It was a deserted warehouse. Naturally, the light slanted in through dusted windows and made strange, angular shadows on the whitewashed walls. As you would expect, the dirt on the ground and the grit from the ceiling rose to meet each other. What will probably not come as a surprise is that this was also the secret base for the villain of this piece.

The bodies were strewn over crates and bits of machinery, their now-dried blood mingled in maroon pools on the floor. Slumped in the corner was Commander Sigma, her chest a mess of raw meat from which splinters of bone protruded. Lieutenant Hick hung from a walkway, her head regarding her own back with look of almost comical surprise.

Nic stood against the door, the only thing which spoiled her appearance of intense fury was the metre-long shard of metal that pierced her body, transfixing her. Captain Bowen, a small trail of blood hinting at his heroic, if futile, attempts at defiance, lay on his face, the floor clearly visible through the hole in his stomach. Noomy was flat on her back, the top of her head had apparently been removed in an effort to revive the scalping technique, taking some skull to make up for the lost time.

The bodies of Ambassador Buj and Chief Scholes lay next to each other, the gaping holes in their heads perfect mirrors of each other, while Dr Graham had apparently solved his shaving problem. Remove your face. Ksenia's position looked comfortable, cross-legged on the floor, until you saw that her knees were bending the wrong way, as was her waist.

Leila had obviously made a bid for freedom, and she had almost made it, the only thing stopping her was the medium-sized fire axe buried in her spinal column. As for Terri, suffice it so say that she wouldn't be playing patty-cake for a while, at least until someone set her wrists. And her shoulders.

'One...two...three...four...five,' counted Graham, moving his piece around the rim of the Trivial Pursuit board. 'Pink,' he told his opponent. 'Animals.'

Noomy reached for the question box. 'Under what circumstances is it illegal to engage in sexual congress with a pig in Tetraplos?'

Graham thought for a second. 'If it's been previously married to one of your cousins.'

'Yeahhh,' hissed Graham. 'Another wedge!' He was becoming quite pleased with the Trivial Pursuit Carnal Knowledge Edition he'd got for Christmas.

Cruk, thought Graham. And I so wanted to tell her the story of my little run-in with that law.

'Eh up.' Ratbat slumped into the chair, then growled as she read the top of the game box. 'Glenda, not you an' all. What is it about sex and this ship?'

Noomy thought for a moment. 'Well...um...people on this ship...um...bonk a lot.'

'I'll never get it.' Ratbat shook her head. 'What's the fascination with sex that you people have? I canna understand the...the...whatever it is everyone seems to see in it.'

'Aye, I did it, but...'ow can I put it... The first time I was well Brahms. I mean...I had sex, but it's like the few other times I've got drunk...breakin' stuff, saying weird things...basically I just doin' something I usually don't. I barely even remember it. The second time...' She sighed. 'The second time was just after Terri died. I didn't want to be alone, so I kind of let Euan guide me to it... I doubt I was even fully aware when it was happening.'[1]

After a slightly awkward pause, Graham told her. 'I don't think it's one of the things you can just...describe, Rattles. You've got to...' He shrugged. 'Basically, the only real way is to try it.'

'Ye think I need to have a sexual experience to see what the appeal is?' The other two nodded. 'Fair enough, then.' She found a section in the magazine she had carried in with her. 'Scott Bakula pictorial,' she said, showing them. She then got up and disappeared in the direction of the restroom.

A rather bemused look crossed Graham's face. 'I think she is.' He didn't know whether to laugh or shift into despair.

Ratbat emerged a few minutes later, looking slightly dishevelled, but displaying no change in attitude. 'Nothing,' she told them. 'Can't imagine why your predecessor did it all the time,' she added to Noomy. She plopped the magazine onto the table, then seemed to notice something. 'Where's my signet ring got to?' she mused.

Graham's expression defied description. 'I was really referring to doing it, y'know, with other people. It's...it's like a life skill.'

Ratbat's face was a bizarre mixture of aghast and affronted. 'Ye mean...ye mean I should have sex with someone on purpose?'

'Two people,' added Noomy. 'You should try it with a guy, and with a girl.' Both her fellows looked at her in askance. 'You could be gay or straight or anything,' she explained. 'If you're going to do it, it's probably worth finding out for sure.'

Everyone, herself included, honestly expected Ratbat to say something whimsical or stupid at that moment. Instead, she stared at her ringless finger in thought, and finally uttered, 'That could be interesting.'[2]

Noomy nodded in agreement. 'I think so.' She got up to leave. 'Tell me how it turns out.' She gave a cheery wave and exited 10-Foreplay.

Graham considered following, but he caught site of Ratbat's face, and he knew what was coming.

'What's more,' she added, 'you're possibly the male closest to me...we did used to be a couple, remember? And we never really...got round to it, shall we say.'

Graham knew that, but he also knew that the reason they never got round to it was because of the fact that neither of them had any idea how the 'dating' was started or by whom,[3] and it had actually ended painlessly, if confusingly, after not long at all. Sure, they got on great, but certainly not in a 'going steady' fashion...

He realised he was chewing his lower lip. 'Are you...? I mean, do you really..?'

Ratbat laughed softly at him. 'Come on, Gra. You've done this more than I have.'

Emma the Klingon, who had heard none of the preceding conversation, nonetheless realised what was happening and actually went so far as to drop the glass she was wiping. 'That,' she said, 'I would call a turnup for the books.'

It was hot. It was hot and dusty. It was hot and dusty and dirty. It was hot and dusty and dirty and boring.

Captain Euan Bowen and his brother lounged in the shade of a tent, looking on in mild displeasure as their father scrabbled around in the dirt. Although it may have looked as though the Fabulous Flying Len had merely lost his glasses, he was in fact in the process of uncovering an ancient block of masonry, which seemed fascinating to him and his associate, a small brunette woman with long hair.

'Of course I guessed. I'm supposed to guess. It's not as if there's much else, is there? We've had S for sand, D for Dad, H for Heike, and R for rock, and there isn't anything else.'

Euan pouted. 'How about....I spy with my little eye, something beginning with S.'

They watched as their father jumped up, brandishing a small rock. 'Look at this, sons!' he panted, running up to them. 'It's a genuine half a roof tile!'

His sons looked unimpressed. 'Dad,' said Euan. 'I refuse to be impressed with half a sodding roof tile. We've got hundreds of them back at our place. Whole ones, too.'

Len danced around a bit, waving the tile in a declamatory manner. 'You don't understand, son, this isn't just any half a roof tile! It's from Graceland!'

Heike, holding a notebook with pencil attached by a piece of string, came up to him. 'Um...actually, Admiral, that's just an ordinary roof tile. Graceland is about three hundred kilometres east of here.'

Len threw the tile away, ignoring Heike's pained look. 'Ah, geography's bullshit.'

'Dad, what is so special about that block of rock that you brought us out here to dig it up?' Euan was sulking.

'It's a very ancient artifact,' Heike explained while Len took a slug of Scotch from his hip-flask. 'There is a small iron ring embedded in the top, which proves that it's the real thing. Apparently, in many years past, when the wind came sweeping down the plain, this was the very same stone that they hitched the surrey with the fringe on top to.'

Even for such people of the world as Graham Charles Henstock and Urac Daria Sigma, this was going to be very awkward.

Graham's first thought had been to try to slip back into the 'going out with Ratbat' frame of mind, but the original surreality of that situation only amplified the matter. Then he'd tried to take it all the way back in the other direction - to see this as some form of one-night-stand (which it was, in a way), but that was no good either. The phrase 'I'm having a one-night-stand with Ratbat' doesn't manifest itself very easily to the human mind, or any other sort for that matter.

Much more of trying to wrap his head around that, and he really just wouldn't be in the mood.

'What d'you think, Ratti?' asked Graham as they entered his quarters. 'A bit of atmosphere?'

Graham scowled, turning the CD off. Great, they couldn't even decide on mood music. Talk about your lack of chemistry.

Fiona looked pensive. She'd actually meant to scowl, but she had a naturally pensive face. 'I hear Axel F, I hear Graham making some noise, and I hear someone twittering on indistinct Japanese in a mixed British accent.'

Through their experience, Graham and Ratbat had discovered a couple of things. Firstly, that with her hair untied and her shirt pulled off, Ratbat's hair made her look like Paul M^cGann after he'd just woken up.[4] Secondly, Graham's CD that had Axel F on it even more unfortunately had Monster Mash straight afterwards.

(Actually, thirdly, there'd been the notion that utterly frictionless sheets were singularly useless things, but this was entirely incidental, and Graham would have happened upon it soon enough anyway.)

Any thoughts about sexuality or the nature of being Ratbat was keeping to - and it seemed from - herself. Doubtless it'd bubble back when she was feeling more contemplative.

Speaking of bubbles, what was that on her hand? She lifted her hand and looked at it. 'Blood,' she realised.

Graham sat up, looked, and was about to launch into a verbal essay about the Mitsubishi Magna when Ratbat spoke again.[5]

'Cruk.' Both of Ratbat's hands had the unmistakable red fluid covering their fingers. 'But they were well clear of...wait a moment.' She frowned, and picked a short orange hair from underneath a fingernail. Graham's face shot confusion back at her. 'Turn around,' she told him.

Graham did so, and Ratbat looked at his back. 'Psiakrew,' she muttered. 'I thought so.'

'I think, Graham, that before anyone does anything more, we'd better get dressed and take you down to sickbay.'

'In your back, you now have ten little holes, where, in the middle of all this, I drove my claws into you.'

Ruth sat in the chair. Mr Mot was tutting and fussing over her like a protective mother hen. In fact, had he not been the best barber in Starfleet, she may have shot him already.

'I do hope this works properly,' he said, finniking over her ringlets. 'That old curling iron of mine just never seems to work right.'

Ruth surveyed the results in the mirror. She had to admit, the curls were not as good as she'd hoped. 'Do you think it looks OK?' She turned her head a bit. 'A bit too frizzy for Lady Macbeth, don't you think?'

'No, no, it's not that I don't like it, I just think it's a bit frizzy...' She took in his quivering lower lip, and relented. 'I think I can get someone to fix the curling wand for you.'

'Oh, good. I could do these side bits a lot better if you could get the curling wand fixed.'

Ruth sighed. Just why she'd let Eamonn persuade her to take part in the ship production of Macbeth she would never know.

In the next chair, Barry was being fitted into an immense powdered wig for his role as King Duncan. The fact that the hair actually nearly doubled his apparent height was not making him happy.

Eamonn, looking pale and dramatic as Macbeth,[6] strolled past. 'Do you need any help?'

Chaedy galloped through the doorway in a record three minutes, dropping bits of her makeshift toolkit all over the floor. 'Where is it? Gimme! Gimme!' she burbled, an expression of almost terminal pleasure on her eager face.

Mr Mot handed the curling wand over, extreme trepidation crossing his normally pleasant azure features.

She immediately set to, unscrewing bits that Ruth was certain shouldn't unscrew, inserting strange and terrible tools into the pieces, and throwing away bits willy-nilly.

'I know,' the engineer replied. 'I'm doing it! You wait, when this is finished it's going to be so cool...'

In a matter of minutes, Chaedy had put the wand back together. As well as now being a slightly different shape, it also had a much stronger power pack, with extra cables and fibres forming a kind of halo around the handle.

'There,' she announced proudly. 'I replaced the element and the thermostat, and I've beefed up the super-steaming circuits as well.'

'Thanks, Chaedy, you can go now.' Ruth decided to put Chaedy out of their misery. The engineer packed up her various cruel and unusual tools and wandered out, with a final dirty look at the barber.

'But my old curling wand didn't have super-steaming circuits!' he wailed as soon as she'd left.

'Don't worry, Mr Mot, it could have been worse. She installed inertial dampers in one of her bras,' said Eamonn, who had been watching the performance with some interest.

'Fair enough.' Ruth had known Chaedy long enough to not be surprised by anything anymore. 'OK, Mr Mot, do your stuff.'

The Bolian shrugged and raised the curler. 'Well, I guess the worst it can do is frizzle your hair to a crisp,' he remarked sarcastically. 'Let's see what we can come up with.' He seized one of Ruth's tresses and activated the wand.

'Great,' remarked Eamonn as blue lights flashed on and off in front of his eyes. 'I knew letting Chaedy have a go at that thing would be a marvellous idea.'

'I beg your pardon, man. Can you explain to me what has happened?' a female voice said, in a fruity English accent complete with tones of indignant surprise.

'You know, you're getting this Lady Macbeth accent down really well.[8] I reckon we....' Eamonn trailed off as the blue spots finally went away and he saw who he was speaking to.

'Mercy!' The woman crossed herself. 'A miscreant dares use such language around me!' She reached out and slapped the young lieutenant across the face. 'For shame! Do you not know how to address thy Queen?'

'Hmm. Some small improvement, methinks. But surely you are a commoner. Why, therefore, have I come to thy home, peasant?'

After considering all his alternatives, under that penetrating glare, Eamonn finally decided on a way out of the situation.

From his seat, Barry grabbed a hypo from his belt and tranquillised the irate queen.[9] 'Gault to Commander Buj,' he said, punching his badge. 'I think we need you down in the salon right now.' He looked at the now-comatose woman and sighed. 'Better recall the Captain, too.'

Callum, Euan, Heike and Len were sitting in their tent, having given up on the stone for the moment. Len was now leading in their current pursuit.

Euan took a card out of the box. 'Who retired from international cricket on the 29th of January 1996 at the Adelaide oval?'

Heike took the dice. 'I really don't think this is the kind of edition I should be playing.'

'"Trivial Pursuit - Old Farts and Nitpickers edition",' said Callum. 'It's perfect.'

'Only because I couldn't remember the name of John Wayne's first film,' said Euan petulantly.

There was no sound for a while but the rattling of dice, as Heike moved between the 'roll again' squares on the board.

'I hope I don't get geography. I'm really bad at where the continents were millions of years ago,' she said.

In the end, she didn't need to answer any questions, because the comm system gave a chirp.

Euan dug the system out from underneath�a pile of Callum's alien conspiracy magazines.[10]

Euan sighed. 'If it's S again, tell him to go back to Tharwa. I'm not interested in being made part of the Continuum.'

'Buh?' Euan racked his brains to think of something worse than S. 'It's not the Borg, is it?'

'Aarghh! Lwaxana Troi! I knew it!' Euan made a reasonable attempt at climbing through the tent walls.

'Admiral Bowen here, Val. Just tell me what's happened.' Len shoved Euan onto his bed.

'We need the four of you back here now. We've accidentally lost Lieutenant Crabb, and...well, it appears we've got someone else in exchange.'

'In exchange for Crabb? I always said we should take her back to the manufacturer.' Len realised he was digressing. 'Sorry. Is it someone we know?'

From the small monitor on the comm unit, Len watched Val turn and beckon to someone. 'Admiral Len Bowen....this is Queen Elizabeth the First.'

'First Officer's personal log, stardate 52994.0. I'm trying to keep myself from making a full judgement about this whole sex thing. At least, not until I've - as Nicole would put it - tried the best of both worlds. Actually...I'm no sure if I'm stopping myself from making a judgement, or if I just can't make one at all. In a way, I'm a bit glad I left Graham in sickbay. I 'ave a feeling it could have got kinda awkward otherwise...'

Graham winced again. 'You don't have to poke it,' he told Nurse Wylie. 'Just fix it.'

Nicole pulled her hand away from the cuts on Graham's back, and started to run a dermal regenerator over them. 'How off Earth did you manage to get cut like that?' she asked.

Graham muttered something incomprehensible, too late for the realisation that it was supposed to be a rhetorical question.

Graham sighed heavily. Oh, well. In for a penny...[11] 'When I was having sex with Ratbat.'

Nicole finished and flicked off the regenerator. 'Graham, if you've developed some secret new ultra-perversion, then that's your own business. But you shouldn't make up obviously untrue stories about Ratti to cover up for them.' With that, she stalked off into the other ward.

'But- but...' Graham watched her leave. Why was it always him that got in trouble?

The captain of the starship Compromise, its experts in stellar cartography and archaeology, and a blustering Admiral materialised and sprinted off the transporter pad. 'Where is she?' Len bellowed at Noomy.

'Not Ratbat, that Queen!!' he roared. He stopped. There was a third exclamation mark just waiting around the corner. 'Sorry. Bit over-excited I think.'

'Shut up.' He turned to his father. 'Come on, Dad, let's go and find Val. She's bound to have the lady under control.' The Bowens departed the room, leaving Heike to feel guilty about the sulking transporter chief.

Val was eventually discovered in the replimat. She and Suzy had taken the Queen there for tea, which Suzy was still sulking about.[12]

'...but of course, one must make exceptions,' Elizabeth was saying as Len and Euan walked up to them and bowed.

'Good morrow, good sir. Mayhaps, you can explain to me the whys and wherefores of my presence here? Valentina here,' she nodded at Val, 'did aver that you couldst disclose your secrets to me upon arrival.'

'A moment, my Queen,' Len bowed to Elizabeth. He pulled Val aside. 'What the hell are you doing talking to her?' he hissed. 'What about the bloody Prime Directive?'

Val shook his hands off. 'Look, Admiral, she was completely conscious when she was blasted here, and the first person she saw was Mr Mot. Are you going to tell her that he was just one of Francis Drake's new buddies?'

Len sighed. 'Why couldn't you just sedate her and have done with it? She would have thought it was all a bad dream.'

'Listen, Len, we don't know where Ruth has gone, but I've got a pretty good idea. Until we get her back, there's not going to be any of this bloody putting queens back where they belong. It could cause untold damage to the space-time continuum.' Val was being uncharacteristically rude.

'What? I didn't say put her back, I just said keep her sedated! You can't just go messing around with history! If we let on too much about what happens in the future it could have serious implications on the nature of causality!'

'I just wanted to chat with a queen to prove that my diplomatic ability was second to none...'

'Well what did you tell her? If it's the secret of warp travel or the microchip revolution, I'll have you skinned.'

'We were talking about Shakespeare. I wanted to see which particular year she was from, so I used Shakespeare. He was from the Elizabethan era.'

'Well - assuming that they've traded places - it means that we know approximately when Ruth has been thrown to. Sometime pre-Shakespeare.'

'Oh good, then we've only got 1564 years of history to look at, and that's only the anno domini stuff!'

Val looked over to where Suzy was trying to persuade Elizabeth to play shogi. 'I think you may be right.'

Euan wasn't exactly upset with being dragged away from his father's utterly enthralling archaeological expedition. He'd always thought that archaeology was being chased by interesting and amusing bad guys all over the world, meeting exotic women, finding ancient artifacts of forbidden power, and basically having a lot more fun than was offered by digging up old bits of masonry. Even if they were from Graceland.

He sat in the big armchair in his ready room. Ah, this is the life. I'd like to be an armchair captain forever, I think.[13]

He fiddled behind the seat cushion and found the latest copy of Fuzzy Bunny - The New Adventures which Leila had lent him. He was still trying to figure out what had happened to the walrus when the comm system gave a beep. 'Bridge to Captain Bowen.'

'Captain, you're wanted on subspace by Vice-Admiral Bishop,' Nic's voice came over, icily. Someone wasn't exactly showing a lot of appreciation for having to come on shift early.

'I'm fine, thanks Euan. I just wish I could say the same for all the Federation.'

'Mm? Is there an infection of corruption instilling itself into the very fibre of the Federation we have based our entire lives on?'

'We need the Compromise to go on a scientific mission. There's a planet in the Keiyuri system which needs your expert assistance.'

Euan preened. 'And what do they need,' he paused, savouring it. 'my expert assistance on?'

'Thing is, on Patou at the moment, they're having some very unpleasant seismic disturbances. The Compromise science team is needed to find out what's causing it, and how to stop it.'

Euan's forehead wrinkled. 'Patou...isn't that the little planet that was called Otan once?'

'Yeah. And, as you know, not far beneath the surface, there's nasty pockets of toxic gases. If the quakes continue, the entire population of the planet will be asphyxiated.'

'So we need to find a way of stopping the earthquakes.' Euan was not always quickest on the uptake, but he got there in the end.

Euan bit his lip. 'Um...actually, Mark, we've got a problem with our security chief.'

'No. Chaedy's trying to work out a way of replicating the accident, but we can't be sure it's going to work. In fact, we can't even be sure where, or when, Ruth went. There's no way of knowing if it was a simple exchange, or if there was a tertiary element introduced into the equation at random.'

Euan grimaced. He'd hoped it hadn't come to this. It had seemed so right when Bobbi explained it, now he was having to come to terms with the fact that he hadn't understood a word she'd said. Somehow motherhood had changed her. It had made her more incomprehensible, for a start.

'OK. Fact is, we really need the Compromise on Patou, and although I agree that finding your security chief is important, the re-enactment of the accident could really happen anywhere, couldn't it?'

The Keiyuri system was one of the largest in the Federation, matched in size only by the Nerpalon system. The rest of the quadrant was just so much unofficial space compared to it.

The Compromise drifted in gentle orbit over the planet, having decided to leave Ruth wherever she was for the time being (time being the operative dimension). No one was particularly pleased with the idea of leaving her, but since there wasn't anything else to do...

Ksenia pored over one of the panels. 'I think the point to start our operations should be here.' She jabbed at a tectonic diagram of the planet. 'If I'm right, the rest of the problem should be springing from it.' She flicked it off.

Fi handed her a padd. 'This is the latest seismic readouts for that area. I think we should be safe to beam a team down there. It's apparently about three kilometres from a settlement, so we should be able to do our stuff without disturbing too many of the locals.'

The team materialised in a deep valley between two ominous looking mountains. There was sparse vegetation around, making an accurate scan of the surrounding ground a little easier.

Ksenia had her tricorder out and was making notes. 'It looks like the major fault line crosses with one of the other faults about there...' She pointed to where a withered tree had once stood proud. 'I think we should place one of our sensors there.'

Ensign Stewart carried the bulky piece of equipment to the area Ksenia indicated. 'Are you sure this is going to be safe?' she asked. 'Isn't there a chance that the presence of the sensor will make the tremors worse?'

Ksenia bit her lip, annoyed that Kallista had asked a very sensible question. 'I think we should be all right. It's only a lightweight sensor.'

Kallista tapped it, trying to ignore the fact that the ground didn't want to stay under her feet. 'There's something making it malfunction.'

'Dammit!' Ksenia kicked a stone which, due to the tremors, subsequently rolled back on to her foot. 'Kallista, take the team, get back to the Compromise and grab Bobbi for me, would you? I don't want you guys here if there's earthquakes around, but I do need her help.'

The trio of science officers beamed away. Ksenia continued to scan the sensor and surrounding ground. The shaking and rumbling gradually subsided.

Not far away, Bobbi materialised, a large wet patch on the front of her uniform.

'And of course Jesse, Ariane, Matthew and Rosetta are perfectly safe and able without me.' Bobbi stamped over to the sensor. 'OK, what's the trouble with it?'

'I don't know. If I knew, I wouldn't need you to help me,' Ksenia remarked acidly.

Bobbi opened the top of the sensor and peered at the delicate instrumentation inside. 'Here's the problem - one of the isolinear chips seems to have cracked.' She removed it. 'I think I've got a spare somewhere...' Bobbi rummaged through her kit for a minute. 'There you go.' She slotted the chip into place and replaced the lid on the sensor. 'Now, let's see what we're getting.'

Ksenia examined the data the sensor was starting to churn out. 'Oh, my,' she said.

After they had run about a kilometre, Ksenia stopped. Bobbi panted up to her. 'What's the matter? Is it about to blow up or something?'

Ksenia shook her head and began to chew a fingernail worriedly. 'There's an even bigger problem here than I thought. Where we placed the sensor, there's been a rupture of the crust. The planet's now venting a very small amount of toxic gas.'

Ksenia shook her head. 'I don't think it's going to be fatal, but we'd better get some medical attention, and soon.' She tapped her badge. 'Forde to Compromise.'

'Could you send Graham down here with a medikit, please? We need some detoxing before we can continue.'

'I presume we don't have time to get back to the Compromise to get the proper treatment,' Bobbi remarked.

Ksenia nodded. 'I don't like doing this, but if we don't do something to stop the tremors and seal that fissure in the next seven hours, there's going to be a big problem with the air on this planet. At the moment, only a very small amount of gas is escaping, but if we get any more activity, we're going to be in big trouble.'

'Just give us some antitoxins, please. We've had a low dose of dantegen poisoning.'

As he bent to get the hypo out of the kit, Bobbi noticed some blood on his shirt. 'What happened to you?'

Graham shot her a look. Ratbat covered her eyes. It hadn't quite meant to come out that way.

Bobbi looked closely at the two of them, as Graham injected her. 'You didn't...?'

Ratbat rolled her eyes. 'Excusez-moi, Bobbi - it's no exactly like we were at it when Ksenia called.'

Ksenia, having also been treated, sighed and shook her head. 'I don't know - we're trying to do a serious job here, and you two just go around bonking?'

'You two are staying?' Bobbi, now recovered, was a little surprised. 'I thought you'd have things to do...' She collapsed with giggles again.

Ratbat, trying to maintain her composure, scowled at her friend. 'Riveting the chief engineer's mind to the task at hand spring to mind,' she said meaningfully.

Ksenia snorted and peered hard at her tricorder. 'Right. Whatever. According to what I got from the sensor, the seismic disturbances are spiralling out from a focal point, about three kilometres that way.' She pointed. 'We didn't detect it before with the ship's sensors because it's actually a calm area at the centre, like the eye of a cyclone.'

Ksenia adjusted some of the controls. 'I think I can narrow the field to project the most likely point, to within about seven metres. It's going to make things a bit difficult, because we won't be able to tell till we're almost on top of it how far beneath the surface the source of the problem is.'

'Is there any chance it could be a natural phenomenon?' asked Bobbi, completely under control by now.

Ksenia shook her head. 'No, not with a resonance pattern like this one. It's probably some kind of machinery, and pretty sophisticated machinery at that.'

'Well, we'd better find whoever's responsible and get them to stop it.' Graham picked up his medikit. 'Let's go.'

As they walked, Ratbat explained to Bobbi the seemingly-ridiculous circumstances of what had occurred between her and Graham. Bobbi still found the whole experience rather amusing - to Ratbat's annoyance - but managed to keep a straight face, at least for some of the time.

'Well...' Ratbat paused, still trying to sort the experience out in her head. 'Why? I reckon I just finally wanted know for sure. See if it really is just me being obtuse that keeps me out of the sex game. And as for why Graham, well...we did used to go out, you remember. Does make us not exactly perfect strangers.'

Ratbat sighed. 'I don't know. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.' She shook her head. 'I think I'll have to think about it some more.'

Ksenia squinted hard at her tricorder. She seemed immune to the intense personal discussion[14] that was going on around her, concentrating solely on her work. 'I think we should be coming up to the settlement,' she remarked to the group at large.

Sure enough, they rounded a rocky outcrop and saw, about a kilometre away down in a valley, a reasonably sized town. 'Looks like the source of the problem is down there somewhere. I thought we might be dealing with the natives before too long.'

'No, not really. There's a Federation science station based in the middle of that desert we beamed down in. They're the ones who contacted Mark.'

'Does that mean that the natives haven't had the First Contact thing yet?' Ratbat asked curiously.

'Well, they're not a pre-warp civilisation by any means, but for the most part they've kept themselves to themselves. They are associate Federation members, they just don't use it that much. They don't ask us for help, we don't ask them for participation.'

She broke off as there was a shimmering of a transporter beam directly in front of them. Val materialised within it.

Val shrugged. 'Well, it's been a quiet day. I just had Suzy tap into your comm signals, and it was easy.'

'Quiet day? Don't you have an unconscious European monarch from the sixteenth century in sickbay?'

'Yes, of course I do, but that's the point, she's unconscious. I've got nothing to do with her till we find a way to get her home.' Val beamed at them. 'Let's go find the natives.'

Unfortunately for the diplomatic officer, the first pair of natives they discovered were, in fact, Leila and Nic, who were not really native and had probably broken all kinds of laws by beaming down the way they had.

'Leila, I think you're being deliberately bright and cheery so Val won't yell at us,' Nic remarked.

Val sighed. 'I don't think I can even begin to tell you how many rules you've broken...' she began.

'Good. Don't,' Leila cut her off. 'We only came down to see if the local music store had the latest Indigo Girls CD.'

'And did they?' asked Graham, who liked the Indigo Girls almost as much as Leila did.

'So anyway, what are you lot doing down here?' asked Nic politely, not wanting to infuriate Val too much.

Val and Ksenia both glared at the pair, but eventually relented. 'This is turning into quite a party,' Ksenia remarked acidly as they strolled along. 'Here was me thinking it'd just be me and Bobbi.'

It wasn't long before they encountered yet another group from the Compromise. This time it was Terri, Colleen and Euan. Ksenia was even less impressed with their arrival.

'What's wrong?' Euan asked, hurt. 'I wanted to get a christening present for the quads, and Tel and Col wanted to go shopping too. We're allowed, aren't we?'

'For Dior's sake, you can't just up and leave like that! Who's looking after the ship while we're all down here?' Val yelled, all composure completely gone.

Acting Captain Barry Gault stretched luxuriantly. He liked the ready room. It had a very Euan-esque quality to it[16] which was quite nice. He recalled hearing about what Captain Picard kept in his ready room,[17] and decided he liked Euan's better.

The door slid open, revealing his acting first officer, Lieutenant Leyk. Behind her, at the conn, Ensign Simpson was giggling and remarking to Lieutenant Large at ops, 'Heh heh. He said "come". Heh heh.'

'Sir, I hate to say this, but it appears there are no command level personnel on board the ship.'

Gosia looked uncomfortable. 'The problem is, Chaedy's decided to try and reverse the accident that blew Ruth away, and says that no one here outranks her enough to order her to stop.'

Barry looked stricken. 'There's no one above the rank of Lieutenant on the entire ship?'

'Only Lieutenant Commander Scholes, sir, and she's been temporarily relieved of duty so she can look after Bobbi's kids while she's away.'

Barry's face contorted with fear. 'I think we'd all better find a secure place to hide.'

The party on the surface were blissfully unaware that danger in the form of Lieutenant Ritherdon lurked in the skies above, and continued to traipse through the city, with Ksenia in the lead, looking for the source of the seismic disturbances. It had turned into quite a jolly party. Although Ksenia and Val were still put out at the thought of having all these unnecessary people tagging along, there was a holiday air to the group that hadn't been seen for a while.

After consulting with several of the planet-dwellers, Val had obtained what she considered sufficient clearance from the local populace that they could go on trying to find out what was going wrong.[18]

Ksenia's tricorder gave a shrill beeping noise. 'I think we've got it,' she said. 'The centre of the disturbances shouldn't be more than about a hundred metres away.'

She scanned around, trying to ignore the argument between Colleen and Terri about who was the actual owner of the pants Terri was wearing. The only large structure within a hundred-metre radius was an old warehouse.

The warehouse looked deserted. The windows were grimy and broken in places; the walls hadn't been painted for years. Peeling paint hung off the door in long strips.

Euan looked around. 'Are you sure it's coming from here, Ksenia? There hasn't been anyone in here for years, I'd say.'

She shrugged. 'The readings say the centre of the disturbances should be about one point four seven metres below the surface of the ground, directly under this warehouse. I'm not saying it's only just come into being - chances are that something's been installed that's causing the normal levels of tremors to go overboard.'

'But it could be someone interfering with the tectonic activity of the planet?' asked Nic, hefting her phaser.

'And...' Graham held his tricorder close to the hinges. 'Thought so. I'd say there's a magnetic seal on the door as well.' He moved to the wall. 'Not to mention a sensor field around the entire building.'

'Can you get us in here, Bobbi?' Euan tapped the door. There was a slight discharge of energy from the hidden force field.

'I'd need a magnetic bypass. If I can calibrate it properly, it should let us open the door. But are you sure you want to get in here?'

'Yes. We have a duty to the people of this planet to stop these disturbances, and it looks pretty much certain that the cause is in there.'

'Right. Well, I'm going to need some help down here. Scholes to Compromise.' She tapped her badge.

'Kate? Get Noomy to beam down to our co-ordinates with some magnetic bypasses, and a virtual decoy unit.' She took an uneasy look at the sky. 'We're going to need some pattern enhancers for the transporter before too long as well. The atmosphere is getting unstable.'

'Well, I'm not trying to be rude, but you're the Captain, and your place is on the bridge.' She tapped his chest gently, but pointedly. 'You're not meant to come on away missions.'

The transporter whined and Noomy materialised, a pack full of equipment by her side. 'How are you all?'

'Great. Can you set the bypass to break the seal on the door?' Bobbi indicated. 'We need to get in here.

The transporter chief ran her tricorder over the door and tutted and muttered vaguely to herself for a minute.

'I'm going to need to do some re-calibrating.' Noomy set her pack on the ground and began to rummage through it. 'I just have to get the right setting on these things. Ah, here we go.'

She placed a device by the door-frame, and another on the ground before it. 'Let's see now...' Faint beams of energy arced over the door briefly. 'OK, try it now.'

Graham pushed the door again. It moved. No alarm went off. 'I think you did it, Noom. Let's go.'

There wasn't much light in the warehouse. But what had seemed like an old abandoned building was showing definite signs of recent renovation.

Euan stood, head on one side, looking with some puzzlement at the machine which loomed over them. 'What is it?'

Ksenia was already scanning it with her tricorder. 'I think it's a...' She paused.

'I don't know what it is.' She sighed and snapped the tricorder shut. 'It doesn't conform to any technological patterns we've ever seen before. Any estimates I could make as to its purpose could only be vague guesses.'

A tall dark man in black leather walked slowly around the corner of the machine. The dim light reflected off the opaque surface of his sunglasses. 'Now, would you mind telling me what your purpose here is?'

Euan opened his mouth to say something, but Val trod on his foot. 'We're looking for the source of the recent seismic disturbances,' she said politely. 'Would you be so kind as to tell us what this machine is for? We think it may be the cause.'

'You don't think it's causing the disturbances, or you don't think you can tell us what it is?' asked Ksenia rather rudely.

Ratbat, who had been examining the technology in detail, was struck by a similarity. 'Something about this...' she muttered to Graham, as Ksenia, Leila and Val continued to try to get answers out of the man.

Ratbat stretched out with her mind. There was an odd feeling to the machinery, almost as if it had some kind of intelligence behind it.

'I wish I had Leila to help me, but I'd almost say this machine was sentient,' she muttered to Graham.

'This bloke's reading as a--' Graham stopped and thumped the tricorder. 'I don't know what he's reading, but it ain't human. I mean, he's mostly human, but I'm also getting a lot of feline, a bit of reptilian, a tiny bit of Traken...it's as if he's like a collage of a heap of different species. All from different parts of the galaxy.'

'I'm sure you wouldn't want to be the cause of the destruction of this planet,' Leila remarked sweetly. 'Especially with you and all your equipment still on it.'

'That's it!' Ratbat squeaked. She shoved her way through the group. 'I've got it now, I know what you're doing!' She barged right up to the man, who towered over her.

'I recognise this! I remember this feeling from ages ago, in the Doctor's TARDIS! It's not Federation technology at all, it's Gallifreyan!'

His expressionless face did not change. 'That's right, Miss Sigma.' Without warning, he drew a Ferengi-style disruptor and shot Ratbat point blank in the chest.

The first officer was catapulted back several metres by the blast, her chest exploding in a mass of blood.

As Nic stood, wringing her stinging hand, he casually picked up a long thin shard of metal. 'No one is permitted to know about this. I'll just have to...'

A seemingly effortless javelin-style throw made the spike soar gracefully through the air, piercing Nic's body and sending her flying toward the door. From outside the crew heard the magnetic bypasses stutter and die. The magnetic seal was back in place.

'...kill you,' completed the man in black. Cold, the way he said it. So straightforward.

Euan set his jaw. The time the vampires had invaded the ship was nothing compared to how angry he was now. Not only was this man killing his crew, he wasn't even showing any emotion about it.

'You BASTARD!!!' he yelled, seized an axe from on top of a crate, and charged.

The man in black simply stood his ground, waiting. As Euan reached him, the disruptor flared again. Euan stopped with an expression of surprise on his face, then looked down, slowly, at the huge hole in his stomach. �I...don't...think....'

With one hand, the man tossed away his spent disruptor, with the other he grabbed the axe Euan had wielded. Now he advanced, the axe swinging gently in his left hand. Val tried to sneak around him to reach the door, and was grabbed, one black-gloved hand almost crushing her skull. As she yelped in pain, he swung around to connect her head with Bobbi's, who was trying to get behind him with a steel bar. There was a dreadful crunching sound, and both bodies went limp.

Graham and Noomy, next to each other, weren't fast enough to get out of his way. The swing of the axe that tore out most of Graham's throat and his face also took the top off Noomy's head.

'I did ask you not to question me,' the man in black said, almost conversationally, as he kicked their bodies out of his way.

Leila, tears rolling down her face, was still holding the limp body of the first officer. 'Come on, Ratti,' she sobbed. 'You're not dead!'

She leaned forward and kissed the pale face. 'You see? I don't kiss dead people, so you can't be dead!'

But there was no response from the sister who had been so close to her. It was useless trying to deny it. She was dead.

Leaving the body, Leila staggered to her feet, just in time to see Ksenia, trying to Vulcan neck-pinch the man, become the victim of a Klingon-style move which twisted her waist and knees in opposite directions to her torso. The shuddering crack of bones was hideous to hear.

Trying not to think of the carnage behind her, Leila made her way quietly toward the door. Behind her, she heard a strange wheezing cry from Terri, and more crunching of bone, but told herself not to look back. The door, blurred through her tears, was only scant metres away, when she suddenly became aware of something going wrong. Somehow she was now lying on her face, a dull throbbing in her back.

I've got an axe buried in my spine, she thought clearly. This means that either I'm going to be crippled for life or I'm going to d

The man turned from making sure the redhead didn't make it to the door. There was only one crewmember left, a brunette female with glasses. She was gazing in open-mouthed horror at the destruction that littered the floor of the warehouse.

Too terrified to say anything, Colleen backed around the mute bulk of the machine.

Fast as a striking snake, he reached out a leather-clad hand and seized her around the neck.

For a second, Colleen stared, transfixed with fear, at the dark, reflective surface of his sunglasses. Then his other hand gripped her chin and twisted.

The body of the last member of the Compromise senior staff was flung, ungracefully, over a nearby walkway. The man strode to the centre of the room, and looked around in satisfaction.

Sam scuttled around, looking for the biggest possible item to hide behind. The problem with engineering, however, was that virtually everything was either in use or volatile.

'No,' came the reply. 'But I don't want to do what I did before. Otherwise we'd just end up losing Francine and getting Zefram Cochrane or something. Now, help me with the cross-link to the deflector dish.'

'The deflector dish?? Wasn't the last one a hand-held affair? Why do you need the deflector dish?' She looked at the ungainly cables Chaedy had spread over the room. 'And why do you need to take the warp core off-line to do it?'

Chaedy sighed. 'Look. Is there any point in me even trying to explain anything to you? Just...be quiet and take this control pad.'

Sam took it with some resignation. What the hell. Her will was fairly up-to-date.

Several floors above her, Barry fumed (or at least came as close as he could to it, which means he lowered one of his eyebrows a bit). Chaedy, naturally, was as unaware of his reaction as she would be if he were in the room with her.

Beneath her breath, Sam muttered a phrase a nice girl like her shouldn't have known, and triggered Chaedy's machine. She actually felt strangely intact afterwards.

'No...' Chaedy shook her head. She wandered over to the pool table and checked the readings. 'Oh! Did I do it like that? Oh, no wonder.'

'You know something? It looks like that rift has something coming through it toward us...'

She sighed and rolled over in the bed. Someone was shouting again. People were always shouting these days, no one knew how to relax properly...

The voice continued. As it began to enter her consciousness a bit more, she realised that it wasn't shouting, it was more like...someone talking very close to her.

'Mmmph. Get Anthony to do it,' she muttered, and pulled the covers over her face.

They were rudely pulled away again. Somewhat annoyed, she opened her eyes and reached for her bedside phaser...

Ruth took all of this in, looked very carefully around the room, took a deep breath, and screamed.

'Please! Your Majesty! Calm yourself, we are here.' The man had hold of her hand and was patting it.

'Why...' He looked surprised. 'This is your bedchamber.' He looked carefully at her face. 'Art thou feeling aright? 'Twas a nasty shock that must have occurred.'

Ruth looked around again. OK, the guy talked like it was a thousand years ago or something. And he was wearing old-fashioned clothes, too. Was this something to do with the play? She didn't recognise him as a member of the crew.

'Computer, arch.' Again, nothing. That meant either a damaged holodeck, or an alien planet. She became aware that the bearded man, and the domestic-looking woman who had entered since, were staring at her, their faces a picture of alarm. 'What happened?' Ruth asked guardedly.

The man hesitated, but answered her anyway. 'You were entertaining the Duke in your privy chamber, and we heard your scream. When we arrived, you were both senseless on the floor. The Duke recovered quickly, but you must have struck your head when you fell. We brought you here, to wait until you recovered.'

Ruth scowled. This was odd. As far as she could tell, she'd only just arrived here by some means of transport or another, probably something to do with that Chaedy-caused explosion. Frankly, given some of Chaedy's efforts in the past, she'd been prepared to accept that. Now, though, this guy seemed to already know her.

'"Entertaining the Duke",' she repeated, trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about, but she just couldn't put her finger on it. Unfortunately, he didn't seem any more forthcoming.

'Tell me, uh, my good man...' she attempted. No reaction. Good. Whoever the hell she was supposed to be, she at least was getting some grip on her speech patterns. 'Could you possibly remind me if there's anything I'm supposed to do today?'

As the man rattled off a list of duties and appointments, it started to hit home on Ruth that whoever she was, it was somebody important. The monarch, it seemed.

And she didn't notice a single reference that would mark this out as being an alien planet.

Filing away for later the dying hope that she might yet be in a holodeck, Ruth calmly asked him to remind her of the date.

And she was finding out the hard way that she was a dead ringer for the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth the First.

Harry looked at his controls. 'I think...' Somehow what he was seeing seemed unreal. 'Captain, we're in the Alpha Quadrant. Really, this time.'

Captain Janeway tried to calm the joy that surged through her. 'Position and time period.'

'We appear to be in orbit around the planet Otan. It's in the Keiyuri system. And the date is....' He tapped his panel, waiting for the instruments to update. '...the 29th of December 2375.'

The captain sighed and sat back in her chair. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' she said exultantly. 'We're home.'

A ragged cheer began to sweep through the bridge, but was cut abruptly short by Tuvok.

'Captain,' he said woodenly, as he always did. 'There is another ship also in orbit.'

'It appears to be a Federation vessel. Pre-Menstrual class.' He looked up. 'Identification: NC-2604-Z. The USS Compromise.'

'Check the ship's status, then get ready to hail them.' Janeway stood up. 'We've been away for almost five years. We've got some catching up to do.'

The Titan Mental Health Unit was a pleasant place to stay. The moon, orbiting Saturn, was a warm, peaceful place, with very little in the way of alarming weather or geological activity. All in all, it was the perfect place to recover from the stresses of daily twenty-fourth century life.

Emma the Techie was sitting by the window. It was a sunny day, a light breeze teasing the tops of the trees, making them dance and wave their long fingers in the air. She smiled. They'd been helping her with smiling. And lately, there seemed to be a lot more to smile about. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so calm and happy.

She rubbed a hand over her head. The severe crewcut she'd had on the Compromise was growing out, very gradually, to frame her head in close curls. She found, to her surprise, that she rather liked them. There was so much more to like these days. She could think about the Compromise crew without feeling sick or violent, which the doctors said was a very good sign.

Emma thought back to the first weeks she'd spent in the unit. She was so unhappy and twisted with rage, guilt, misery and confusion, all she'd done was cry and scream at people. The staff had been supportive and helpful, though, and eventually she'd managed to get up and walk around the complex. That had been an important step. Several important steps.

There was a sound behind her, of the door swinging open. She turned around and smiled.

'Hello,' she said, finding the sound of her voice rather pleasant. 'Who are you? Are you a doctor?'

The man was dressed entirely in black, wearing sunglasses. 'No. Not really,' he replied emotionlessly, and pressed the hypospray to her neck.

A tall human female in a crisp beige suit was calmly walking around the side of his machine. She also had a disruptor trained on him.

'I've been after this lot for longer than you could possibly imagine,' she said, still in that pleasant, conversational tone of voice. 'And this disruptor is set to kill.'

'Who are you?' For the first time, the man's voice betrayed some inner feeling: curiosity.

She shrugged. 'All right.' She holstered the disruptor. 'I hope you're not going to be silly and try to kill me. I really don't care about your machine, or this stupid planet or anything much. You've killed the people I've wanted to kill for centuries. It's kind of taken the purpose of things out of things.' She looked at him thoughtfully. 'Why don't we consider ourselves partners?'

'I was making some final adjustments to my equipment when your friends interrupted me,' he said, striding over to the machine.

Straight into it, thought Chick. He's good at this. 'Adjustments?' she asked, stepping into line behind him.

'I've got a plan,' the Master said, redundantly. 'One that I'll find a lot easier to carry out now that those Starfleet fools are dead. Besides, I didn't want them finding my prisoner.'

They rounded the machine to an alcove at whose end rested a crude life-support chamber. 'My prisoner,' the Master said, sliding the cover open.

Chick looked. Inside was a human woman, her eyes wide and panicked, no doubt due to the actions of the machinery fixed around, and plugged into, her head.

If Chick could have been bothered to remember, she would have recognised the woman as the one-time Compromise transporter chief, Emma the Techie.

'Oh, she doesn't come in until later. Right now, it's these Starfleet officers that I need.'

Chick scowled. 'They're dead.' Had she walked in on some evil scheme, only to find out that its perpetrator was nothing but a sad-arse necrophiliac?

The Master smiled. 'So what? I've died more times than I care to remember, and I've never let it stop me.'

[1] Not that we'd wish to comment on Euan's technique or anything.

[2] Faced with a legitimate reason to have sex twice, and her reaction is akin to browsing through a bookstore. Two words: It's Ratbat.

[3] An amnesia made stranger still by the lack of social chemicals involved.

[4] Except for the famous brothers and the film career.

[5] Due to an unfortunate accident involving a very good stage hypnotist and a very bad cardiologist, Graham now had a nigh-irrepressible urge to talk about cars whenever a chiropteran mentioned blood. Fortunately, the only other time this had happened it had proved useful to distract Chick Collette when she describing how violent she was going to be to him and his friends.

[6] Which was odd, because he was actually playing Banquo.

[7] The whole thing had been rather strange, really - she hadn't done anything else to that particular garment, merely stuck inertial dampers to it. She hadn't even powered them.

[8] For anyone thinking of bringing up that that accent would in fact be Scottish and not English, it's worth keeping in mind that Ruth's previous effort had in fact sounded African.

[9] No, we don't know why Barry has a hypo of sedative on his belt. Let's just assume it has something to do with Graham's presence on the ship and Barry's natural foresightedness, OK?

[10] These are the magazines that say the whole Fedaration is a massive Government cover-up, that there's no such thing as alien life, and all this supposed space travel is just done with good special effects. No one ever said that they were sensible magazines.

[11] My, but that does make Ratbat sound cheap.

[12] With Elizabeth being English and Suzy effectively being Japanese, you can imagine how tea could become something of a cultural barrier.

[13] I don't think Euan knows what an armchair captain really is. Still, you can't blame him.

[14] In actuality, that discussion wasn't the one between Ratbat and Bobbi. Two of the other crewmembers were having a personal discussion of such intensity and intimacy that even the briefest snatch of it would have made all four Recycled Virgins blush and cringe. And then wait to hear more.

[15] Ksenia mentally added an addendum to what she'd already said about the planet. They don't ask for help, the UCF doesn't ask for participation, but record imports are alive and well.

[16] GI Joe posters, guns, toy spaceships, and a rather tattered teddy-bear.

[17] The complete works of Shakespeare, a fish, and, by a rather odd coincidence, toy spaceships.

[18] Her methods basically consisted of saying: 'Hey, you! You wouldn't like to be buried by an earthquake, would you?' Direct, but effective.