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Alexander started stuffing bits and pieces into a large holdall from the tent. He picked the broken radio up, too. ‘John might be able to fix it,’ he said by way of an explanation. Ace nodded, although she wasn’t hopeful. The two of them walked down to the shore, arms laden with radio equipment, maps and other assorted bits and pieces which Ace helped Alexander load into the dinghy before they pushed it out. He jumped aboard. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure John would appreciate me going back there -

especially if the tweedies are after me. They didn’t wreck your radio ‘til I arrived, and it’s not fair for me to put the two of you in danger.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Alexander protested. He realised the dinghy was starting to drift free. ‘And how do you know they won’t come after us anyway?’

She shrugged cheerfully.

‘You’re a nutter,’ he shouted, shaking his head as the dinghy float away from the shore.

‘Maybe I just like to live dangerously.’ Ace splashed back up the beach.

‘Like I said,’ she heard him shout above the wind and the rush of the waves, ‘– nutter.’

Back at the camp, Ace rooted through the tent and the bits and pieces Alexander had left behind, looking for anything that would be useful in fighting off the tweedies – if they came for her. Which, she assumed, they would. Sooner or later. They hadn’t seemed particularly threatening – the worst that could happen would probably be that the dog would snuffle her to death. But the fact that they’d felt the need to sabotage the radio suggested that they considered Alexander, John and herself as potential threats. And if the destruction of their only means of communication with the outside world didn’t satisfy them, what might they try next?

She didn’t like to think about it – although she took some small comfort from what was in her rucksack.

Her rucksack! There was no sign of her rucksack: she suddenly pictured it, under the dining table on board the boat.

Oh well, she sighed. Just as long as John and Alexander didn’t try to use her ‘deodorant’: if they mishandled her cans of nitro-9, sweating would be the least of their problems. She took a deep breath and carried on picking through the brothers’ stuff.

The last thing she expected, just as she was rolling up the sleeping bags, was to feel the cold metal of a gun barrel against the back of her neck.

Chapter Eleven

‘Well, well,’ said Megan. ‘What a small world this is.’

Ace started to straighten up, the sharp tip of Megan’s gun still pressed into her neck.

‘Careful,’ Megan warned, her voice oozing smugness. ‘It would be so tragic if this were to go off in my hand.’

Ace raised her arms slowly and felt Megan remove the gun from her neck, heard her step away. She turned around slowly and saw Megan standing a few paces from her, dressed head-to-toe in black leather. At her feet was a crumpled spacesuit.

‘A bit overdressed for swimming, aren’t you?’

‘A bit underdressed for surviving a shot from this, aren’t you?’ Megan countered. The side of her face was swollen and bruised, her left eye hardly open at all.

‘What happened to you? Looks like you had a fight with a rolling pin and lost.’

‘A pan, actually, as you know full well.’

Ace frowned.

‘Oh don’t play the innocent,’ Megan said. ‘I heard you creeping down the stairs. And if it wasn’t you, it was your friend the Doctor. But he’s not going to be bugging me any more.’

‘Why? What’ve you done to him?’

‘I wish I could take the credit, but I’m afraid that will have to go to Sooal.’

‘I said what have you done, bog-brain?’ Ace could feel her face flush with anger.

Megan theatrically looked at her watch. ‘Well, I’d say round about now, his brain will be a smouldering lump of charcoal.

Steady...’ Megan raised her pistol again as Ace took a step towards her. ‘On my way through the ship, I saw him wired up to the computer. It looked like he was having a bit of a bad trip.’

She grinned cruelly.

‘And you just left him?