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'You really think I'd be so unprepared? You really think I'd risk telling anyone my plans?' Suddenly the kindly public face of the revolution was back, borrowing Felbaac's swarthy features. 'Trust me, Yast. All we need do is wait a little longer. I'm sure of it.' He rose and walked over to the window. The yard outside was bright and still, the air shimmering in the heat.'We're not beaten yet.'

***

'Doctor!'

Even distorted through the grille at high volume, the voice sounded desperate as it blared out into the control room.

The Doctor left the lash-up of equipment around the matter transmitter and was at the wall communicator in seconds. 'Vasid! Where are you!'

"There are - things here!'

The Doctor swallowed hard.'What kind of things?' Silence. 'Vasid, this is important! What things?'

'Creatures.' The word was barely more than a throaty whisper.

The Doctor frowned. 'Hostile?'

'I don't know, I don't know.'

'How many?'

'I don't know. I've seen two of them so far. Oh, please save me, Doctor.'

The Doctor shut his eyes as Vasid tried to choke back his tears.'Please save me.'

'Where are you?'

'I-Oh,no -'

The communicator went dead.'Vasid? Vasid!'

The Doctor leapt over the bonnet of the Beetle and ran full pelt down the corridor.

Chapter 6

The Kusks

Vasid had seen another one, a third creature, and had run away. He could tell the creature was different. It was a little shorter, but thicker, and the huge eyes were dark and oily. He'd watched the huge head swinging from side to side with such frightening force that he could imagine it flying right off the spindly neck.

It had looked as if it was hunting something.

Now, eyes closed, Vasid edged along the metal wall very, very slowly. He barely managed to suppress a cry when his hands left bare metal and slid into something soft and sticky. He looked down. A brown morass clung to his fat fingers, almost sticking his whole hand to the wall. He pulled it away

- it still ached from his striking of the wall earlier - and wiped it against his already soiled top. Thick strings of goo stretched between hand and fabric, and his stomach turned.

He had to get to his room, lock himself inside. Hide under the bed, in the shower, in his cupboard, anywhere. Stay alive.

He didn't recognise where he was. Then he worked it out -and realised with dread that a doorway must've appeared from nowhere, next to him.

'This shouldn't be here,' he whispered to himself in confusion. This was just corridor. Anstaar used to exercise here. I - I set up the portacam there and

-'

He peeped inside. A large blue box stood in front of another doorway beyond. The air felt heavy and smelled rancid. Vasid was suddenly gripped by a fresh twist of fear and turned to run yet again.

But the creature with the dark eyes and the hunting head had followed him.

It was moving slowly along the corridor, its thick white tongue flicking out to taste the air as it walked. Vasid swung himself round the new doorway, wincing as his body slushed into more of the brown deposit on the walls.

He tried to breathe deeply. There was no way he could go back out into the exercise corridor without the creature seeing him.

He would have to go through the doorway and give it the slip, then double back. That wasn't impossible. He'd got rid of Anstaar and that other one -

he could do it, he could do it.

Vasid moved past the blue box into the dark, slimy space beyond. It was like another world. Not the clean, metal, comforting base. It was fibrous, glutinous, sticky. It stank. He realised that the walls were crusted with what was probably the same stuff he'd found in his base, only layer upon hardened layer. Sticky strands hung down from the faintly glowing ceiling above him, and even the quiet, comforting hum of the place he knew so well sounded muffled, suffocated in here. Frightening.

He waited in the dark, eyes fixed on the patch of bright white light cast through from the base lights outside. Then the shadow of the creature appeared stark and black