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135

‘Good rock,’ said Roz. ‘Bad rock.’

The Pequot flared and died.

‘Goddess,’ said Sokolovsky. He turned to the trooper who was standing in as SensOps. ‘Survivors?’

‘No sir,’ said the trooper.

Vincenzi said, ‘We’re OK again. They’ve bought us the time to get the repairs done and get the hell out of here.’

Chris leant on a console. ‘Geez,’ he said.

The Doctor turned to look at them. ‘Am I the only one who’s surprised by this?’

‘Engine burn,’ said SensOps. ‘Make that two, no three engine burns in Orestes GSO.’

‘Ident?’ asked Sokolovsky.

‘Working, sir.’

Should have been right away but Sokolovsky remembered the man was just a grunt, cross trained to near competence but a grunt nonetheless.

It had been half an hour since the Pequot had broken apart under the impact of the second fighter. Someone back at Agamemnon Command would have made a decision by now.

He crossed to the second SensOps board and ran an ident sequence himself. Hadn’t done that in a while. It took him all the way back to Black Body 27 and the remembrance of real fear.

Ident said that one of the bogies was a Magritte-class heavy cruiser, probably the Giacometti, the other two were a Dog-class and a Jaguar-class destroyer – Dingo and Cougar. That made sense, the three most modern ships left in the task force. Sent to sort out whoever’d killed the Pequot.

The Magritte-class carried soldinosc, really big, high-V

missiles with a thirty-six-megaton warhead. Given a long run they could hit a fair percentage of lightspeed and still make the terminal manoeuvres to hit a moving ship. Giacometti would wait until it cleared Clytemnestra’s debris ring and loose off a pair of them at the Victoria. Weapons like that arriving at relativistic velocities could ruin your whole day.

He turned back to the Doctor.

‘Now would be a convenient time to go to warp.’

136

The Doctor looked startled. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘It’s fixed, we can go any time you want.’

137

Interlude – March to April 2982

Dhaulagiri, Nepal – 2 March 2982

The mountains made Thandiwe think of home. Mama said they used to be covered in snow, all year round. She tried to imagine it, white Earth snow like fluffy water, covering all the rock.

Thandiwe stood on the bed in her room. They’d be going home tomorrow; Mama was staying up late, talking to the soldiers.

Usually when they went on trips, they stayed at the new place for longer. A week or even two weeks. But these days they went somewhere for just one night and one day, and Mama talked instead of skiing or buying things.

One of the soldiers, Joanna, had put Thandiwe to bed. The Fat Monster Eater was an irregular shape under the covers, keeping the bed warm. It was the only toy Thandiwe had been allowed to bring.

Outside was very dark. Thandiwe could trace the shapes of the mountains by where they poked up into the sky, hiding the stars.

There wasn’t anything in her room, not even a terminal, just shelves and shelves of books.

She got back under the blankets with the Fat Monster Eater, which made a deep chuckling noise and cuddled up to her.

After lunch that day, Thandiwe had gone for a walk through the seminary (which was a school for priests), the Eater trailing along behind her like a big balloon. The 138

building was big and cold and quiet, and there weren’t many people around.

Most of them were in a big hall she found. They were chanting, sitting cross-legged on the floor, talking very fast. She couldn’t make out the words. It sounded like singing, like music. She watched them for a while, peeking over the top of the railing and looking down into the hall.

She tried climbing up on to the railings for a better look, but it made the Eater nervous, rolling around at her feet. It always did that when she did anything dangerous.

She hugged it, whispering. ‘Don’t worry. Let’s go in here.’ The Eater wobbled and bounced away across the floor into the new room.

It was a long hall, with a big table and lots of paintings around the walls. There were rooms like this at home. Thandiwe went