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Meta was trying to rub the feeling back into his leg. „I‟m still not convinced that they‟ll let us do one without the other,‟ he said. „The Rules of Attack haven‟t changed.‟

„That is why I am making plans to run and hide,‟ Leela said quickly. „It may be that I will not need to go but if the New Way fails I do not intend to be put on trial again.‟

„Then it‟s the Hakai or nothing,‟ Meta said.

„The Hakai?‟ Leela asked.

Meta groaned and began hobbling around in a small circle.

„What did you do to my leg?‟

„The pain will pass,‟ Leela said.

He continued to hobble about. Some of the crowd began to clap derisively and there were some whistles and boos. „If you want to invite one or two of them down and give them a kicking I‟m ready to watch and learn.‟

Leela said, „It will pass more quickly if you stand still and act as if it has already passed.‟

„Be a man, Meta? You sound like my mother.‟ The crowd were clapping and booing more loudly now. „Actually they sound like my whole family. Let‟s have them all down one at a time, you can kick their arses and I‟ll clap and boo.‟

„What is this Hakai you speak of?‟ Leela asked.

„The Hakai OTS,‟ Meta said. „You know what they say: no matter what you do, if you can reach the Hakai OTS you‟re home free.‟

„You mean you would be safe there?‟

„If you‟re going to book, better get me a ticket too. I‟m never going to be a crowd-pleaser am I?‟ He smiled and did a couple of practice swings with the training sabre. „I don‟t suppose you‟d let me win the next one?‟ he asked hopefully.

The return to gravity would be a relief eventually, but for the moment it was painful, it dragged on you and it made your joints ache. It took time, too, to get used to the damp, brackish smell that the industrial-size air scrubbers always gave off. Keefer stood waiting, trying not to let discomfort distract him. He couldn‟t afford to be careless now.

The cargo clerk processed his temporary landing permit slowly and with a maximum show of bureaucratic reluctance.

„How long you planning to stay?‟

„Like I said,‟ Keefer said. „I don‟t know.‟

„I can‟t enter that.‟

„What can you enter?‟

„How long you‟re planning to stay.‟

Cash would have speeded things up but Keefer was in no hurry. He wanted his travelling companions to be long gone by the time he was allowed to follow them out of Baseport One and into the Pleasure Pits. A couple of the men had been looking for a fight and the whole team was ready to see the woman humiliate him.

„It depends on what there is to see,‟ Keefer said.

The clerk scratched himself. „Nothing,‟ he said, „if all you want to do is look. We‟re not running a zoo here.‟

„Not long then.‟

„I can‟t enter that.‟

The Doctor hadn‟t told Leela of his plan in any detail because, if he was honest, he didn‟t really have much of a plan. Not in any detail. Not what you could call a fully formed plan, anyway. In fact what he was actually doing was rather enjoying himself while he was finding out about things and more or less waiting to see what happened. There was nothing wrong with that approach of course, but it did require patience, which was not one of Leela‟s more obvious virtues.

The Doctor did feel a little guilty about some aspects of what he was doing. Or rather what he wasn‟t doing. It wasn‟t that he was distorting the truth exactly, and he certainly wasn‟t lying. He was, however, allowing various people to draw their own conclusions about things without correcting them when they were wrong. Technically they were lying to themselves and he was letting them. That did not make him a liar as such, did it? Not a liar as such. After all there were worlds that he had visited where it would have made him a perfectly respectable lawyer, or a politician or an entertainer.

On this world it was obviously a useful skill if you wanted to be an agent representing a stable of young duellists: particularly if you had no intention of letting any of them fight.

He smiled at the man on the communicator viewscreen and said, „I‟d be honoured