There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 19

19. Betrayed by Mr. Jackson

The rusting arc of Jervis Bay's hull eclipsed Gondolin's sun, allowing Cleo to see out across a green and pleasant plain. Mr. Shakespeare and Dougie Stevens were now varying their routine of gawping out of Jervis Bay's portholes at outer space by going outside the ship and gawping at Gondolin. Shakespeare possessions - standard lamps, African tribal masks, raffia laundry baskets - were coming interminably down the gangplank, being carried by bemused crewmen. One of them was twiddling the knob on the front of a microwave oven, apparently attempting to get BBC2. The crewmen were, however, not transferring the Shakespeares' property below ground, but putting it all into neat piles on the grass outside the hidden entry hatches that led into the main Gondolin settlement. They were also enclosing each pile in a square of tape. The tape had been made on Earth. Ant could tell, because it had CRIME SCENE DO NOT ENTER written on it.

"Why are they doing that?" said Ant to Sergeant Major McNaught.

"Quarantine", said McNaught. "Could be all manner of orrible beasts in that lot."

He shrank back in fear as Tailrings, Cleo's Persian, bolted from the nearest pile, making straight for Ant and extending his claws to climb up him like a human ladder.

"Is it poisonous?" said McNaught.

"Hardly. He's a cat, Jock."

"A cat?" McNaught removed his uniform cap and scratched his close-shaven skull. "I thought cats was smaller and less airy."

"That's because you've only got one cat on Gondolin, Jock, and she belongs to the Commodore. Mollymog is going to have to learn to share the planet with another of her own kind. I think the planet may not be big enough for the both of them."

Tailrings walked across Ant's head, alternately purring at Ant and hissing at McNaught.

"It's issin", said McNaught. Drawing from his vast knowledge of terrestrial wildlife, he added: "Snakes iss."

"He's not a snake, Jock. The legs are a dead giveaway."

"Legs?" McNaught examined the spherical mass of stripy ginger fur more closely. "It's got legs?"

Nearby, Mr. Shakespeare was allowing Mrs. Shakespeare to cry into his shoulder. Ant supposed it was because they were leaving Earth behind.

Dougie sat on one of Jervis Bay's landing feet, staring out at the blue-and-green horizon.

"You okay?" said Ant.

Dougie did not turn, but sighed and slumped his shoulders. "Can't do anything here, can I? All I'm good for is driving artics."

Ant sat down on the landing foot next to Dougie. "Dad, I have never said this to you before, but driving artics is really, really difficult. I mean, those things are thirty feet long. The way you can reverse one into a yard right up to the loading bays is...well, I'm not sure I could do it."

Dougie shrugged, but the shrug was, for Dougie, the equivalent of a warm fuzzy glow. "You get used to it."

"The point is, if you can do that, you can do anything. And the folks here on Gondolin'll teach you. They've got plenty of work to be done. And if there's no work here, there are other planets. There's King, and Novaya Alyaska, and New Salem, and Elysium, and Laputa. And wherever you decide to go, I'll go there with you."

Dougie looked up at Ant. "You'd do that? I mean, you seem to be, you know...well settled down here. I mean, there's Cleo and all these other people and that."

Ant patted his father on the back. "Course I would." And I'd feel like hell if I had to. But let's leave that for a time when I actually have to do it.

The Commodore was sitting on one of Leonard Shakespeare's many BOOKS ON EMPLOYMENT LAW boxes, leafing through a copy of THE DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT 1995.

"This almost makes me want to live on Earth, Miss Shakespeare", he said. "If I lived in London today, my employer would all but have to pick me up at my doorstep and carry me to my desk."

"It's for the very best reasons", said Cleo.

The Commodore's face wrinkled in disgust; he put the book down as if it were poisonous. "Ramps in every shop and lifts in every public building! Where's the challenge in that? Takes all the fun out of being disabled."

"It's fun", said Cleo, "to be disabled?"

"Oh my word yes. The look on people's faces when they find out you can do a back flip."

"You can do a back flip", said Cleo.

"Not as such", beamed the Commodore. "But the look on your face! Now, I have been thinking, young lady, about your recent realization of where Gondolin is. When exactly did you have this Eureka moment? I'd particularly like to know, you see, whether it was while you had an unwelcome guest in your midbrain."

Cleo gulped. "Er", she said.

"I'll take it that's a yes", said the Commodore. "And I believe these creatures have a form of group-mind, each one being aware of the thoughts of all the others...following on from which, we can expect a visit from the Caerulean Amorphoids at some point."

"Caerulean Amorphoids?" said Cleo.

"Sounds so much better than Blue Goo, don't you think? That's their official USZ Threat Designation. Major Yancy came up with it. In any case, that's bad news...they're probably still not confident they can take us head-on, or they would have struck Earth or Gondolin in force by now. We will need to strengthen our defences."

"You haven't got any defences", said Cleo.

"We have Jervis Bay", said the Commodore, evidently hugely hurt.

"Jervis bay is a single Revere class cruiser", said Cleo. "She was built in the 1960s."

"Quite so, quite so", said the Commodore. "But she has a lot of fight in her yet. So I take it you've known where we were for quite a while."

"Oh yes", said Cleo. "I've known since Ant was describing how faster-than-light flight works to Jochen. He used an onion", she said.

"Ah, the old onion technique", said the Commodore. "Tried and tested."

"And when he was pointing out to Jochen that the small onion inside the big onion was smaller than the big onion -"

"Hardly worth explaining, in my opinion", nodded the Commodore, "but please continue."

"- I knew where Gondolin was. The big onion was normal space. The little onion was hyperspace. Hyperspace is close to everything. That's the point of hyperspace. It's a smaller universe than the normal universe. Smaller and hotter. More mass and energy crammed into much less space. And whenever a ship enters our corner of hyperspace, it passes the same yellow hyper-sun. It is always the same sun, isn't it?"

"It is", said Drummond, nodding.

"And that sun is always surrounded by a mass of debris, boulders the size of Greater London looking to turn your ship into a ghastly splat of debris on them like just so much Tower Hamlets. Ships always turn away from that sun as soon as they enter hyperspace, to avoid a collision hazard. But what if there's a way through that boulder field? What if there's a circle of calm inside it, like Cassini's Division in the rings of Saturn?"

"Then a planet could fit inside that gap", finished Drummond.

"A planet that had swept that area free of boulders", said Cleo. "A planet that had had a very violent history. That had had everything in the sky thrown at it. A planet like that might be covered with craters." She looked up at the impenetrable blue of the sky. "Gondolin is covered with craters."

"It is indeed", said Drummond.

"And someone who found a habitable planet in hyperspace, and could defend it against all comers, would control space."

"I would imagine they would", said Drummond. "The sticking point being your last statement. I -"

He was interrupted by a fresh bawl from Mrs. Shakespeare, who burrowed her face deep into her husband's shoulder.

"Dad", said Cleo. "What is she crying about? We did bring Grandma, after all." As she said so, a couple of Jervis Bay crewmen came past with a wheelchair containing a fiercely glowering old Jamaican lady, laying about herself with a walking stick and cursing in patois.

"It's this", said Mr. Shakespeare guiltily. He held up a green fragment of porcelain. The fragment had eyes. Green frog eyes.

"Ah", said Cleo. "Mr. Jackson."

"I take it", said the Commodore, "that Mr. Jackson was her favourite."

"Mr. Jackson is the one who -"

"Never wipes his feet, yes", said the Commodore. "And lives in a drain below the hedge, in a very dirty wet ditch. Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs. Tittlemouse, and so forth. I am a learned man; I am familiar with the works of Beatrix Potter. He appears to have lost his head in transit. Careless of him."

This threw Mrs. Shakespeare into another torrent of sobbing. The Commodore took hold of the fragment of frog-head. "May I?"

Mr. Shakespeare handed over the remains of Mr. Jackson. The Commodore took out a jeweller's eye-glass, breathed on it to polish it, and stuck it in his eye; then he turned the frog over in his hand beneath the eye-glass.

"Do you think you can fix it?" said Mr. Shakespeare.

"Oh, good gracious, no", said the Commodore. "It's quite, quite damaged beyond repair."

"Oh", said Mr. Shakespeare. "I...you know, though you might have some sort of magic space glue, or something."

The Commodore ignored Mr. Shakespeare. "The first thing that jumps out at one", he continued, "is that Mr. Jackson appears to be wearing a wire."

Cleo's blood stopped in her veins.

"Omigod", she said.

"Omigod indeed", said the Commodore. He looked at the Shakespeares' private belongings. "Were you aware that some of these items might be bugged?"

"Er", said Cleo. "But that won't matter, will it? We're on Gondolin now. We're miles from Earth."

"And in hyperspace", said the Commodore. "Which as you know, is in everyone's back yard."

"But surely", said Cleo, "Alastair has no listening stations in hyperspace -"

She stopped dead. Alastair, she knew perfectly well, had listening stations everywhere. The mobile phone he'd given her had been guaranteed to work on Earth, Alpha Four, the American colonies, and a surprising number of the Russian ones. And if there, why not hyperspace as well?

"A radio transceiver the size of an alarm clock can send and receive signals to and from ships entering hyperspace anywhere inside a hundred light years", said the Commodore, eyeing an alarm clock in the Shakespeares' belongings suspiciously. "Military vessels preserve radio silence in hyperspace whenever they possibly can for just such a reason. I think Alastair is very unlikely to fail to take advantage of such an opportunity."

"You mean", said Cleo, "that Alastair could have heard everything we just said."

The Commodore nodded. "Everything."

Her stomach was in knots - complex ones that might have been tied by pale, thin boy scouts who didn't get out much. "I've just given him the location of Gondolin."

"Very possibly." The Commodore eased himself off the crate he had been sitting on onto his walking legs. "Not to worry. Can't be helped."

"Not to WORRY? There might be an invasion fleet on its way here right this minute!"

"No sense in crying over the spilt stuff", said the Commodore. "It has a name. You have it on Earth. You squeeze cows and out it comes." He clicked his fingers irritably, searching for the word. He turned to McNaught and nodded. McNaught saluted and ran off towards a nearby hatchway.

"Milk."

"Yes, yes, that's right." His lower lip ramped up over his top one. "Though there may be more spilt than milk by the end of today."

He turned, swivelling robotically on his kneeless walking legs, and stomped off towards the nearest hatchway. Cleo collapsed into the turf and caught her head in her hands before it hit the ground.

Ant jumped up from the Jervis Bay's landing foot. "Cleo? What is it? What's wrong?"

Cleo looked down at the piece of cracked porcelain lying in the grass.

"Mr. Jackson's head's come off", she said simply.

***

"Okay. The camera's rolling...Experimental Weapons System X-3 test firing, number one hundred and twenty-three, setting on nine hundred and ninety-nine megahertz."

The voice came from behind the heavy glass screen at one end of the room. Glenn Bob sat nervously in the seat, his hands and feet secured by leather straps. Experimental Weapon X-3 was pointing directly at him from the mounting in the ceiling. Its massive selector wheel clicked, as the voice spoke, onto setting 999.

"Are you okay in there? Do you need a drink of water?"

"No", said Glenn Bob, licking his lips nervously. "Let's get this over with."

"Activating weapon...NOW."

The bulb of the device flared brilliant green and purple. Glenn Bob convulsed in the seat, his wrists and ankles straining involuntarily against the straps.

"Are you okay?"

Glenn Bob's breath heaved in and out. "Reckon so."

"How would you describe that one?"

Glenn Bob thought carefully. "It was a sorta...fin-de-siècle ennui. Git me outa these straps now. Word is Anthony and Cleo's just got back here on the Jervis Bay there."

Behind the impenetrable glass screen, Richard Gould, his tongue jammed into the corner of his mouth, wrote in his experimental log. "Fin...de...siècle...ennui...that's a pretty complex description, are you sure?"

"I try to speak 'em as I feel 'em."

"Well, that's the last test firing for today. Tomorrow we move on into the gigahertz range. Steve, could you undo Glenn Bob's straps?"

The safety door from the other half of the weapons lab opened, and Steven Dawkins entered, put down a small aluminium foil package on a table, and began undoing the restraints.

Glenn Bob looked at the package. "That your lunch there?"

"Oh no." Dawkins looked at the package. "It's a surveillance microphone, very powerful, which is why I've Faraday-caged it. One of the Shadow Ministry's very latest and best. It's housed inside an Earth standard mobile telephone. They gave it to Cleopatra to try to find out where Gondolin was. The CO wanted me to take it apart, find out how it worked."

Glenn Bob shook his head. "She's got more ridin on her than all of us figured, specially her. Does she know yet?"

"No. But the Commodore's pretty certain the Ministry know our location now. There were other microphones planted in her parents' belongings."

Glenn Bob shook his head. "Cleo's strongern steel. I'da snapped years back." He rubbed his aching wrists as Dawkins released them. "That little micro-doodad there is a telephone?"

"Yes, isn't it amazing? They have new things on Earth called transistors and semiconductors." Dawkins unfolded the bacofoil, taking out the tiny pink device.

The tiny pink device began ringing. It rang only once. It rang with the Darth Vader theme tune from Star Wars.

"I done seen that movie", said Glenn Bob. "It was all baloney."

"With you on that one", said Dawkins, picking up the phone and peering at its screen. "I've never seen quite so many spaceships that weren't a proper saucery shape."

"Return of the Jedi, mind", said Glenn Bob, "was pin-sharp in its documentary accuracy. I could actually believe I was living in outer space there."

"You do live in outer space", said Dawkins absently, trying to work out how the phone's control panel operated.

"I so do not too. Them Earth folks lives in outer space. I live here at home. Aintcha goin to answer that there phone call?"

"It is not a phone call", said Dawkins. "It is what I believe is called, on Earth, a text message."

He read the text message. His face turned pale.

"What does it say?" said Glenn Bob.

"We have to get this to the Commodore right away."

***

The room was quite large - large enough, perhaps, for step aerobics. Basketball would have been out of the question. The ceiling was too low for a slam dunk. Chairs and tables had been cleared away to the edges of the space, and Gondolier workmen were bolting holes in the ceiling and clipping sheets of heavy canvas to them.

"Uh - daughter? What's happening to our furniture?" said Mr. Shakespeare, watching it vanishing down a side passage, being wrapped in what looked very like Bacofoil.

"It's being debugged", said Cleo, looking round the room dolefully. A Gondolin citizen walked up behind her, clapped a hand on her shoulder and said:

"It's all right, Cleopatra, don't fret. We don't mind what you did. We still remember all the good things you did."

Cleo's bottom lip trembled as the woman smiled ever so nicely and walked away.

"Are these our quarters?" said Mr. Shakespeare, looking around himself nervously. "They're a bit large. And there are all these entrances. It's hardly private."

"Where's the toilet?" said Mrs. Shakespeare.

"Our quarters", said Cleo, "will be built when the Gondolin town council have time to drill out a new family-size living space. I brought us here before anyone had any chance to make us anywhere to live. This", she said, looking at the walls, "is the Gondolin PT area. Or Town Hall. Or canteen. Depending on what time of day it is. And until we get assigned permanent living quarters, this is where we'll be living."

"You mean", said Mrs. Shakespeare in horror, "that we've got to live here?"

Cleo fixed her mother with a needle-sharp stare. "Dad was correct", she said, "in observing that this is the largest room in the Gondolin settlement. While we are living here, no-one on Gondolin will be able to eat outside their own rooms. Or exercise. Or vote. They're being very, very nice to you, mum. Particularly since your daughter has just given away their position to a hostile invasion force."

She smiled weakly at Father Serafino, Gondolin's one and only holy man, who had waved to her across the chamber.

"Hi Cleo", said Father Serafino. "Tough luck about the whole hostile invasion force thing. I just want you to know - nobody blames you."

"That's great", said Cleo. "That's just great. I really appreciate that."

"I'll see you in church, mind", grinned Father Serafino. "All of you. I have to go now. I have a gunnery station to man." He waved again and left.

"Do we have to go to church?" said Tamora.

"We haven't any choice", said Cleo, looking round at the four walls again. "Where do you think they hold their church services?"

"Where are the beds?" said Mrs. Shakespeare. "Surely they could have left us our beds."

"The beds", said Cleo, "are hanging from the roof above your head."

Mrs. Shakespeare looked up.

"Hammocks?" she said.

"You'll find they're very comfortable", said Cleo. "Particularly since gravity is only point eight Earth normal here. These nice gentlemen have hung them up for you. They have worked very hard for you. Thank them."

Mrs. Shakespeare looked around at the two gentlemen, who stood waiting to be thanked. Her face screwed up in exceptionally ugly fury.

"Thanks, lads", said Mr. Shakespeare. "I really appreciate it. And so does my wife", he added pointedly. The men smiled good-naturedly at Cleo and Mr. Shakespeare and left.

"Those men", snapped Mrs. Shakespeare, "abducted us. They took us from our home."

"If they hadn't done that", said Cleo, "you would be dead now."

"We only have your word for that, Cleopatra."

Crewmen ran past pushing trolleys laden with fire control equipment, coil gun ammunition and medical supplies. They were wearing pressure suits, despite the fact that Gondolin had a breathable atmosphere.

"If you want proof, climb back out onto the surface in a few hours' time", said Cleo sadly. "There'll be proof flying about like leaves in autumn."

Mr. Shakespeare cleared his throat. "Ah - angel pumpkin - did you say one of my daughters had given away our position to the enemy?"

"Well, don't look at me", said Tamora, looking at Cleo indignantly.

"It was me", said Cleo. "Remember all those microphones I said our house was riddled with? I forgot they'd also work in hyperspace. I brought them here with us. Even if he couldn't guess where Gondolin is by listening to idiots like me talking, Alastair Drague could almost certainly track the signals here. And this place's location is supposed to be the most closely guarded secret in USZ space. Feel free to call me stuff."

"And they", continued Mr. Shakespeare gently, "is the United Kingdom. And the United States of America."

"Not exactly. I'm not even sure the government of the U.K. knows colonies exist in space. In Britain, you're talking about something called the Shadow Ministry. In the States, you're talking about a group called Majestic, about which the President knows nothing. They are very, very bad people. They have vested interests in the colonization of other worlds. Little private empires. And they are not about to give those empires up to the United States of the Zodiac."

"Why did the United States of the Zodiac rebel?" said Mr. Shakespeare.

"Civil rights", said Cleo. "They wanted some of the same freedom Americans were getting back on Earth. Majestic and the Shadow Ministry weren't prepared to let them have it, not in any way apart from straight between the eyes."

"And any one of the things we brought with us could contain more bugs", said Mr. Shakespeare thoughtfully.

"Sure could", said Cleo.

"Right." Mr. Shakespeare walked across the room to where a couple of crewmen were manhandling a clothing rail filled with his suits. Many of the suits, Cleo knew, were made-to-measure. They had cost hundreds and hundreds of pounds. "Excuse me! Those suits. You don't need to bring them in."

"Sir?" One of the crewmen pulled off his cap and scratched his head in confusion. "If we don't bring them in, sir, they might get damaged. It, er", he added, looking at Mrs. Shakespeare, and evidently choosing his words carefully, "it looks like rain out there right now. If you catch my drift."

"Burn them", said Mr. Shakespeare. "All of them."

The crewman was dumbfounded. "Say again, sir?"

"You heard. They're a threat to the security of this settlement. Burn them. I won't be needing them again. Seven good T shirts and a good pair of pants and I'll be fine."

"DAD!"

"All right, all right", said Mr. Shakespeare, waving his hands in reckless extravagance. "Two pairs of pants." His smile was as massive as the White Cliffs of Dover. "And trousers, of course. Never forgetting the trousers. Maybe even a pair of shoes. And stop calling me sir."

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."

"It's not as if I've done anything big or impressive around here."

"Well - yes, sir, but..." The two crewmen looked at one another. "It's just..."

"You're Cleopatra Shakespeare's father, sir", blurted the other crewman, darting a glance at Cleo as if afraid she might notice him doing it.

Mr. Shakespeare was taken aback. "My daughter's famous?"

"Brought back the Highwayman two years back, sir. Brought back a latest-generation Russian fighter for our boffins to study."

"Showed us all what we was up against last year, sir. With the Blue Goo, and all."

"Brought back the Wolfram's Shield this year. And the Bavarian Cloaking Device."

"Bavarian Cloaking Device", repeated Tamora.

"Well", explained the crewman, "it cloaks things. And it came from Bavaria."

"Anyone who's Cleopatra Shakespeare's father is both big and impressive on Gondolin, sir", finished the second crewman. He extended a hand for Mr. Shakespeare to shake. Mr. Shakespeare took it and shook it, as if in a dream.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir", said the crewman. "We'll begin burning your clothes right away."

"And Cleo shouldn't worry about betraying Gondolin's position", said the second crewman. "These things happen."

The men began wheeling the clothing rail out of the canteen again.

"How long have you been mucking about in Outer Space exactly, daughter?" said Mr. Shakespeare.

"Er. Probably I should have mentioned it earlier", said Cleo.

"We will discuss this later. Right now I'm going to find the room where they're keeping the rest of our furniture. We don't need half of it. We don't need most of it. People are spending valuable time hunting for miniature microphones in my legal library when they should be burning it."

He stormed out of the room. As he stormed out, a group of men wearing Red Cross armbands stormed in wheeling trolleys laden with medical equipment. One of them saluted Cleo.

"Erm", said the man who had saluted. "We need to take up some of the space, Cleopatra."

"Of our bedroom?" said Mrs. Shakespeare.

"Er, yes, ma'am."

"Of the only room we have to sleep in? Of the only private area my family can still call its own?"

The medical officer scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"Uh, yes, ma'am. We need a triage and treatment area. We're expecting battle casualties very shortly."

More men were arriving now, pushing more trolleys holding more blood bags and more portable defibrillators.

Mrs. Shakespeare's mouth dropped open.

"Battle casualties."

"Yes, mum", said Cleo. "It's real. And it's all my fault." She raised a finger at the medical officer, who had already begun to open his mouth. "It so is. People are going to die because of me, so don't you dare try to stop me from taking responsibility -"

"CLEOPATRA."

Cleo whirled. The Commodore was standing in the main entrance. He had changed his walking legs. They were now titanium. Battle legs.

"I think it is time", said the Commodore, "that you and I had a little chat. You and I and Anthony, of course. Mrs. Shakespeare, would you mind awfully if I borrowed your daughter for a while? Cleopatra, I don't believe I've ever shown you our nettle fields. They really are quite beautiful at this time of year, though frightfully dangerous, of course. Being such a terrible invalid, I would appreciate the assistance of an able-bodied person to guide me down their deadly avenues. May I?"

He extended an arm. Not knowing quite how to take this, Cleo took it.

***

"MR. STEVENS!" The Commodore shouted down the gravel path between massive nettle trees. Each palm-sized leaf on every towering shrub dripped with poison spines thick as hypodermic syringe needles. It was difficult to believe these were plants whose ancestors had been ordinary stinging nettles back on Earth. Here on Gondolin, for some reason, they grew differently. Unfortunately, they were among the only plants that would grow on Gondolin at all. They were one of the settlement's few food crops.

At the end of the row of trees, Ant was walking with Glenn Bob and Jochen.

"Erm, sir", said Cleo, "a surprise attack might be due on Gondolin at any moment. If a blast wave hit this field, we would be nettle sting pincushions."

"Oh yes, that would be quite fatal", said the Commodore. "Not to worry, though. The surprise attack isn't due to start for another hour."

"Er", said Cleo.

He pulled out the pink mobile phone and handed it to Cleo.

"This came through fifteen minutes ago", he said.

Cleo pressed the READ button. The screen said:

CLEO TELL BENTLEY BAD THINGS COMING HIS WAY 1 ARGUS 2 DREADNOUGHT 2 REVERE 3 CONGREVE ETA 75 MINS GMT SO MUST EVACUATE SOONEST DONT EXPECT HIM TO BELIEVE ME TELL HIM I SWEAR ITS TRUE BY THE BEARD OF CROM CRUACH HAVE RECEIVED YOUR PRESENT MUCH APPRECIATED WILL SAVE LIVES.

"Do you understand that?" said Drummond.

"Well", said Cleo, "from the Know Your Enemy charts in your office, an Argus is a heavy Alpha carrier, a Dreadnought is a heavy Alpha cruiser...a Revere is a light Alpha cruiser, like Jervis Bay, of course...a Congreve is a light Beta frigate. All classes used by the British. Looks like the entire British fleet. And against all that, you have one Revere-class cruiser. That's some heavy-duty annihilation right there, sir. And Alastair, erm, claims to have received something from me, I'm not quite sure what. Uh, I'm also not quite sure I understand the bit about Crom Cruach."

"Very serious stuff, that", said Drummond. "Very serious stuff." Having accelerated to maximum walking pace up the avenue, he began to slow down. "Crom Cruach, you see, is a sort of god. Specifically, he's a god none of the chaps in my dorm believed in."

"Still not understanding, sir", said Cleo.

"When we were at public school", said the Commodore, "we told lies to each other the whole time. Boyish practical jokes, high spirits, pempe ton moron proteron, you know the sort of things."

"Oh yeah", said Cleo sarcastically. "That Twenty Ton Moron thing, we did that all the time in Year Seven."

"In order to survive the boyish practical jokes", said Drummond, "some of which could border on the fatal, we decided we had to have people we could trust. One of the Upper Sixth had left a book behind in our dorm at the end of the year. A dorm was a sort of room that we lived in, you see."

"A dormitory", nodded Cleo. "I'm not that dense."

"Jolly good, jolly good. The book was called Conan the Barbarian. Conan the Barbarian was a sort of mightily-thewed chap who wandered around reaving and slaying and so forth, you see, and he had a god, and this god's name was Crom Cruach. At the end of my Shell Form - which I believe is the same as your Earth Year Seven - I and the rest of my dorm made an agreement, a gentlemen's agreement, that we would never again be lying to one another whenever we swore by the name of Crom Cruach. And", he said, looking at his metal legs in intense embarrassment, "I'm very much afraid Alastair was one of my dorm. Spotty little oick. Very bad at rugger. Unpopular."

Cleo's jaw dropped. "You're going to believe something told you by Alastair Drague?"

"We have to start trusting one another some time, Cleopatra."

As Cleo and the Commodore approached, Glenn Bob's heels slammed together and his hand snapped to his forehead in a salute.

"At ease, Cadet", said the Commodore. "It has come to my attention that certain of you chaps are down in the dumps and grizzly grumblepussses. There is a British carrier, two cruisers, two destroyers, and three frigates heading this way, by the way."

Ant looked at Glenn Bob, who nodded in confirmation.

"This is supposed to make us feel good?" said Ant.

"Oh yes", said the Commodore. "Oh yes. Walk with me." Swinging his hips vigorously, hands clasped behind him, he changed direction and set off for the far corner of the field at a speed difficult to keep pace with at a walk. "You see, Gondolin's location has always been a secret we guard very closely from our enemies, rather like the secret of flying saucer propulsion that the Germans hid from the British and Americans and Russians, and that the Americans then hid from the British and Russians once they'd learned it from the Germans. Do you see a pattern developing here at all?"

"Uh - that people naturally hide secrets from each other?" said Ant.

The Commodore looked at his watch. "Pay attention! That much is obvious. Look for the hidden subtext!"

Ant and Cleo looked at one another blankly, and shrugged.

"That the Germans, Americans, British and Russians all know how to build saucer drive ships today! That no matter how hard you try to find a secret, somebody will find that secret out!" said the Commodore. "No secret can stay hidden forever! So what do we do with our secrets, given that we cannot keep them permanently?"

"I really have no idea", said Cleo.

"We take advantage of the fact that the enemy is trying so hard to discover them", said the Commodore proudly, wagging a finger at Cleo. "And you have very nearly been the end of us, Cleopatra."

"Look, I'm really really sorry, all right?" said Cleo hotly. "If you want me to throw myself in the bushes, I'll do it." Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"You misunderstand, my dear." The Commandant looked at his watch again. "You were far, far stronger than we ever imagined you would be. We thought Alastair would break you inside a year, as he breaks everyone. As he broke George Quantrill. You know I once considered George to be one of our very finest? We were lucky there. Lucky that George was from Lalande 21185 and had never been to Gondolin, had no idea Gondolin was in hyperspace. But we knew that sort of luck couldn't hold out forever. That someone would find out where we were sooner or later. So we thought we'd take advantage of what they would do when that happened."

Cleo's expression was frozen. "And what would that be, sir?"

"Attack us immediately, of course, in the same way the Americans did Alpha. Particularly if they thought", said the Commodore, still striding determinedly towards the massive nettle tree at the end of the field, "that we were defenceless. That we were a tiny little outpost. That we only had one poor little Revere-class cruiser stationed here."

"And that's not true?” said Cleo.

The Commodore stopped, with his back to Cleo. He straightened.

"Not entirely", he said.

He turned, walking himself around jerkily on his battle legs. He was smiling; it was not an entirely nice smile. He looked at Ant; he looked at Cleo. His eyes were shining with a dangerous light. A hard, radioactive light, such as might come from a very rare, very dense metal forged in the heart of a star. He no longer looked like anyone's kindly old uncle. He had the appearance of a predator.

He looked at his watch. He looked up again.

A ship the size of a city swept over the tree behind him. It filled the sky. The air shrieked over the turrets and ports and antennae on its underside; running lights twinkled down from it like constellations. And on its underside, describing a circle large enough to enclose a Greek amphitheatre, was the zodiac wheel of the USZ. Behind it in the sky, above and to the side, were two more vessels like it. Beyond them, others. Beyond those, still more. A sky full of moving hardware.

"Gondolin", said the Commodore, "is far from being a minor outpost. You said it yourself, Cleopatra; whoever can build an outpost in hyperspace and defend it, controls space. The Gondolin we have allowed you to see so far is a minor outpost. The civilian colony.

"Gondolin is USZ military headquarters."