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By Root 785 0

clusters had been. Once upon a time, before the lesser humanoid cultures had started spreading their empires across space-time, giants had walked this galaxy; and the Daemons had been princes among those giants, masters of arcane genetic science, beings capable of shrinking themselves down to the size of an atom or blowing themselves up to the size of a small moon with a single thought (given enough raw matter to work with, naturally). The Daemons of the military had grown vast wings from their shoulder blades, then given themselves spatiodynamic bodies with swept-back horns and necks like the necks of swans, allowing them to glide through hyperspace with the minimum of effort. When the Daemons had faced their own private Götterdämmerung, many of their number had died in full ‘battle mode’, and their remains were still highly prized by Faction Paradox. The skeletons made perfect infrastructures for the Faction’s warships, partly because of the way they looked, but mostly because of the aeons of power that had been absorbed and stored by the giants’ bones. The vessel that had been sent to Dust was the smallest of the six surviving Faction Paradox warships, and it had been built around a skeleton from the Daemons’ own homeworld, unearthed long after the planet had been infested by the lesser races.

Inside the skull of the vessel, certain orders were given to the ship’s technicians. The warship promptly opened its mouth, and thirty seconds later every single settlement on the colony planet had simply ceased to exist. The evidence had been removed from the face of history, once and for all.

That done, the warship headed for Dust. The crew’s main mission still had to be completed.

* * *

Sarah listened, but all she could hear was the ticking of a clock, although she wasn’t sure exactly where the sound was coming from. She suspected it was part of the furnishings of the wagon, a constant tick-tock‐tick-tock noise to give the place a more homely kind of atmosphere. Outside, the dust storm was still tearing up the planet (probably). Outside, the big black thing in the sky was still descending on the town (probably). But, as soon as I.M. Foreman had closed the door of the wagon behind them, there’d been silence. Apart from that clock, obviously.

It was like walking into another world, or at the very least like walking into a TARDIS. Which was especially odd when you considered that the only thing between them and the world outside was a layer of grubby tarpaulin.

‘We’ll be safe inside,’ I.M. Foreman had insisted, when he’d ushered them through the door. ‘Protocols of property.’

The room inside the wagon was ten feet long, four feet wide, and just high enough to give the Doctor standing room. Even so, he looked distinctly uncomfortable here, as if he needed more space to be lanky in. The room reminded Sarah of the TARDIS at its worst. There were small furnishings stuffed into the corners, so many bits and pieces that you got the impression the room had grown new corners just to accommodate them all. The floor was covered with something that looked like a hand-made Persian rug, but piles of what could only be called ‘stuff’ had been heaped on top of it, leaving Sarah and the Doctor knee-deep in card tables, marble figurines and untidy stacks of videotapes. There was a seventies-style lava lamp near the door, and it was the most alien-looking thing here.

Everything smelled old. That was what struck Sarah most of all. This far in the future – her future – she couldn’t think of any reason why the videotapes shouldn’t be antiques, but in her mind VCR technology was something smooth, shiny, and Japanese, not the kind of thing that should smell like your great-aunt’s wardrobe. Even the Doctor looked fazed by it, and he was meant to be a Time Lord, for heaven’s sake. There were chairs free, but the Doctor insisted on standing, with one hand on his hip and the other scratching his chin. I.M. Foreman himself sat in a fat old armchair at the far end of the wagon, with his elbows on his knees and his hands folded in front of his face.