the spinning dance of fly trapped in a web.

A missing heartbeat. A lost rattle. The pattern of Time that it plans is disrupted. A stormquake. A dark apparition. The steady, seeping drip