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Blowing up the planet would leave the Nexus quite unharmed.’

‘And the N-forms?’ prompted Roz.

‘Mines,’ said the Doctor. ‘They didn’t just detect psi. They actively attacked it. Anything that wasn’t Gallifreyan. But the Time Lords didn’t pick up their toys when they were finished with them. There are still a small number of N-forms, usually damaged and insane, left lying about the galaxy. The ones which didn’t want to stop killing were the hardest to find.’ He stirred his tea aggressively. ‘Typical Time Lord blunder. Create something ludicrously powerful and then forget all about it. Decide you’re going to be entirely rational, and then have a psychic war which lasts for millennia and decimates half the galaxy.’

Roz shook her head. ‘I can see why you don’t go home at Christmas.’

‘I’d chew their ear off, for one thing. Each time I go back,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘I don’t expect to be allowed to leave again. So far I’ve been lucky.’

She nodded. ‘Leabie’s been asking me why I never visit.’

219

They gave one another a what-can-you-do look. Roz said,

‘Maybe you could have done more good by staying home.

Sorting them out. They sound like they need sorting out.’

‘Ten million years of tradition is a heavy weight to shift,’ said the Doctor. ‘They’re so content with watching, occasionally messing around a little bit in other people’s affairs, and ignoring everything they could be doing…’

‘Everything you’re trying to do.’

‘It’s a long shopping list,’ admitted the Doctor.

Roz looked across at Leabie, deep in conversation with Walid.

‘I can’t help but wonder…’

‘What things might have been like if you’d stayed home?’

She nodded. ‘Something’s going on here. Leabie’s not telling me about it, but you can see the web of power forming and reforming… Doctor, there’s going to be war.’

‘And you think you could have prevented that.’

‘Possibly,’ said Roz. ‘On the other hand, maybe I’d be the one running it.’

‘You’ve accomplished a lot since leaving,’ said the Doctor.

‘First as an Adjudicator, then with me. None of that work would have been done if you’d stayed here and tried to –’

‘– shift the weight?’

He nodded.

‘We’re getting old, Doctor,’ said Roz, with a wry smile. She waved at a waiter. ‘Two extremely large and strong drinks, please.’

Midnight.

There was movement in the palace. More than the nocturnal activities of the servants, answering late-night calls, performing maintenance. Movement in the shadows where the lights were blinking off, one by one, and the cameras were dying.

A dozen murders happened in the space of ten minutes. The security systems quietly crashed. A servant brought an initial report to Leabie in her boardroom, where she was still in conversation with the Duke. Chris snored. The Doctor and Roz were sitting in his room, talking politics, when the lights suddenly went out.

220

Thandiwe screamed as the door to her bedroom shattered into pieces. A man stood in the doorway, peering inside with a weird bobbing movement of his head that made her think of the sims of vultures in her moving picture books. Her throat seemed to lock right up as the head swayed from side to side and then fixed in her direction.

The man came forward, his eyes locking on her. Thandiwe realized she couldn’t make a sound. This was really happening.

A monster chewed through the roof of Somezi’s bedroom and ripped him open before he even woke up.

Another smashed down the door of Leabie’s boardroom.

‘Again!’ shouted Walid, pumping fifty rapid rounds from his personal plasma thrower into it.

Mantsebo tried to ward off the creature that had killed her bodyguard, snatching up the man’s laser weapon, but her aim was wide.

Security responded within minutes to contain the threat. But within minutes, a dozen Forresters had died.

Ostensibly Thandiwe’s Fat Monster Eater™ was the same mid-range cybernetic comforter – recommended ages one to four years – as twenty-three per cent of the Empire’s human population had owned as children.

Essentially it was a