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By Root 493 0

to buckle the door enough to flop on to the carriage floor. A red light began to blink rapidly above the doorframe. Zamina noted with some satisfaction that the cake monster had to struggle to its feet. She could see its nostrils flaring and its chest heaving just like hers. The cake monster shook its head in a distressingly human way. Blue eyes regarded her from under ridges of bone.

Zamina realized what the red light signified but it was too late. The cake monster raised its hand - the gun muzzle ran smoothly out.

Zamina stared into its face. She didn't have enough energy left to tense up.

When she didn't die, it was a bit of a disappointment. She'd been looking forward to the rest. Instead the cake monster was irritably shaking its arm up and down. It looked at Zamina and shrugged. Decimetre claws extended from its hands. It took a step towards her.

The carriage hit the gateway interface.

Buckling the door had seriously degraded the carriage's shield efficiency. The flashing red light was the warning signal. By rights the train should never have pulled out of the station with a red light showing but Zamina guessed that safety standards had slipped a bit recently.

The cake monster looked over as the buckled door dissolved in a burst of psychedelic light. It looked back at Zamina through the heat-haze shimmer of an emergency containment field.

'I win,' whispered Zamina, 'you die.'

The rear section of the carriage disintegrated.

Arsia Mons

The eyes were wrong, the Doctor explained. They looked pretty bloodshot to Kadiatu but explosive decompression will do that. It messed up the face too yet it looked like Benny to her. The colour patterns in the irises, said the Doctor, didn't match his memory of the real Bernice's. He examined the gun barrels protruding from the palms of her hands.

'Very neat,' he said. 'The flap of skin overlaps the hole, the musculature is all in the heel of the hand so that the flexing motion allows the barrel to extend into firing position. I wonder if that's intentional?'

'What is?'

'Know any palmistry?'

'Not really.'

'The flap follows the life line almost exactly,' said the Doctor 'If it's intentional then we 're dealing with some very sick minds indeed.' He straightened up and looked around the chamber. 'I think we should leave here. Now.'

'What about that?' asked Kadiatu pointing at the body.

'Leave it,' said the Doctor. 'They'll take care of it.'

'Who's they?'

'The inhabitants of this nest.'

'Males with scales?' said Kadiatu. 'Nxi?'

'Dormant nest,' said the Doctor. 'Don't worry, it'll take them at least two weeks to revive.

'Shouldn't we tell someone?'

'That's up to you,' said the Doctor, 'but we have more pressing matters.'

They started the long trek back up the path of easy virtue.

'It's definitely easier going in than going out,' said Kadiatu when they reached the surface. 'What now?'

'Benny went to a lot of trouble to send us on a wild goose chase,' said the Doctor, 'which means while we're here, we should be somewhere else.'

They climbed back up through the wrecked dustkart. Standing on the rear section Kadiatu boosted the Doctor up on to the rim. He turned, gripped her wrists and pulled her up in turn. He made a production of it, grunting loudly as she cleared the edge. Kadiatu wasn't fooled.

'We're at least two hours from Achebe Gorge,' said Kadiatu, 'and six hours from Olympus Mons.'

'Let's walk over there,' said the Doctor, 'to that clear patch.'

'The faster we mount up . ..' began Kadiatu.

'I have the situation under control,' said the Doctor. 'Trust me.' He walked towards a level section of ground about the size of a football pitch twenty metres from the pit. When the Doctor reached its centre he kicked at the soft dust, there was a harder surface underneath. 'Ferroconcrete,' he said. 'Excellent. '

Kadiatu didn't ask, it was obvious who had built a concealed landing pad next to the nest. The Martians were supposed to be good with vibrations. Was one awake by now and listening to them walking around?

The Doctor took three white cylinders from his suit's