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Vael felt the flame of his anger rise in him. He wanted to blast the Processes now. He should have blasted them long ago, but the act still frightened him. It was reckless; losing control, flying blind, swerving the command frog and slinging it away. Wanting had nothing to do with it.

The Processes reared rampant against each other.

"Your world, it has failed!" cried the younger. "I shall start again! A new Now!"

The older creature slavered with rage. "Wilby, that is the cause. There is no more Now! Now will destroy you!"

"Then we are both destroyed!"

They hissed and spat like steam pistons, but the older Process was slowly driven back to the edge. Finally, it bowed its head and emitted a low groan of defeat.

The creature slithered away on its fins. It crawled over the side of the platform and was gone. The younger Process emitted a husky screech of triumph.

Vael slid from his perch and started to swing his way lower. Another platform passed him, cranking up towards the Process's dais. Two more guards slumped against each other, answering their final summons.

"Your duty, its term is almost ended," croaked the younger Process's voice. It was addressing the Guard Captain. "Recruit fresh forces."

Vael fumbled on the girder and nearly fell. He clung on until his fingernails ached, not daring to move or even think as the platform carried the Captain down past him.

"This is the Process's world!" came the exultant whisper from above. "A new Beginning, where it is reborn!"

By the time Vael reached the ground, the Captain was gone on its task. He ran along the walkway towards the entrance. No point in hiding or sneaking any more. He was damned. His own future had just lurched a step nearer. The engines in the walls seemed to pound faster with the changing of time.

Another figure lurched in through the gateway. It was the final guard, stumbling to its doom. The creature, eyelets flailing on its red insect helmet, came directly towards Vael. He recognized its thin angular body, encrusted with growths of scabrous crustacean armour. His own future already lay trapped in a web high in the Tower. Now he was faced beyond that with his grotesque and ultimate destiny.

He cried out and caught at the demented creature, trying to pull it back. Its wild arms knocked him to the floor. It fell pitifully forward on to a platform and was carried upwards and away.

From above, Vael heard the exultant cry of the hungry Process. The Tower gate began to grind down like closing jaws. Vael hurled himself along the passage. There were any number of other ways out, but it must be this one.

With inches to spare, he rolled through the closing mouth. It boomed shut and he lay outside, weeping for himself in the dust.

Ace came pounding up the broken stone staircase with Shonnzi behind her.

"He must be up here," she was saying. "Professor!" she yelled as she rounded the corner out into the starlight. She skidded to a halt and stepped back, colliding with Shonnzi.

The wall of the tower had collapsed into a pile of rubble that smothered the uppermost floor. The cat was there on the fallen masonry. It threw her an accusing look.

"Go on, clear off out of it!" She waved an arm to frighten it off. "Bloody cat! There's nothing up here for you."

The creature yowled angrily like a Siamese. Its liquid form rose and darkened, flowing upwards into a silhouette that stood tall and gaunt above the ruin. Before, in the tunnels and in the Tower, it had been a dark and terrifying threat. This time its intensity focused on Ace and slammed home as a reality. It gave out an aura of coldness — a single-mindedness that might be interpreted as evil. A massive vulturine collar rested on its dark shoulders, surrounding the head whose barest outlines were traced in silver light. It had no shadow; it was all shadow. But its identity was unmistakable.

Ace shuddered under the spectre's stare. A blackness, like the sun too fierce to look at for long. Unutterable dread clutched into her. The Doctor had met