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By Root 347 0

as ever, it was uncertain exactly whom he was supposed to be taking his orders from. At the moment he was leaning towards Admiral Canaris at the Abwehr the Wehrmacht intelligence bureau. Canaris was a man Schott respected. Distinguished naval career. One of his own kind; one of the officer class. It was Canaris who had put him in touch with the old Englishman, with instructions that he was to be given full cooperation. It was a strange situation, and one that Hartmann, he knew, found intolerable. Schott had sent Hartmann himself to collect the girl: partly because he could fly an aeroplane, and partly just to get him out of the way for a short while.

Now the Englishman had turned up, unannounced. And then another little man had turned up. Hartmann was right: on paper their security looked farcical.

Moreover, the situation in Berlin could change at any moment, leaving Schott exposed and vulnerable. Sooner or later someone would come and take charge. Schott just hoped that he could keep things running smoothly until that time.

The brandy bottle was low. He poured what was left into his glass and peered lovingly into it, watching the crazy reflection of the overhead light bulb playing on its golden surface.

Two men one old, one ancient sat hunched over a chessboard. One, whitehaired and frail, sat on his handkerchief, spread in a genteel manner across an enormous metal pipe that jutted from an obscure, filthy and, above all, dead machine. The other, short and grizzled, his colossal age betrayed only by the depth of bluegrey in his eyes, sat on the edge of a swivel chair much too large for him, his foot resting on an old piece of engine. Around them old paperwork lay in piles, boxes of valves and knobs teetered against one another or lay, their sides split, contents spilling out across the floor.

Outside the window, across the chamber, the blankfaced Cybermen stood in rows, impassive as ever. Remorseless foot soldiers, devoid of hope, devoid of fear, never surrendering, never retreating.

Beneath their unseeing gaze the Doctor advanced his king's pawn.

'What do you hope to gain from Cybertechnology, Mr Limb?' George Limb mirrored the move.

'A very astute question, Doctor. You should know that I have no desire whatever for personal gain. Wealth and power mean nothing to me. I suppose the answer must be knowledge, Doctor. Knowledge for its own sake.'

'Knowledge carries with it responsibility. You can never escape that fact.

King's knight to king's bishop three.

'All my life I have been a collector of knowledge, Doctor.

Take my little... consultancy back in London. Frankly, the whole business is far more beneficial to me than it is to my clients. I hire out my services for one reason and one reason alone: doing so enables me to chart the varying currents flowing through the criminal underworld. I have to keep my information network fed from as many sources as possible.

Invariably I learn more from my clients than they learn from me. Naturally, I have to charge a certain amount of money.

Criminals immediately become suspicious if one is not seeking to line one's pockets. To a man, they have a depressingly narrow outlook on life. It's the same with the Nazis.' He sounded almost wistful. 'It will be the same with the Cybermen, I have no doubt.'

King's knight to king's bishop three.

'I can assure you, it will not be the same with the Cybermen.'

George Limb chuckled. 'You know, Doctor, there is a popular rumour in the criminal underworld of London that I am omniscient. Allseeing. My word '

'Then surely you can see that you are out of your depth, man.'

Knight takes pawn.

'I have been playing these games for most of my life, Doctor. You forget I was with the Foreign Office for decades.'

'Why did you retire? With Churchill as your patron '

'Churchill was my true friend, and my undoing. He had assured me many times that he had no intention of taking the highest office. Unwisely, I allowed my emotions to cloud my intellect. I believed him. As Prime Minister his hands are tied, and so are mine. I no longer have access