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“Are you leading us into an ambush, Miss Somerset?” Bedford asked, his pistol now pointed directly at Miss Somerset’s heart.

“Captain, I…” Miss Somerset shook her head. “This is absurd! I have already told you the Selenites are not your enemy. They are not warmongers.”

Bedford looked up the tunnel, past Miss Somerset. The sound of the Selenites was still some distance away, more than enough time to expose a traitor. “Then what possible assistance can they offer us?”

4.

STEVENSON HAD been watching Bedford ever since he had decided they should discard their atmosphere suits. He could not place his finger on what, but something was different about the lieutenant.

As best as they could tell, Miss Somerset had been perfectly open and honest with them about what had transpired on Luna before she had cause to send out a distress heliograph, and her view on the Selenites seemed to be informed and truthful. Stevenson saw no deception on her face. She showed no fear about the fast approaching Selenites, even if the team from the Sovereign did have reason to feel otherwise, but to call her a traitor…

Stevenson knew he was playing with fire, not to mention endangering his entire naval career, but he had to step in and defend Miss Somerset. This he did, stepping directly in the line of fire.

“Lieutenant, Miss Somerset has given us absolutely no cause to suspect her of betrayal.”

“Ordinary Seaman Stevenson, you will stand aside, or you will be arrested and tried for treason, too.”

Stevenson’s brow furrowed. “Treason, sir? That is ridiculous. You are aiming your gun at a woman, a civilian. This is not fitting of a lieutenant in Her Majesty’s Navy.”

Bedford’s gun did not waver. “Then perhaps you are in collusion? Is that why you both stopped earlier? Setting up this ambush?”

“Sir, there is no ambush.” Stevenson indicated the tunnel behind Miss Somerset. “We do not know those Selenites pose a threat. Indeed, Miss Somerset insists otherwise.”

“And I am right,” she said. Miss Somerset stepped to the side, so she was once again in full view of Lieutenant Bedford. “I appreciate your support, Mister Stevenson, but I am quite capable of defending myself.”

“Of course you are,” Bedford said with a sneer.

Stevenson could no longer believe it. Bedford always seemed to be a firm man, perhaps more so than was necessary, but he had never given Stevenson reason to doubt him. Truly they had only served together for a matter of weeks, but nonetheless, the man before him was becoming less and less like the commanding officer Stevenson had come to know.

“Been well trained by your Russian paymasters, I’ll wager,” Bedford continued.

Fury, there was no other word for it, washed across Miss Somerset’s face like a tsunami. “Take back those words!” she verily hissed.

A shot was fired from Bedford’s pistol but Miss Somerset had anticipated it. She dived into a roll and came back up on her feet mere inches from Bedford. As she rose, she drove the butt of her carbine into Bedford’s jaw. Stevenson, clearly not as paralysed by the sudden action as the other men, stepped forward to intercede.

He barely moved an inch when he felt the unmistakable pressure of someone’s hand press firmly on his shoulder.

5.

K’CHUK EXPLAINED, in his own inimitable way, that he and his fellow Selenites had once been prisoners of the Russians, but he had escaped with Annabelle.

“Then Doctor Grant is not working with the Russians,” Folkard said.

Nathanial was not surprised to hear this, and said so. “Did I not inform you of such, Captain? Doctor Grant would not place his niece in danger intentionally.”

“Yet still, danger they found, Professor.”

Nathanial could not argue that point, and so he did not. Instead he listened more to K’chuk’s story.

The escape had transpired some time ago, and K’chuk and Annabelle had split up; she to send for assistance from Earth and K’chuk to try and free his people from the clasp of the Russians. The drones, as K’chuk called them, were being used for slave labour.

“Do you know where the gooddoctor is?” Nathanial