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Benny's companion was a young woman with nervous eyes. It was obvious to the Doctor that she didn't like what was going on but wasn't about to get in Benny's way. He could understand that.

'Why?'

'Because I've been taken over by a fucking alien intelligence,' said Benny. 'Why do you think?'

'Fascinating,' said the Doctor. 'How did that happen?'

'You tell me. Doctor,' said Benny. 'I was stepping out of the TARDIS behind you and the next thing I know I woke up in a sewer.'

'What's it like, this possession?'

'Well, at first I thought I might have picked up a spore, one of those Hoothi things, but it doesn't feel organic enough. This is why you came here though, isn't it, Doctor?'

'No,' said the Doctor. 'Not this time.'

'But this is your kind of deal, your purvue so to speak.'

'Is that why it wants me dead?'

Benny smiled. It was her normal ironic smile, all the more sinister for being natural. 'Don't flatter yourself, Doctor,' she said. 'It doesn't even know you exist, I tried telling it ...'

'You speak to it?'

'Let's just say that there are channels of communication. Where are you going?'

The Doctor walked round the table and started towards Benny. 'It seems unnecessary for us to be shouting at each other.'

Benny's companion shrank back as the Doctor approached. 'Don't be alarmed,' the Doctor told her, 'she's the one with a gun.'

'Stop there,' said Benny. The Doctor obeyed. He was about one metre from Benny, half a metre from the gun's muzzle. It looked much bigger this close and just out of effective umbrella range.

'You were saying?'

'I tried to explain that you were its primary danger but I think it found the concept difficult. It seemed to believe that you were in some way not complex enough to be a threat.'

'Why the gun then?'

'My fortune is linked to its fortune,' said Benny. 'Besides, I think it's in its nature to delegate these matters.'

'So why am I not dead already?'

'I was curious. Doctor. It's a characteristic you and I share. Why else would we be having this conversation?'

'I could be stalling.'

'You are stalling,' said Benny, 'but no one's coming to your rescue this time.'

'Apart from the party of heavily armed troopers coming up the tunnel behind you.' It didn't work. Benny's eyes didn't even flicker.

'Games,' said Benny, 'can only take place within a regulated framework.'

'Your bootlaces are undone?' tried the Doctor hopefully.

'Well, I've enjoyed our little chat,' said Benny, 'but we have to be going now. You know how it is, things to do, people to see.'

'NOBODY MOVE,' yelled an amplified voice from the tunnel.

The Doctor moved first. He brought his umbrella smartly round and smacked the gun out of Benny's hand. Her eyes followed the weapon as it skittered across the floor and then snapped back to the Doctor's face.

'I never made a stereo for you,' said the Doctor.

The cavern's entrance exploded into brilliant white light.

The Ice Maiden

Imogen turned out to be a German subsidiary of a Croatian conglomerate run by a group of expatriate Japanese shinjinrui from a technology park on the outskirts of Zagreb.

Francine made a pass with a dummy company registered out of Haiti. It made an unfriendly takeover bid for Imogen's parent with just enough capital to make it convincing. The parent made an immediate counter-bid for the Haitian dummy through the New York exchange. Francine watched the debt gearing of the parent shrink before her eyes. Money was pouring in from somewhere.

She upped the stakes by creating an imaginary consortium to back the Haitian dummy, a network of small private firms with a sudden burning desire to buy into the Balkans. Money continued to pour into the parent company and simultaneously Francine's companies began to suffer the attentions of the Fair Trade Bureau.

Francine smelt politics, and leaving the takeover battle to run on automatic she turned her attention to Reykjavik. One of the People's Deputies on the Trade Subcommittee had an old-fashioned