 
## GeneSys

By Roger Carter

Copyright 2013 Roger Carter

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Table of Contents

Part 1: Origins

Part 2: Eden

Part 3: Angels

Part 4: Aliens

Part 5: Dragons

Part 6: Apocalypse

# Part 1: Origins

## One

Guadalcanal, The Solomon Islands, 2040 AD

It was the mother of all hot flushes. Dawn gripped the handrail at the side of the pool, the sweat dripping from her brow, and prayed that she wouldn't expire. When she had arrived at the dolphinarium entrance ten minutes ago she'd felt perfectly OK, apart from some jet lag, yet now her head was pounding, her pulse was racing, and her cheeks were on fire. On top of that she was starting to feel giddy. She had been looking forward to this visit for ages, but now that she was finally here, with the two dolphins circling the pool and eyeing her curiously, all she could think about was the heat engulfing her body. That, and the earth-shattering event that had set her on fire.

The tropical sun was beating down out of a cloudless sky, but it wasn't this that was raising her temperature. Her jet lag wasn't to blame either, nor was she suffering from a bout of tropical fever. The real culprit was standing just a couple of feet away. His name was Rick, and she had instantly fallen for him. It was as though someone had cast a spell on her, for it was red-hot head-over-heels love at first sight.

Rick was the member of staff who had been assigned to look after her. When they had met at the entrance a spark of interest had lit up his eyes, but now he seemed more interested in the two dolphins swimming languorously below them. Clearly unaware of the fire that he had ignited in her, he was watching them and virtually ignoring her. But Dawn couldn't ignore him. Whenever she glanced his way her heart beat faster and her young body reacted like that of a menopausal woman, engulfing her in such a hot flush that her head throbbed, her cheeks turned bright red, and sweat broke out all over her slender body. Never before had she experienced such a rush of hormones, and it was most embarrassing. She pulled her sunhat lower over her eyes, adjusted her sunglasses, and hoped he wouldn't notice.

Below her, the cool water lapped temptingly against the concrete side of the pool, and she gazed down longingly at it. If only she could forget her manners and slide under the rail and join the dolphins for their swim! Such unseemly behaviour was out of the question of course, especially in front of the yummiest man she had ever met.

If her body wasn't swimming, her head certainly was. The ground beneath her feet had started to pitch and roll, and the buildings on the opposite side of the dolphinarium were swaying unsteadily as if they were drunk. What on earth could be happening to her? Was falling in love always like this? She shut her eyes, hoping to stop the mad gyrations, but the drunken lurching only got worse, and she began to feel sick. Suddenly her legs crumpled beneath her. Panicking now, she clung on to the handrail for dear life and slumped forward against it, so saving herself from collapsing into a heap at Rick's feet.

She gasped and opened her eyes, and, as if in a dream, found herself gazing down at the pattern of ripples criss-crossing the water below. They sparkled in the bright sunlight, like a multitude of glittering jewels, and a long-forgotten childhood memory popped into her mind: it was of the magic she'd felt when, on a visit to her granny's house, she'd played with an old-fashioned kaleidoscope. Each shake of the device had produced a wonderful new pattern from the multi-coloured shapes within it, and now it seemed to her that these ripples were equally magical.

She watched entranced as the sparkling patterns played themselves out, and as she lost herself in the wonder and magic of the vision, the heat and the jet lag and the giddiness and the passionate desire for Rick all faded away. It was as though she was floating on clouds, and the unbearable heat engulfing her body were replaced by a delicious sense of coolness and serenity, and she lost herself in the pattern of dancing lights in the water below.

Something prompted her to look up, and her peace was abruptly shattered. There, in front of her, was her body – her own body! – slumped over the rail. It was as though she was looking at herself through a camera suspended above the water. She blinked and looked again, unable to believe her eyes. But there was no mistaking what she was seeing: she was gazing at her own body from a point in space several metres away. It was as though she'd become a disembodied spirit. And if that wasn't spooky enough, she could at the same time feel, very faintly, the rail pressing against her stomach. She wasn't actually disembodied, rather she was both outside her body and in it.

She must have died, that was the only explanation for what she was experiencing. That strange hot flush had raised her body temperature so much that she had expired. Though even that was ridiculous: she was conscious and able to feel her body and therefore she _had_ to be alive. Dawn decided that she must be hallucinating. She wasn't actually outside her body, rather this was some kind of waking dream brought on by her jet lag and the tropical sun and all those hormones racing through her body. There's no need to be scared, she told herself, 'cos I'll soon wake up. In any case, it's much nicer being in this weird dream than being back in my body tortured by hot flushes and giddiness and passionate desire.

And now that she had escaped from those torments, she was feeling unusually alert. It was most curious: she was feeling more alert than at any time since boarding the plane in London two days ago. How could that be, she wondered? How could she be both hallucinating and alert? Perhaps the hormones and the jet lag had affected only the right-hand hemisphere of her brain, where dreaming mainly occurred, leaving the left-hand analytical part of her brain untouched and able to function normally. She'd read somewhere that was how waking dreams worked: the right brain was asleep while the left brain remained awake.

As she gazed at her schoolgirl body slumped over the rail, Dawn became acutely aware of the pressure of the rail against her stomach. It was the most peculiar sensation, seemingly both outside her body and in it. This has to be one of those out-of-body experiences, she told herself. She had read quite a lot about OBE's, for she wanted to study psychology, and she'd always wondered what it would be like to have one. Well, now she knew. With growing interest, she decided she would make the most of this unique opportunity and find out everything she could about this most unusual state of mind.

She set about trying to analyse her feelings and impressions. The weirdest thing of all was feeling that rail pressed against her stomach while at the same time seeing herself from a point in space several metres away. What else could she feel, she wondered? Concentrating hard, she found that she was aware of her feet and toes inside her shoes. She tried wriggling her toes, and, discovering that she could, automatically glanced down at her feet. To her great surprise she saw that she had a spirit 'body' that looked exactly like her real body. She was even wearing the same clothes, a white T-shirt and red skirt.

Dawn examined her spirit body closely, half-expecting it to have a diaphanous, ghostly appearance, but in fact it was bright and colourful and rock solid. There was nothing that was in the least other-worldly about it. Glancing up at her real body, slumped against the rail several metres away, she was startled to note that it was quite drab in comparison. Indeed, it looked distinctly wraithlike. It was then that it dawned on her that everything else in the real world looked grey and wraithlike too: Rick, the pool, the various buildings round about, and even the tropical sun overhead. Without exception everything, apart from her own spirit body, was tenuous, fuzzy at the edges, and drained of colour.

Dawn felt completely baffled as she gazed around at her ghostly surroundings. This was totally the wrong way round. _She_ was the ghost, not the rest of the world. And then she thought, to my spirit eyes this is actually the right way round, 'cos ghosts can walk through walls and buildings and other people, so to a spirit like me the physical world is bound to look tenuous and unreal. Even to escape from my brain I had to pass through the solid bone of my skull, so that will be ghostly as well.

And now instead of feeling baffled she felt very pleased with herself. She had managed to apply logic to this bizarre situation and so had made sense of it. It seemed odd that a spirit could feel an emotion like pleasure, but that was certainly what she was feeling. But then, she wasn't actually a spirit, this was all a dream. A waking dream, admittedly, but nevertheless a dream. Then she thought, how weird it is that logic can be applied to something as irrational as a dream that's conjured up by the sleeping part of my brain.

And then she had a seriously good idea. Her analysis of this bizarre disembodied state would make a brilliant topic for the presentation she had to give in a few weeks' time at the start of the new term. It would beat the pants off doing something mundane like showing her holiday pictures. I ought to earn an 'A' for originality if for nothing else, she told herself. Imagine the teacher's face when I announce that I've been exploring the spirit world! Smiling inwardly to herself, she gazed around with more critical eyes, determined to discover everything she could.

It was then that she realised that her spirit body was actually quite small. It was tiny, in fact. Glancing down at her feet and comparing her apparent height with the size of everything else round about, she estimated that she was less than ten centimetres tall. That was about as small as the fairies and goblins and leprechauns of her childhood stories. Presumably those early memories were influencing this hallucination – at least, she would certainly suggest that in her presentation.

Encouraged by this discovery, Dawn turned her attention to her ability to float effortlessly in the air, several metres above the pool. That would certainly be good for another screenful of bulleted points. She would point out that since gravity apparently had no effect on her spirit body, the inference was that spirits have no mass. That too was entirely logical, for they have no physical reality and therefore no physical properties. She decided that in her presentation she would speculate on the possibility that she had entered a parallel universe in which mass, electrical conductivity, litmus tests and all the familiar laws and properties of nature no longer applied.

Her gaze returned to the faintly gleaming ripples swirling across the misty water, and as she watched the pattern unfold, her curiosity slowly drifted away to be replaced by a dreamy tranquillity, and she lost herself in the peacefulness of the moment.

Suddenly her legs collapsed, and she was catapulted back into her physical body. Her instincts saved her from falling, and she found herself gripping the handrail tightly with both hands, somehow managing to remain on her feet. She hastily straightened her body and, still holding onto the rail, followed the circling dolphins with her eyes as though nothing had happened.

Happily, her head was no longer pounding and her giddiness had gone, and she didn't feel unbearably hot either. She breathed a sigh of relief. Her weird waking dream had obviously done her some good. Checking her watch, she saw to her surprise that it had lasted hardly any time at all, only two or three minutes at the most.

Unfortunately her relief didn't last long either. Because she couldn't help wondering if Rick had noticed her strange behaviour, she foolishly cast a surreptitious glance in his direction. In fact he was still watching the two dolphins, who were evidently far more fascinating than the drab schoolgirl at his side. However, that one glance at his gorgeous profile was enough to set her on fire again. Her heart leapt, her pulse raced, and her cheeks turned a violent shade of red. Sweat burst out all over, and she felt that she would die of embarrassment. She hastily jerked her gaze away, back to the dolphins.

Thankfully the giddiness didn't return and her mind remained clear, though it was another mother of all hot flushes. She'd never experienced anything like this before. Indeed, she'd always understood that only middle-aged women suffered from such flushes, never teenage girls. It occurred to her that these strange bodily symptoms were in fact just as bizarre – and just as intriguing – as her weird out-of-body experience. She had managed to apply logic to that, so why not to this oppressive internal heat also?

She tried to work out what could be going on inside her body. For some reason the heat appeared to be concentrated in the pit of her stomach. It sat heavily inside her, like a ball of molten lava. It was as if she'd just swallowed a huge mug of very hot coffee – though in fact she'd had nothing apart from fruit and cereal and a cup of tea for breakfast, which had been a couple of hours ago, and only a few sips of cold water since. It was most mysterious. Could what she was feeling be another hallucination?

Slowly and deliberately, she glanced at Rick again, to test her reactions. Immediately the ball of red-hot lava expanded, filling her stomach and pushing up her throat. It was as though she was a living volcano, and she glanced down at herself in alarm, half expecting smoke to be pouring forth from her nether regions. But there was nothing amiss, at least nothing that she could see.

Then, suddenly, the fire was in her mouth, and an involuntary gasp erupted out of her. Fortunately Rick appeared not to have noticed, though she had obviously sicked up something horrible. With some trepidation she licked her lips, wondering what it was that she'd spewed up. To her relief, she couldn't taste anything at all. There couldn't be anything seriously wrong with her, she decided, as apart from feeling unpleasantly hot she wasn't actually in any pain.

But then her stomach started gurgling. Her embarrassment at this was quickly overwhelmed by the feeling of being horribly bloated. She gingerly felt her stomach with her fingers, expecting it to be ballooning out beneath her T-shirt. It wasn't, but she was in no doubt that whatever was afflicting her had to be more than a mere illusion.

Perhaps she should ask Rick to call a doctor. Even if she had drunk a mug of very hot coffee – which she hadn't – it couldn't account for this. A moment ago, molten lava might have adequately described what she was feeling, but now even that didn't do it justice. Nuclear meltdown was nearer the mark.

Then a dreadful thought hit her. What if she sicked up whatever ghastly brew was inside her in front of Rick? She would rather die than suffer that embarrassment. It was bad enough that he must be able to hear those rumblings from her nether regions. She glanced furtively up at him.

And that was a big mistake. For at that very moment he looked away from the dolphins and down at her, and their eyes met. Immediately the volcano inside her erupted with overwhelming force, thrusting a jet of incandescent lava up her throat. At the same moment a wave of dizziness swept over her and her legs gave way. Panic-stricken, she grabbed the handrail and twisted her head towards the water, expecting a steaming gob of sulphurous vomit to explode out of her mouth. But incredibly there was nothing, not even a few wisps of smoke – though she was panting like an overworked steam engine.

To her immense relief the inferno in her belly quickly died down, and with it went the giddiness and the ridiculous panting. She relaxed her grip on the railings and concentrated her gaze on the dolphins circling lazily below. She was still perspiring profusely, so that the sweat trickled down her forehead and into her eyes, her armpits felt like a swamp, and the back of her T-shirt was sodden. It was the height of embarrassment for this to be happening in the presence of the most desirable man on the planet, but at least she wasn't about to explode.

But then an even more alarming thought struck her. She remembered reading somewhere about people spontaneously combusting. It was an extremely rare phenomenon, but it was well documented, and there could be little doubt that this must be what was happening to her – in which case she really ought to jump into the water with the dolphins to cool down. But when she pushed her hand beneath her T-shirt, to test the temperature of her stomach with the tips of her fingers, it didn't feel at all hot, in fact all that sweating made it feel quite cool!

She almost laughed with relief. Clearly she wasn't about to set off any fire alarms. The furnace within her was just another hallucination. No doubt the excitement of being here and falling for Rick had been too much for her, and if she calmed herself down these strange sensations would quickly go away. What she needed to do to return her state of mind to normality was concentrate her full attention away from Rick and onto something innocuous, like those buildings opposite, beyond the dolphinarium.

She stared at the tallest of them, the administration block. The name _GeneSys_ was emblazoned across it in large red letters, and beneath it, in smaller letters, the motto _Biotechnology for a Sustainable Future_. She let her gaze drift across the other buildings on the GeneSys site, and tried to imagine what miracles of genetic engineering might be gestating in them. New plant or animal species yielding life-saving pharmaceutical products perhaps, or new crop strains able to withstand rising global temperatures and novel diseases.

Her father was in one of those buildings now, being shown around some project or other. That thought reminded her that this site – GeneSys Honiara – specialised in marine biology, and that those buildings housed tanks of genetically modified fish and seaweed and other marine organisms. GeneSys was a global corporation, with biotech laboratories all over the world, each with its own specialisms, and this site was the centre for marine bio research.

The fires within her had died down to a mere flicker, she noted with some satisfaction. To keep her mind safely off Rick and the risk of more pyrotechnics, she tried to picture what lay beyond the perimeter walls of GeneSys Honiara. First there was the tropical bush, then a mile or so further along the coast the dusty outskirts of Honiara itself, the capital of the Solomons. She thought too about the company house where she and her family were staying. It was set on one of the ridges above the coastal plain, to catch the sea breeze. And, as she contemplated all those mundane things, all feelings of unworldly heat and fire dissipated and normality returned – just as she'd hoped.

Her mouth and her throat were still unpleasantly hot and dry, and she pulled a water bottle from her pouch and raised it to her lips. The water splashed shockingly cold against her tongue, and when it hit her throat it seemed to spit and boil, sending her into a spasm of coughing and spluttering. It was another embarrassment, worse even than her sweatiness, and she sensed Rick's eyes on her. Even the dolphins paused in their lazy circling of the pool to glance up at her.

However, the water had quenched her thirst and cooled her throat, and giving a couple of more ladylike coughs she tapped her water bottle and explained: "It went down the wrong way."

Rick chuckled and said teasingly, "Tell me another – there's vodka in there!"

His New Zealand accent was very appealing, and Dawn giggled shyly. Unlike many of the girls at school, who would have called her a snot and done their best to make her feel gross, he had brushed her spluttering aside with his little joke.

She felt completely normal now, and almost at ease in Rick's presence. She managed to smile up at him. "Please don't tell my dad. If he found out about my drinking habit he'd kill me."

Rick laughed. "Not very broad-minded, eh? Don't worry, it'll be our little secret."

Dawn's heart missed a couple of beats. She had never shared secrets with boys, or anything else with them for that matter. She had always been too bookish to bother. She was also a late-developer physically, having reached puberty a couple of years later than most of her friends. In any case, few of the boys she knew – mostly her brother's friends – had been particularly appealing. But the idea of sharing a secret with Rick, the new-found love of her life, was most exciting. Not this silly jokey secret, of course, but, she hoped, a much more momentous and intimate secret.

As she contemplated that enticing prospect, her imagination took over. Dawn had always had a vivid imagination, and the picture arose in her mind of them sitting together on the beach in the moonlight, the waves lapping at their feet and the cicadas chirruping in the bush behind. They hadn't yet kissed or held hands, but now he placed a tentative arm around her shoulder, and she responded by touching his fingers. Then he started stroking her tenderly with one hand, while the other lifted up her face to his. Their lips met in a long, passionate kiss, and suddenly she was pushing her body against his and her pulse was racing and she was overwhelmed with youthful passion.

At once the dormant fires in her belly roared into life, a jet of red-hot lava exploded up her throat, and her cheeks turned incandescent. The buildings opposite began swaying drunkenly again, and she found herself gasping once more and gripping the handrail tightly to stop herself collapsing.

Astonished at herself, she desperately tried to thrust the erotic imagery from her mind and fixed her attention on the circling dolphins in the pool below. In spite of the overwhelming heat and the dizziness, she managed to focus her mind on the task of recalling all she knew about these creatures – anything to escape the seething cauldron of desire that threatened to overwhelm her.

Although these particular dolphins had been genetically modified, they were derived from and were outwardly identical to the bottlenose species, so-called because they had large bottle-like snouts, or beaks. She had been told that bottlenose dolphins had the largest brains for their body mass of all the sea mammals, being roughly equivalent to the brains of humans. She had also learned that dolphins were related to ungulates, and that DNA studies had shown that their closest land-dwelling relative was the hippopotamus. Another notable feature was their echo-location organ, which enabled them to 'see' a long way through the water. As she concentrated her mind on recalling these and other facts about the creatures, her passion abated, her internal fires fizzled out, and soon the dizziness went too.

She couldn't completely relax, however. She would have to be vigilant and not allow herself any further glances in Rick's direction or any more of those delicious fantasies. Her thoughts must remain firmly focussed on those dolphins. They were the reason for her visit, after all.

She pulled out her water bottle and took a few more swigs, this time restricting the flow so that the ice-cold liquid only trickled across her burning tongue. It made her mouth and her throat tingle, but there was no more spluttering. She permitted herself a small cough and reflected that something very strange indeed must be happening to her. She'd never had much interest in boys, and here she was imagining a torrid affair with a man that she'd only known for a few minutes and who, after her brief vacation in the Solomon Islands, would disappear from her life. And even if she did manage to see him again, what would be the point? He was too old for her, a mere schoolgirl, indeed he might even be married. In any case he hadn't shown the slightest desire for her, apart from that initial glimmer of interest – and even that had probably been a figment of her over-active imagination.

It was crazy. Everything that had happened in the short time that she'd been at the dolphinarium was crazy. It was almost as if she'd suddenly come under the control of a supernatural force that was driving her at breakneck speed towards some destiny of its own choosing. Certainly she could think of no rational explanation for what was happening to her body.

She coughed again, then asked diffidently: "Could we sit down in the shade, please? I only arrived in the Solomons yesterday, and the heat's killing me."

She avoided looking directly at him, but out of the corner of her eye she saw him smile down at her. "Let's go to my office. It's got aircon, and it's very cosy."

She couldn't help a look of disapproval crossing her face. Back in Europe, power-hungry appliances like air-conditioners were subject to strict laws.

"Don't worry," he corrected himself hastily, misinterpreting her disapproval. "I'm not going to cosy up to you. Actually, my office isn't very cosy at all."

She saw that he was blushing slightly, and she giggled. Perhaps he wasn't as mature as she had thought. "I was worried about the aircon," she explained.

His face cleared. "Oh. That. No worries there, either. We don't use fossil fuels here, GeneSys has its own wave-energy plant, just a few hundred metres out to sea, plus solar panels. The environmental impact is zero."

She should have guessed that. GeneSys was the wealthiest corporation on the planet, easily able to afford renewable energy plants at all its sites.

She gestured at the imposing buildings surrounding the dolphinarium. "I guess all biotech companies can afford stuff like that."

He shrugged and started down the deserted poolside walkway towards his office. "You should know. Your dad's a top GeneSys exec."

She didn't reply. She was, she knew, very privileged. It was her father's position that had enabled them to fly from England all the way to the South Pacific. Few people nowadays were allowed – or could afford – to travel by plane. And it was why she, a mere slip of a girl, had been granted VIP access to the dolphin project at GeneSys Honiara.

She hurried along the walkway beside him. "You'd better tell the dolphins. Why we're leaving them, I mean."

"Don't worry, they've got brilliant hearing. They'll have picked up everything we said." He stopped and turned to them. "Did you get all that, guys?"

The two dolphins twisted round in the water and wagged their beaks vigorously up and down at them, throwing water droplets high into the air. Rick glanced down at her with barely-suppressed amusement. "You see?"

Dawn had stopped in her tracks, stunned by this display of animal intelligence. It seemed impossible that the genetic modifications to these creatures could have been so successful. "That's amazing!"

He nodded, then without another word turned and continued briskly along the walkway towards a low white building about halfway along it. Hurrying along behind, she couldn't fail to notice his broad shoulders. She was quite tall but he was taller, and his curly dark hair was almost the same colour as hers. They made a good match, she thought, then promptly cut short that train of thought. It was stupid – and dangerous – to indulge herself in such girlishly romantic ideas.

She glanced back at the dolphins. They were floating motionlessly in the water, staring up at her, and she got the impression that they were quite disappointed to see her go. It made her feel guilty, as this was a Sunday and there was no one else around to entertain them, just a skeleton staff busy with other duties.

She gave them a wave, and they flicked their tails at her. She could sense their eyes following her as she walked with Rick towards the low building, and as she entered it the sensation of being watched grew stronger and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It was probably her imagination playing tricks on her again, but when she glanced back something more than intelligence seemed to gleam in their eyes.

## Two

Rick hadn't been kidding when he'd said that his office wasn't cosy. Apart from a couple of small easy chairs for visitors, it was the most sparsely-furnished office she could imagine. There was a desk, an office chair, and a small bookcase, and no carpet on the floor. There were a few papers scattered alongside the computer on his desk, but no pictures and no photos of a wife or girlfriend.

The absence of any sign of a romantic attachment was something of a morale-booster for Dawn, as was the air-conditioning. This happy combination made her feel so much better that she even forgot her jet lag. Confident that she was safe from any internal eruptions of molten lava or any feelings of dizziness in this cool and austere environment, she took off her sunglasses and threw Rick an experimental glance. Their eyes met, and instead of a volcanic eruption there was just a flicker of heat in the pit of her stomach, and even that died down almost immediately. She smiled at him, and again there was only a hint of warmth down below and a slight burning of her cheeks. She let out a small sigh of relief. The strange force that had come upon her when she entered the dolphinarium was loosening its grip.

"You're right, Rick," she declared, throwing her sunhat onto the desk with a sudden abandon, to reveal a mop of untidy black hair. Bouncing into one of the easy chairs, she continued: "This place isn't very cosy. What it needs is a woman's touch."

She was immediately embarrassed at herself for making such a naff remark, and her cheeks turned bright red again. Hastily pulling out her water bottle, she took another swig, coughing as the cold liquid hit the back of her throat. But it stopped her blushing.

He was eyeing her with some amusement. "You really ought to lay off that stuff," he murmured. "At your tender age."

"I'm 17!" she retorted. Actually, she had only just turned 17, but there was no need to tell him that. Her father had arranged this visit as a birthday treat.

He looked even more amused. "I'm sorry I underestimated your age. Anyway, you'd better explain why you've come to see our dolphins. Your father said you're interested in psychology."

"I'd like to study it at uni."

"So why our dolphins?"

"I've wanted to meet them ever since Dad first told me about them. They've got human minds."

"Ah. He told you that, did he?"

"Well? Haven't they?"

He hesitated. "A sizeable chunk of their brain is human, that's true. As you've seen, they're very smart."

"They certainly seemed to understand what we were saying. But what about other things? I'm longing to know how good they are at maths and stuff like that."

"Maths, science, history, they cope OK with all of it. You saw the large computer screen on the other side of the pool?"

"You use that for teaching? I saw the row of letters and numbers beneath it, below the water. I suppose the dolphins use those to communicate with their teachers."

He nodded. "We're putting them through a comprehensive educational programme. They're doing very well, considering they're only ten years old."

She stared at him in wonder. The strange force within her responded by growing decidedly warm, but she was too intrigued by his words to let that bother her. "That's amazing! Is GeneSys trying to put human intelligence into other animals besides dolphins?"

He shook his head. "Only bottlenose dolphins have big enough brains. It might be possible to shoe-horn our brain-power into chimps and a few other species, but what would be the economic benefit?"

Her father had told her a little of GeneSys' vision, that the seas would one day be managed and harvested in a sustainable and carbon-neutral way using dolphin farmers. It would help feed a hungry world – and, no doubt, swell GeneSys' bank account.

"You must be really pleased with the way things are going."

"I only joined the project a few months ago – when I left uni – but the other guys are certainly pretty upbeat about things."

"I bet they are," she murmured absently, her thoughts elsewhere. If he had only just graduated, then he could only be 21 or 22, not much older in fact than her brother. Not too old for her after all – and certainly not married yet. To her alarm her insides started to heat up again, and she felt her stomach rumble, and she hastily pushed such romanticising aside and concentrated on what Rick was telling her.

"Apparently it was really difficult engineering these creatures," he continued. "As you probably know, the bioengineers had to splice parts of the human genome controlling brain development into the dolphin genome, then incubate the result. There were hundreds of trials, and all the embryos were either misformed or they died. It took several years before they had any successes, and in the end only these two dolphins survived. They're a couple of years off maturity, but there have been no serious problems so far. They're a male and a female, and we hope they'll be able to breed."

"Breed?" she asked in surprise. "Is that important? Can't you produce offspring in the lab?"

"Of course we can. We can extract their DNA to produce artificial embryos and put them in artificial wombs and all the rest of it, but the aim is to create a self-sustaining dolphin population. We want them to be able to procreate in the sea."

That made sense, she thought. Millions of dolphins would be needed to manage the oceans, and GeneSys couldn't possibly act as mother and father to a population of that size. "And if they _are_ able to breed, will you then go ahead and release them into the sea?"

"I'm afraid it's not as straightforward as that. First we'll need to produce a starter population of perhaps a thousand more offspring in the lab, and then we'll need to educate and train them. It's a huge project, and it'll take years."

"That size of population is bound to be viable," she murmured thoughtfully. "So then you'll release them into the sea?" He didn't respond immediately, and she raised her eyebrows. "Won't you?"

He smiled back at her, but it wasn't the same amused smile as before. There was something in his eyes that she'd seen before in people that she'd talked to, including some of her teachers. It was a look of respect for a teenager who was so articulate and informed. She had enjoyed a very privileged upbringing, and both her parents were academics.

"There's one big problem, I'm afraid. Because they have human-like brains, they sleep like us – they go into an unconscious state. Unmodified dolphins sleep differently, half a brain at a time. They're never unconscious, one hemisphere is always awake."

"How weird! Why on earth would they sleep like that?"

"It's because their breathing is entirely under voluntary control. If they fell unconscious they'd stop breathing and die."

She thought about that. "If your GM dolphins sleep like us, they must be able to breathe like us too."

He nodded. "Not that that's any advantage to them, it's just a side-effect of their human brains. It means that if they fell asleep in the open sea with waves crashing over them and everything, they'd drown."

"Oh. I see. The project's a failure, then."

"No, not a failure. We'll come up with some kind of fix. Floating sleeping platforms, perhaps, or underwater air chambers. Some of the guys reckon it's a good thing our dolphins are like that, 'cos they'll always be dependent on us for survival."

Dawn gazed through his office window at the blue sky beyond and wondered what was going on in the minds of those two dolphins. Certainly there had been something more than mere intelligence in their eyes when she'd glanced back at them as she'd left the dolphinarium a few moments ago, and she'd felt that unnerving prickling on the back of her neck. It was almost as if they were looking right into her soul.

It was at that moment that the first hint of the explanation suddenly hit her. It was a thrilling idea, and it seemed to make a lot of sense, though she doubted if Rick would see it that way. But she just had to discuss it with him. She would choose her words carefully.

"It must be fascinating to work with them," she observed, approaching the subject in a round-about way. "Human brains in dolphin bodies. It must be so difficult for them in so many ways. For instance, they're able to understand what humans are saying, but they can't answer back."

"They can. They use their beaks to type out anything they want to say on those underwater letters. It's quite fast – we've taught them the text message language used on early mobile phones."

"But that's not the same as _talking_ ," she pointed out. "It's not the same at all. In any case, not being able to talk is only part of their problem. Our brains have evolved with our hands, so we're able to make tools and manipulate our environment and do lots of other things. They can't do any of those things. So what's happening in the areas of their brains used for hand control? Perhaps they're using all those redundant neurons for something else."

She threw him a cautious glance. Now she would spring her idea on him. "Probably they've developed strange talents that we don't know anything about. Has anyone tried to find out? Has anyone even asked them?"

"Wow. That's a pretty cool idea!" Instead of scoffing he gave her an admiring glance. "I don't think it's occurred to anyone to ask a question like that. We need a few people like you here, people who can think out of the box."

That compliment was so unexpected that it completely threw her. Another bout of pyrotechnics erupted in her stomach, and the unearthly heat spread up her throat to her face. She couldn't bear the thought of more scarlet cheeks and perspiring forehead, and she hastily pulled out her water bottle. Once more the water slid icily over her tongue and into her throat, making her cough, and the conviction returned that some supernatural force must be behind these bizarre sensations. Surely those dolphins must have something to do with it.

"I'm wondering if..." The outlandish explanation that had come to her a few moments ago was now fully worked out in her mind, but she was unsure how to express it. "I'm wondering if those dolphins have developed _mental_ hands, imaginary hands that they can use to reach into our minds."

Rick looked at her sceptically. "Some kind of mental control, you mean? Telepathy?"

She nodded, and his expression told her that, just as she'd feared, he didn't think much of her brilliant idea. It was just a silly schoolgirl fantasy. The warmth that had filled her a few moments ago abruptly vanished.

"Lots of things sound impossible, but they're true," she protested. "Like the magnetic instinct. I've been learning about that at school. Homing pigeons and lots of other birds can sense magnetic north, that's how they manage to get home. Even humans have the same instinct, but it's so weak in us that it can only be detected with statistical tests. Well, I think telepathy's like that. It's weak and it's hard to detect, but it's there."

He smiled, and there was the same hint of amusement in his eyes that she'd seen earlier. "How many respectable scientists believe in telepathy?" he chided. "Hardly any, I bet. And you're seriously suggesting that our dolphins are the homing pigeons of the telepathic world? How potty is that?"

She threw him a reproachful glance. "It must be _possible_ , you have to admit that. What else are they using those unused parts of their human brains for if it's not telepathy?"

"And you have to admit that it's a pretty far-fetched notion. There's not a shred of evidence to support it. No one working with the dolphins has reported any strange mental effects. No telepathy, no mental control, nothing."

"Oh? Well, I've been having some very weird feelings since I arrived here. I definitely feel as though someone's trying to control me!"

He laughed at that. "You should lay off that bottle of yours. It's all that vodka you've been drinking!"

She giggled, and decided it was best to drop the subject of dolphin telepathy. "You're probably right. In any case, I feel much better now. Can we go back outside, to the dolphins?"

"OK, but we'd better give ourselves some shade. Your dad would be really mad at me if you passed out."

She retrieved her sunhat and sunglasses from his desk and they left the air-conditioning for a world of heat and bright sunlight. It was stickily oppressive after the cool of his office, and although she put on her sunglasses the glare from the concrete walkway hurt her eyes. The sun was higher in the sky now, and as she followed Rick silently back to the railed area where they had stood before, she was on tenterhooks in case she had another of those hot flushes and dizzy spells. Rick had talked about getting some shade, but there was no shade to be seen anywhere.

Without saying a word he went over to a control panel set in the wall behind them and fiddled with some controls. Machinery hummed, and an enormous awning started to unfurl above them. She watched as it extended over the walkway and part of the pool, cutting out the sun.

"That's much better," she said gratefully, removing her sunhat. "Why don't you have it up all the time?"

"We retract it if there's a storm. There was a big one a couple of days ago."

The dolphins had moved into the shade and were now eyeing her expectantly. "That's the male," Rick told her, pointing to the larger of the two. "He's called Adam. The female's called Eve."

"Good names – for the first farmers of the seas."

He nodded. "You'd better introduce yourself."

She leaned forward and called out: "Hi Adam. Hi Eve. I'm Dawn."

The larger dolphin turned, flicked his tail, and sped through the water to the row of underwater characters at the opposite side of the pool, beneath the giant screen, and quickly tapped out a message. She couldn't see what he was typing because the water was being churned up, but the letters appeared on the screen above him. They also appeared on a second underwater screen which she hadn't noticed before, but which he could obviously see. The message read:

HI_DAWN

"The underscore represents a space," Rick explained.

"He spelled my name correctly," she observed with some surprise.

"I told them you were coming," he confessed. "And how to spell your name."

"Well, I'm still impressed. Well done, Adam!"

Adam responded by rolling over in the water, throwing a shower of spray into the air. Then he tapped out a second message, which again appeared on the two screens.

U_R_HOT

Rick burst out laughing. " _You're hot!_ " he translated. "I think he fancies you!"

Dawn's cheeks turned crimson. "He didn't mean it like that! He means ... he means what I've been feeling inside, ever since I got here. He's telling me he knows how I feel!"

Rick nodded sagely. "Ah. Telepathy."

"Exactly," she told him firmly. "Telepathy."

He gave her a sly glance. "Perhaps you should think of a number and ask him what it is."

Her embarrassment turned to irritation, and she glared at him. "It's my _feelings_ he's able to detect. Dogs are sensitive to human emotions, well he is too. Except that he's able to do it telepathically. Like I said, those dolphins have developed mental hands."

"You seem very sure. You've only just met him."

"Of course I'm not sure. It's just that his message is so ... _right_." She didn't add that telepathy might also explain that prickly feeling she'd had when the dolphins had stared at her earlier.

Adam was watching them intently, and no doubt listening as well – though she wondered whether he understood the word _telepathy_. Now he turned back to the row of letters and tapped out another quick message.

######  WL_U_B_N_CHARGE_F_US?

She stared at the message in disbelief, and then at Adam. "What? In charge of you? Of course not, Adam, I'm just a visitor. Why do you ask that?"

######  COS_U_R_SPECIAL

"Special? What on earth do you mean?"

The dolphin stared back at her, clearly at a loss to know how to respond. Then Eve, who had been floating nearby and watching everything, darted forward and tapped out:

###### U_R_POWERFUL

Dawn couldn't help laughing. "Powerful? I'm not at all powerful, Eve. I'm just a schoolgirl!"

The dolphins floated motionlessly, staring up at her with their big eyes, then Adam returned to the row of underwater letters and repeated his first message.

_U_R_HOT_.

By now Rick was looking quite flabbergasted, and she could understand why. What those dolphins were saying didn't make any sense at all.

"I really don't understand what feeling hot has to do with being powerful," she called out. "Can't you explain in some other way?"

Adam flicked his tail and started swimming quickly backwards and forwards, so that the water became quite agitated.

"He's frustrated that you don't understand," Rick whispered.

"Have you got any idea what they're on about?" she whispered back.

He shook his head.

Suddenly Adam turned and sped back to the letters.

WD_U_LIKE_2_RIDE_ME?

Rick gasped. "You can't ride him, you'd probably crack his ribs. Dolphins' bones are quite fragile, and he's only young."

Adam responded by tapping out another message: _RIDE_IN_ME_.

"Ride _in_ him?" Rick exclaimed. "What on earth is he talking about now?"

"I think he wants me to leave my body and go inside him, telepathically," she whispered. "This must be what Eve meant when she said I'm powerful. Somehow I'm able to do things like that."

She was becoming convinced that just as Adam and Eve had sensed the weird hot flushes that she'd experienced, so they had sensed her strange out-of-body experience. The flushes and the OBE's were connected in some way, she was sure of that, and now she was certain that they were more than mere delusions.

"Leave your body and go inside him _telepathically_?" Rick scoffed. "Adam can't possibly mean that!"

Dawn hardly heard him, for her mind was racing. The full import of those messages on the computer screen had just struck her. She had assumed that the dolphins had somehow been responsible for her bizarre experiences, but that wasn't what they were telling her at all. What they seemed to be saying was that some special power within her was responsible, and now Adam was asking her to use that power to come into him.

And that raised a host of questions. Why did Adam think that such a thing might be possible? Had someone else gone into him in the past, or had he had an out-of-body experience of his own and travelled into another mind? And if that were the case, what else might these dolphins be capable of?

But the really big, puzzling question was this: If she really did have this special power, why had it only manifested itself now, in the presence of the dolphins? No, she corrected herself, it was not their presence that triggered it, but Rick's. In fact, it wasn't even Rick, it was _her reaction to Rick_. She had been powerfully attracted to him the moment they'd met, and the hormones that had flooded through her body had awakened a strange ability lying dormant within her. It was not unknown for love and desire to awaken unexpected artistic or poetic abilities in people, so why not this ability too?

The reason why not, of course, was that the ability to leave one's body and travel into another mind lay outside the bounds of what was scientifically possible. Rick clearly didn't believe in the supernatural, and she didn't either – at least she hadn't believed in it until now. She stared thoughtfully at the two dolphins floating a short distance away in the pool, their eyes glued on her and obviously waiting for some reaction from her. She didn't know what to say, for the notion of travelling into another mind seemed so crazy. Probably she was getting carried away, and their messages meant something far more prosaic. Well, it would be easy to find out.

"Do you really want me to go inside you with my mind, Adam?" she called out. The larger dolphin immediately shot forward and nodded his beak vigorously, throwing large drops of water all over her.

She was far too delighted to care about getting a bit wet, and not just because her hunch had proved spot on. The fact was, she couldn't imagine anything more thrilling than going inside the mind of such a marvellous creature. It would be fantastic to swim in a body like his!

Rick was looking utterly dumbfounded. "Go inside him? How does Adam expect you to do that?"

Dawn hesitated before answering. She didn't want him to think her mad, but there was no escaping what was on her mind. "Um, I suppose I've got to have some kind of, well, _out-of-body_ experience."

"This is ridiculous," he muttered, half to himself. "Adam actually expects you to somehow leave your body and go into his mind. It's barmy." He clenched his fists around the handrail and glared down at the two dolphins. "Tell him it's impossible!"

"No, it's not!" she retorted. She was brimming with excitement, because she'd suddenly had another brainwave. "I think I can do it. It's something about being hot. I need to heat up!"

Rick gave an exasperated laugh. "Heat up? Good grief, woman! What d'you think you're going to do? Wave a magic wand and burst into flames and disappear in a puff of smoke? That would be an out-of-body experience, all right!"

Dawn was too elated to be cowed by his irritated scoffing. "Now _you're_ being ridiculous," she retorted. "I don't need magic wands or spells or drugs or anything silly like that, I just need _you_ to hold me tight in case I fall."

"What?"

"Go on, put your arms round me." Before he had a chance to argue she had grabbed his arms and dragged them round her, turning so that her slender body was leaning backwards against him and facing the dolphins. In her younger days she had often played boisterous games with her brother and his friends, and that easy familiarity with boys coupled with her excitement and elation stopped her feeling too embarrassed by what she was doing. As for Rick, he was too startled to resist.

"That wasn't too difficult, was it?" she murmured, pulling his arms more firmly about her waist.

He glanced around, clearly extremely ill-at-ease. "It's a good job this place is deserted," he muttered. "I'd probably get the sack if anyone saw us."

Dawn didn't reply. She was wondering what the teacher who would be assessing her presentation would make of her account of this. She attended an expensive girls-only Roman Catholic school, and most of her teachers were pretty strait-laced.

Rick's warm body and strong arms had exactly the effect she'd hoped for. Her insides became a sizzling inferno, her head went into a spin, and her legs turned to jelly. As she slumped dizzily forward she felt Rick tighten his grip on her, and moments later she had left her body, just as she had before, and entered the disembodied state, floating above the pool with its faint pattern of ripples. This time there were no sparkling lights, as the awning had cut out the sun, but everything else was the same as before: her mind was alert, her spirit body was bright and solid, and everything else – the pool, the buildings round about, even what she could see of the sky – had that ghostly, washed-out appearance.

Dawn twisted her head round to see what was happening to her physical body. It was slumped in Rick's arms, and she could feel, very dimly, their pressure about her waist. It was all very spooky, and the thought crossed her mind that perhaps she might not be able to return to her body but would be forced to wander forever as a disembodied spirit in this dismal parallel universe.

Hastily pushing that frightening prospect aside, she turned towards the large computer screen on the opposite side of the pool and scanned the tenuous surface for Adam. At first she couldn't see him, but she discovered that by kicking her legs with a swimming motion she was able to propel herself forward above the water, and after a little while she spotted his grey shape. He was floating motionlessly below the screen, evidently waiting for her to enter him.

## Three

Dawn was mystified. She hovered over the ghostly form of the dolphin, wondering how on earth she was going to get into his mind. Simply gliding into his head had proved singularly unsuccessful: she'd found herself floundering in a black treacly tenuousness which she supposed was his brain, and after some frantic swimming had emerged into the daylight without making any mental contact at all. There hadn't been even a fleeting sense of his presence.

Evidently it was not enough merely to position herself at the same physical location in space as his brain. She should have guessed that, for whatever the mind was, it clearly transcended the brain. The fact that she was here, outside her physical body, proved that. The only way to get into Adam's mind was to somehow _think_ herself into it. Just as she had managed to slip out of her own brain by putting herself into a certain state of mind, so she had to do something similar to slip into his. It was, she reasoned, an out-of-body experience in reverse, and she decided she would call it an _into-body-experience_ in that presentation of hers.

She kicked her legs and dived down a second time towards his grey body. As before, she headed for a point between his eyes, and as before, he seemed to grow larger and larger as she approached, until, when she landed on him, his skull appeared to be several metres across. He would look huge, of course, to someone only ten centimetres tall.

Adam's skin had a ghostly, cobwebby feel, like a threadbare garment that was about to disintegrate into a thousand tiny pieces. One push and she would pass through it. She concentrated on that thought, and as she did so the greyness of his body darkened, and then everything went black and gooey. She had entered Adam's skull and was now inside his brain.

That was the easy bit. Now she had to somehow put herself in the right mental state to penetrate his mind. Perhaps the thing to do was to picture what it would be like to inhabit his body. She tried to visualise water lapping all around her, and how the world would look through his eyes. She imagined him gazing at Rick and her own slumped body at the side of the pool, and how the sun and sky would look. But however hard she concentrated on that imagery, no glimmer of light broke through the treacly darkness, nor did she gain any sense of Adam's presence.

I'm doing this all wrong, she told herself, what I'm picturing is too abstract. It's not altering my mental state because it's not engaging my emotions. To do that I need to imagine something that gets me hot and bothered, like that steamy beach scene I'd imagined with Rick.

So what was an emotionally-engaging image of Adam's mind? A palace, perhaps? Or the throne room within the palace, with Adam seated on the throne? But neither of those had any emotional appeal for her. Then she thought, how about a temple, with an altar, and his invisible presence floating above the altar and permeating everything? Somehow that had a definite appeal. The invisible presence would have to be male, of course, reminding her of Rick on that beach, reaching out to her...

A great way off, in her unconscious body slumped in Rick's arms at the side of the pool, she felt her pulse quicken in response to that thought. Simultaneously, the all-pervasive blackness engulfing her lightened slightly and the dim outline of a large stone building began to take shape around her. She gazed at it in wonder. The building was too shadowy to make out any details other than the fact that she seemed to be in a large cavernous space, but this was surely her first glimpse of Adam's mind. She even had a faint sense of his enveloping presence.

She had achieved this dim portrayal of Adam's mind by incorporating those delicious thoughts of Rick into the imagery. Rick triggered my out-of-body experience, she reasoned, so it makes sense that he can trigger my into-body one.

As Dawn savoured the faint sensation of Rick's distant body pressed against her own, the shadowy cavernous walls took on a rosy sheen, and she could see now that she was inside a large rectangular building. Encouraged by the strengthening imagery, she closed her eyes and pictured a single romantic candle lighting up the place, set in the centre of a magnificent golden altar. Though not an altar, perhaps, but a throne. No, it would be both an altar and a throne, she decided, with a short flight of steps leading up to it. In her mind's eye the candle was flickering brightly in the darkness and filling the temple with the sweet perfume of Rick's – no, _Adam's_ – presence.

Opening her eyes, she saw that the rose-tinted walls were now fully-formed, with fluted pillars and arches leaping high into the darkness above. It was the shape and size of a cathedral, and she was standing in the nave. In front of her was the short flight of steps that she had pictured in her mind's eye, leading up to a magnificent golden altar. Atop the altar was a single red candle, its flame flickering brightly in the darkness, giving out sufficient light for her to see that the walls of the cathedral were decorated with elaborate carvings and coloured pictures, though it was still too dim to make out any details. As she gazed around the vast space, she became aware of the muted sounds of organ music reverberating around the great edifice, and the sweet smell of incense filling the air.

This assault on her senses filled her with joy. I've done it, she thought, I've entered the temple of Adam's mind! At the same time she could feel, very faintly, her heart racing in her distant body. And mixed in with these sensations she could feel Adam's enveloping presence more strongly now, though this was still no more than an indefinable awareness, and she could not tell if Adam felt delight or apprehension at this invasion of his mind.

As her eyes feasted on the marvellous scene, and the organ music and the incense wafted over her, she was struck by the thought that she couldn't possibly have conjured up all this from her imagination alone. Surely some of what she was seeing must have come from Adam's brain. None of it had any physical solidity, of course, it was all a kind of dream, a fanciful interpretation of the neural realities of Adam's brain conjured up out of her subconscious mind with some input from Adam himself. She supposed that some kind of telepathy was at work between her and Adam below the level of consciousness, and this marvellous structure was the result of that.

Now she saw that a number of dark doorways were spaced out along the walls of the nave to each side of her. She hadn't noticed them before, and she supposed that, as in a dream, the cathedral imagery being conjured up out of her – and Adam's – subconscious was fluid and not yet fully formed. She noticed too that she could now make out some of the detail of the carvings and pictures that adorned the walls, and it struck her that the cathedral wasn't as dark as it had been before.

She turned to the altar with the candle on top, supposing that the flame must now be burning much more brightly. Indeed it was, and the golden altar, which had taken on a translucent appearance, was also glowing with an inner light. Besides this, she could see now that it was studded with jewels of many colours, and these sparkled in the light, and it struck her that this was the most beautiful object she had ever seen. As she drank in the vision, she became filled with a sense of something that she had never felt before in her life: a sense of _holiness_.

Entranced, the conviction grew in her that this wonderful altar with its brightly flickering candle, this holy object, was nothing less than the seat of Adam's consciousness. And then it struck her that although the cathedral was filled with organ music and the sweet smell of incense, there was no organ and no censers, instead the source of these sensations was the altar itself.

Now, at last, the imagery surrounding her had become fully formed. She could make out the details of the cathedral much more clearly, and she could even see that the ceiling high above her head was decorated with what looked like religious scenes. As she turned her head this way and that, she noticed that entire end wall of the cathedral, beyond the throne that was an altar, was aglow. It had been dark stone before, and she stared at it in some surprise. As she looked, it took on a more definite texture and form, and it suddenly dawned on her that it was an enormous stained-glass window extending the full width of the wall and forming a bright backdrop to the altar. Even more surprising was the fact that it was moving, or rather the stained-glass pictures that made up the window were moving.

At first she couldn't make out what the moving pictures represented, but then they came into sharp focus, and she realised, with a gasp, what she was seeing. It was an image of the side of the pool and the buildings lying beyond!

The scene shifted abruptly, and she saw Rick standing by the rail, still holding up her unconscious body. There was nothing grey or ghostly about the scene, rather it was bright and crystal-clear. She was viewing the world through Adam's physical eyes!

She watched transfixed as Adam's gaze drifted lazily from one side of the dolphinarium to the other. As the scene in the window passed before her eyes, she became aware that the organ music had ceased, to be replaced by the sound of water lapping against Adam's bulk and the cawing of seagulls flying overhead. The incense too had gone, to be replaced by the smells of the dolphinarium and slightly sickly fragrance of the flowering trees that grew along the avenues between the buildings on the GeneSys site.

As she took all this in, another feeling began to intrude upon her consciousness: _something was amiss_. The thing was, Adam was lying motionlessly in the pool, only his eyes were moving. He had invited her to ride in him, and, since he was telepathic, he must be aware of her presence and even of her joy to be in him, and yet he was making no attempt to give her a ride. Surely he should now be cavorting in the water and treating her to an amazing spectacle? Yet he showed no inclination to do that, instead he was dozing in the sun as though none of these momentous events had happened inside his brain. It could only be that he was waiting for her to take the lead. He was, she supposed, acting like a horse waiting for its rider's promptings.

She tore her eyes away from the image in the stained-glass window and gazed around at the interior of the cathedral, with its colourful pictures and carvings and those dark doorways running along the length of the nave. What promptings was Adam expecting from her, she wondered?

And then she knew what it was. Whether it was by telepathy or by insight, she couldn't tell, but she _knew_ what he was waiting for. Just as a rider took control of a horse, he was waiting for her to take control of him. _She was to be his possessing spirit!_

Her mind went into a spin. That had to be what Adam was waiting for, but how could he know about such things? Had he experienced spirit possession before? An hour ago she would have scoffed at the idea of spirits, let alone spirit possession, yet here was Adam, a dolphin, evidently familiar with such ideas. He had invited her to ride in him, and in his mind that meant that she should take possession of his body.

She couldn't imagine how he had arrived at such insights; it surely couldn't have been from his human teachers. But that wasn't her immediate worry. The more pressing question was, how on earth was she going to take control of his body? It's not even a human body, how on earth was she going to swim like a dolphin, wagging that great tail and everything?

But of course a horse rider doesn't know how to flex the horse's leg muscles or any such thing, but by other promptings makes the horse do exactly what's wanted. The horse's own brain looks after the low-level stuff, leaving the rider free to make the high-level decisions. It'll be same with Adam, she reasoned. I'll decide where his eyes would look and where his body will go, and his brain will convert my wishes into the electrical signals that control the various muscles in his body. What she would be possessing would be the higher decision-making functions of Adam's brain, the rest of his brain would carry on as normal.

Even so, how was she to go about taking over Adam's higher functions? How did spirits possess the bodies of others? Pictures of grotesque demons invading human minds flooded through her, and she glanced around the cathedral nervously, half-expecting demons to spring from those dark doorways to each side of her. The possibility that she might encounter evil spirits while out of her body hadn't occurred to her, but if she could become a disembodied spirit then, she supposed, so could lots of other creatures as well.

But nothing moved in the shadowy depths of the cathedral, all she could sense was Adam's reassuring presence. If there was an evil presence here, he would surely have sensed it, and she supposed she would too.

What a difference an hour had made to her view of reality! An hour ago she would have dismissed as rubbish any thought of disembodied spirits. She had always assumed that spirit possession was no more than a bizarre psychological state. Now her entire world-view had radically altered, and she was quite prepared to accept such things as real. The only question was, how on earth could her disembodied spirit possess Adam?

Her gaze returned to those dark doorways spaced out along the nave's walls. She guessed they led to the various compartments of Adam's mind, but would any of them offer a route to taking him over? She supposed not, guessing that she had to go to the seat of his consciousness for that. She fixed her gaze on the glowing altar with the brightly flickering candle flame flickering above it, knowing that that had to be the doorway to possession.

Although there was no actual physical altar or flickering candle, and like everything else here they were all mental constructs, they were nevertheless based on something real, and it was reasonable to assume that if she sat on that altar she would be performing some mental or spiritual act that would replace Adam's consciousness with her own. That, she supposed, would be her route to gaining control over his body.

And so Dawn set off down the nave towards the steps leading up to the altar. She was no longer able to glide through the air, instead she had to walk, and as she walked she realised that this imaginary world operated according to the normal laws of physics. The laws of gravity applied, and the stone floor felt hard and unyielding to her feet.

For the first time it struck her that it wasn't just the floor that was solid, but everything else as well. Nothing here was ghostly or tenuous. There was no way that she could walk through the walls to each side of her. Though this isn't at all surprising, she reasoned, because if I'm a spirit and I look solid, then this spirit-world structure that's been dreamed up by me and Adam will look solid as well. It's based on our experiences of the real world, so it'll have real-world properties.

She paused at one of the doorways. Like the others, it was shrouded in darkness and she couldn't see what lay in the space beyond, though it must represent something in Adam's brain. Curiosity got the better of her, and she walked over to it and peered warily inside, but all she could see in the darkness was a large empty room, lacking windows or fittings or any furniture. She stood in the doorway, mystified. How could any part of Adam's mind be completely empty?

She ought to turn away and hurry on down the nave towards the altar, but she just had to find out more, and, throwing caution to the winds, she stepped inside. Immediately a bright image of a human face materialised in front of her. Startled, she jerked back, and a second face burst out of thin air. She twisted away, and that face was replaced by a third. She sprang sideways and twisted about, trying to escape the faces, but with each movement another one leapt out of nowhere at her.

Panic-stricken, she stumbled backwards towards the door and the nave beyond, but yet more faces sprang at her. As she twisted hither and thither her panic started to abate, for none of the faces actually touched her, and none of them seemed threatening in any way. These are just images, she realised, this room is the representation of the part of Adam's brain that holds his memories of faces. If I search long enough, I'll come across Rick's face, and mine.

She backed out of the doorway, then continued walking down the nave towards the altar. But when she reached the next doorway, she couldn't resist taking a quick peek inside. This time she was besieged by images of animals and fishes, and she realised that she had entered the place where Adam's natural history knowledge was stored. It occurred to her that this cathedral that her dreaming mind had constructed was also a kind of museum, with different rooms for different kinds of memories.

But she was wasting time. Leaving the natural history room, she continued on towards the altar. The sense of Adam's presence was growing stronger now, which added to her own sense of wonder and excitement, and she felt her pulse, back in her body, start to quicken once more. Adam must have sensed her closeness, for the flame above the altar was now burning much more strongly, illuminating brightly the altar and the steps leading up to it. Gazing up at the glowing scene, it seemed to have taken on an almost erotic allure, drawing her on. As she hastened ever faster up the nave towards it, the flame above the altar leapt up even more enticingly, and she couldn't stop herself breaking into a run. All she wanted was to get to that delicious object, to throw herself upon it and shower it with her kisses. She desired it with all the hot passion she'd felt for Rick.

Startled at herself, she came to her senses and pulled herself up to an abrupt halt. This was seriously weird! How could she feel such a passion for an inanimate object? There was nothing remotely human about that altar, or even remotely dolphin for that matter. In fact, it didn't resemble any kind of living creature at all. But then, as she stared in confusion at it, she saw that it did have an animal-like quality. Its surface, she saw, was decorated with a pattern of scales encrusted with the jewels she'd noticed earlier, and its legs, which were curved, had clawed feet with a large jewel at the end of each claw. As her eyes drank in all these animal features, there welled up within her an overwhelming urge to mount it. I can't possibly talk about _this_ in my presentation back at school, she thought.

And then, to her alarm, she realised it wasn't just desire that was burning inside her. Real flames seemed to be flickering up her stomach lining, and she was beginning to feel very hot indeed. Although this must be another of those hot flushes in her distant physical body, she could feel the flames and the heat quite plainly. Surely she must be only moments away from waking up panting and perspiring in Rick's arms! She couldn't imagine anything more embarrassing, it would be the most ignominious end to her great adventure.

She glanced around, fearing that the cathedral imagery might be breaking up and the real world intruding, but the walls and the doorways and everything around her were as steady and solid as a rock. There seemed to be no danger that the vision would fade away, so she supposed that she would be saved that embarrassment. Still, there was no time to waste, and she hurried on towards the steps and the altar – or was it a throne? It was beginning to look like the latter, with its jewel-encrusted scales and its clawed feet.

Somewhat worryingly, the heat inside her was continuing to grow. She seemed to be more sensitive to it now that she was a spirit than when she had been in her physical body. She could even feel the individual flames, running up and down her insides like hot spiders, and though it wasn't painful, it tickled. As a spirit she was bound to feel them more clearly, she told herself, as they were spirit flames, not physical fire. She reached down to scratch herself.

That was when she had her next big surprise. She had assumed her stomach would feel cool to the touch, as it had before, but instead it was hot, very hot, so hot in fact that she almost scorched her fingers. She pulled her hand away and, glancing down at herself, saw to her utter horror that her body had started to undergo a terrifying metamorphosis. She was no longer human, she was beginning to change into a prehistoric monster! Her red skirt had disappeared, and in its place was growing a mass of bony red scales.

Suddenly she felt a stab of pain and a wrenching about her shoulders, and then a sharp spasm across her hips. She gasped in agony, but the pain quickly passed, and she found herself crouching on all fours with her long broad tail lashing the air.

Twisting her head round in alarm, Dawn gaped at her new body. Her neck was so long that she could examine it from every angle, and what she saw blew her mind. It was covered in red scales from her head to her tail, she had vicious claws that stuck out from her feet like steel daggers, and her tail, which was huge, was tipped with a blade so large that it could slice a man in two. She also had wings, and when she unfurled them they were so large they reached halfway to the cathedral walls. As for the fire in her belly, that was so real that wisps of black smoke were creeping out of her nostrils and curling up into the air. She was the greatest of all mythological creatures, she was a dragon!

Dawn was stunned. It was not so much the transformation itself that stunned her, but what it implied. For while she could readily accept that anything might be possible in this dreamlike world of spirits, including being turned into a dragon, it was really hard to believe that the heat she'd experienced in her physical body must have been dragon-fire.

She surveyed her new body again, and felt the inferno in her belly, and repeated to herself this inescapable conclusion: I've actually experienced dragon-fire in my physical human body! There's something in me that's not human, just as there's something in Adam that's not dolphin. I've been modified with the genes of some other species!

She couldn't begin to get her head round the implications of this earth-shattering discovery. In any case, now that she was a dragon, the desire to get to that throne was becoming so overwhelming that she really couldn't concentrate on anything else. On top of this, she could now feel Adam's presence much more keenly now, and she could even sense his emotions: great pleasure that she was in him, and great excitement mixed in with slight apprehension because she was about to possess him. I'm telepathic, she thought, in my dragon body I'm telepathic, just like Adam!

The heat and the pressure continued to build in her belly, and this was compounded by Adam's growing excitement. Now the flame above the altar that was a throne was leaping right up to the cathedral roof, and the sight of this fire aroused her dragon body to such an extent that, without her willing it, her clawed feet began to paw the ground in agitation. It struck her that she and Adam were like a pair of ardent lovers, each fuelling the other's passion.

Her belly now felt like it was about to burst, and she glanced down at herself. To her alarm, she saw that her nether regions were indeed visibly expanding, and an awful vision flashed through her mind of an explosion so great that Adam's skull exploded, filling the dolphinarium pool with blood. But then there was a loud click at the base of her throat and some kind of safety valve flipped open, releasing the pressure. Heat rushed up her long neck, and all at once flames spurted from her jaws and clouds of black smoke billowed from of her nostrils.

She was too relieved to be still intact to be dismayed by this spectacle. She was a dragon, after all, and smoke and fire were what dragons did. In any case, the possibility that she might catch fire was of little consequence compared to the powerful urges that were driving her on. For that enticing throne was now glowing a deep red, as though it were lit by burning coals, and the flame above it had become such a roaring jet of crimson incandescence that its jewel-encrusted scales sparkled like a thousand bright stars.

And then she saw the altar – or was it a throne? – for what it really was. It was so brightly lit now that that there could be no mistake. No wonder her dragon body was so desperate to mount it! Bright red, with its bejewelled scales and clawed legs and leaping fire, it was the most alluring creature she had ever seen. It too was a dragon, and it was calling out to her with desire!

No longer able to resist its pull, Dawn hurled herself into the air, wings flapping furiously. The instincts and skills needed to control her dragon body were hardwired into her, and she swooped unerringly towards the object of her passion. In an instant she was hovering above it, and now its jewels were sparkling with all the colours of the rainbow. As she gazed down at it she became utterly entranced and filled with the same wonder and awe that had come upon her before as she stood at the poolside, staring down at those ripples in the water sparkling in the sunlight. She felt as if she was in the presence of the divine. This wonderful object had to be more than just a figment of her and Adam's imaginations. This throne, this altar, was the holy of holies!

She realised now that she had misinterpreted entirely the nature of the passions that had gripped her dragon body. She didn't really understand any of it, and she certainly didn't understand why taking over Adam's mind should inspire in her a sense of the divine, but it was clear that the urges that had gripped her were not erotic. They were religious.

Her knowledge of such things was purely academic, but she'd read in one of her psychology books that sexual ecstasy and religious ecstasy share some of the same neural pathways in the brain. It was no wonder that, in a body so different from her own, she had confused the two. But she felt much more comfortable now that she knew that her passions were inspired by religious awe and ecstasy rather than carnal desire. Certainly it would be one less black mark from her teacher when she came to give that presentation.

And so, with her mind now at ease and her heart rejoicing and her wings flapping madly, Dawn settled down onto the altar that was a throne and the seat of Adam's consciousness. Adam was in a similar state of ecstasy, and the altar opened up and something like welcoming arms embraced her. There was a brief moment of darkness, and then her mind expanded and she was reaching outwards to embrace all the planets and all the stars, out to the farthest galaxy. Then she shrank back again and fell into the stained-glass window. Its images exploded to fill her vision, water was lapping against her bare flesh, and seagulls were caw-cawing to each other in the distance.

And as the vivid impressions hit her, she knew that this was no spirit-world flight of fancy. This was for real. She had become a dolphin!

## Four

Dawn really enjoyed being a dolphin. She savoured the cool water against her skin, she listened to the cries of the seagulls through her sensitive ears, and she marvelled at the acuity of her vision. Sinking below the surface, she revelled in her ability to hold her breath for ages without any discomfort, and at the clarity of her underwater vision. She could see clearly to the far end of the pool, which was about 100 metres away. Adam's brain was automatically integrating the information from his echo-location system with his visual system to provide this remarkable image. And when she flapped her tail, she shot through the water at an impressive speed.

If that wasn't exciting enough, she now had total access to all of Adam's memories, and that was really amazing. He was like an open book, and she was somehow aware of the endless hours of teaching he'd received, floating in the water before his human tutors and that giant screen, and of how he could catch the emotions of his tutors, whether they were pleased or frustrated at his progress, and whether they felt affection for him.

She thought about the question that had bothered her earlier: how did Adam know that she was able to enter him, and how did he know about spirit possession? Had he experienced that for himself? Immediately she found herself immersed in memories of just such an incident. It had occurred almost three years ago, when he and Eve were just seven years old. They had been given an experimental meal of fish that had been genetically modified to produce a powerful psychotropic drug, and afterwards they'd both had an out-of-body experience in which they'd gone on a spirit journey.

Dawn thought it strange that they'd both found it so easy to slip out of their bodies. Very few humans would have been able to do that, and she wondered if it was related to their telepathic abilities. Adam's memories provided no answers to that, however. He and Eve had never been given those fish again, and so they had been unable to repeat the experience or investigate it more fully.

Adam had at first found it very unnerving to be floating outside his body. He thought perhaps that he was dead, for the world was now a pale shadow of its former self. However, Eve's spirit was within him, and she looked bright and solid enough, and when he peered round at himself he saw that he was the same. That reassured him, and he guessed that he was simply having a very strange dream. And when he realised that they were now able to swim through the air instead of through water, he became quite excited.

Dawn wondered if he had also turned into a dragon, but he had no recollection of such a thing. Although he knew about these creatures from the animated films he'd seen on the screen in the pool, to him they were no more real than the fairies and goblins and other fantastical inhabitants of his childhood stories. She knew then that the imagery of the jewel-encrusted throne with its dragon scales and clawed feet had been the product of her mind alone.

He had flapped his tail and soared high into the sky like a bird, with Eve beside him, and they had circled around gazing down at the broad grey ocean and waves breaking on the shore, and further along the coast the big human city of Honiara. But everything was ghostly and indistinct.

Eve, in contrast, seemed to glow with life. He could sense her feelings more vividly than ever before: he felt her wonder and excitement and curiosity, as well as her nervousness about the strange world that they now inhabited. Strangely, these were mingled with his own emotions, so much so that he could hardly distinguish the one from the other. It was as if their minds were becoming fused. They stared at each other, and he detected her own bewilderment, and that told him that she too was feeling this fusing of minds.

They floated towards each other, their bodies touched, and suddenly they were one. He was Eve and she was Adam, and he was as much aware of her memories as she was of his, and they were united in the same spirit body and looking through the same spirit eyes. As Dawn contemplated these bizarre memories, it occurred to her that in a way the two young dolphins were possessing each other. This was a total meeting of minds.

They circled high above the ocean, relishing their oneness, and then, acting as a single entity, they flew over the city towards the tree-covered hills in the centre of the Guadalcanal. They passed over several villages with wooden houses and surrounded by vegetable gardens, and several men and women working in the gardens. Curious for a closer look, they glided down to watch one of the men.

Adam had always wondered what it would be like to have a human body, and Eve had too, and it occurred to their merged consciousness that perhaps they could enter this man's mind and take possession of him. They had learned in their human culture lessons that many people, especially in places like the Solomon Islands, believed in spirit possession.

And so they had glided into the man's skull. Unlike Dawn, who had had some difficulty constructing a spirit-world representation of Adam's mind, they seemed to have had no problems at all. They had immediately found themselves, not in a cathedral, but in a seaweedy paradise consisting of a lagoon with a small island in the middle. They swam towards the island, and when they reached it they saw it was covered with grass and flowers, and on it was a large screen showing the world through the man's eyes. How interesting, Dawn thought, that whereas her mind had conjured up a stained-glass window to portray the world beyond, they had conjured up a computer screen. Alongside this screen was a statue of a beautiful woman holding a flaming torch above her head, their equivalent of the golden altar with its flickering candle.

Adam felt himself drawn to that statue with its flaming torch, just as Dawn had been drawn to the golden throne, and he tried to push himself onto the island to get to it. Somewhat to his surprise he succeeded, and when he looked down at himself he saw, to his astonishment, that he had become a human. A young boy, in fact. He stared down at his body, which was completely naked, and he wiggled his fingers and moved his legs and jumped up and down. Although it seemed a little strange at first, he quickly got the hang of it, and then it all seemed completely natural. It's because, in my brain, I _am_ human, he had thought.

Dawn, reliving this memory, felt a pang of unease. Is this why I turned into a dragon and found I could so easily control its body? Because I really am a dragon? She pushed that unnerving thought aside and tried to concentrate on Adam's memories.

Adam had realised that, in taking on a human form, he had separated from Eve and could no longer sense her emotions. Where had she gone? Had something happened to her? He looked round in alarm, and saw to his relief that she too had become human – a young girl, in fact – and completely naked. Like him she had crawled out of the water onto the island. They stared at each other, and for the first time in their lives spoke to each with human words.

"Eve?" he faltered. "You're Eve?"

Eve looked down at her body. "We're human!" she exclaimed, stating the obvious. "How strange."

"Really strange. I can't feel your mind."

"I can't feel yours, either. It's because humans can't do telepathy. We've left the telepathic part of ourselves behind."

"But where is it?" Adam looked around, then peered into the water. "What does that part of us look like?"

"I don't expect it looks like anything. The thing that we were when we came together, we've left something of that behind."

"But we should be able to see it," he persisted. "If we left something behind it should be floating in the water."

"Perhaps it's still inside us, connecting us together, but because we're human we can't feel it."

"You're probably right." He turned from her and gazed at the statue. It was very beautiful, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. "I want to touch it," he whispered. "Do you think it will mind?"

"I want to touch it too. Why don't we try?"

They walked across the grass towards the statue. But as they approached it, they were suddenly overwhelmed by a terrifying sense of fear.

"Something's wrong," Eve gasped, grabbing his arm. "I feel really frightened, something's about to attack us!"

"It's the man that we've entered, he's frightened 'cos he feels our presence, he knows we're inside his mind. He thinks we're attacking him! The people living here are really afraid of spirits."

The island on which they were standing began shaking violently, so much so that they were thrown to the ground. Fortunately the grass was soft and they didn't hurt themselves, and they managed to scramble to their feet and dived back into the lagoon. Now the lagoon itself began to bubble and shake, and then the imagery started to fall apart, and all at once Adam found himself hovering above the man with Eve beside him and they were dolphins again.

To Adam's relief their telepathy had returned, and he could feel Eve's comforting presence. He moved closer to her, and as he did so he felt that sense of oneness with her return, and then their bodies touched and their minds fused. His consciousness mingled with hers, and the realisation came upon them that a part of their merged mind had persisted even after they had separated into their human forms, and that it had observed everything that had happened to them. They saw themselves walking on that island through its eyes, and then their frantic escape from the violent shaking as they jumped back into the lagoon. It was very strange, and they didn't understand it at all, but it seemed that in coming together they had brought into being something that was greater than the sum of their parts.

Once more they rose up into the sky and continued their flight. Passing over another village, they spotted a man and a woman lying together beneath a tree, and because they really wanted to know what it was like to be a human they decided to make a second attempt at possession. Again they entered the man without difficulty, and again they found themselves swimming in a lagoon. As before, there was an island in the middle of which was a large screen and a statue of a beautiful woman holding a flame. This time the flame was much bigger, flaring up and casting a reddish sheen over everything.

Adam clambered onto the island, a young boy once again. As before, he had lost the sense of Eve's presence, but this no longer bothered him, instead he ran across the grass to the statue. This time there was no fear or shaking, and he threw his arms around the statue. As he did so, the statue seemed to melt in his arms and wrap itself around him, his mind seemed to expand and become one with everything in the universe, and then he found himself in full control of the man's body. The man hadn't shown any fear and Adam hadn't felt the slightest resistance.

Dawn had no doubt as to the reason for that. That flaring red flame showed that the man was making love to the woman, and in his state of sexual ecstasy his defences were down. She was reminded, once again, that sexual ecstasy and religious ecstasy and spirit possession all utilised the same pathways in the brain.

Adam remained in possession of the man for only a few minutes, but in that time he was able to talk to the woman and pick flowers and throw stones and wander into the bush. He was eager to explore all the capabilities of those dexterous fingers and long legs and strong arms, but his visit was cut short by Eve, who had also climbed onto the island and was clamouring to take Adam's place. He resisted at first, but then he opened the man's mind to her. He was immediately ejected, and found himself sitting on the island next to the statue while Eve took her turn at being a human. But he didn't mind, for he had tasted what it was to walk and talk like a man, and what it was to use those amazing hands.

Dawn felt the sorrow and frustration associated with that memory, because these simple pleasures were forever denied him. It touched her deeply, and she resolved to do everything in her power to help Adam and Eve and their offspring live out their essential humanity. She had no idea what that might involve or how she might achieve it, but she made up her mind: when she finished her education she would join the GeneSys dolphin project and devote herself to the dolphins' welfare.

It was only later that Dawn came to realise that this desire to help the dolphins had not arisen on a whim, nor was it born of her natural humanity. The instinct to nurture and guide whatever new intelligent species might be created on this planet arose from something else entirely, something that had come from the stars. It had been implanted in her when she was just a speck in her mother's womb, and it was manifesting itself now, along with the other peculiar symptoms of her alien origins, because two crucial signals had finally been received by a tiny organ hidden deep within her brain. One signal was hormonal, and it indicated that her body had finally matured. The other signal was telepathic, and it indicated the presence of a new intelligence.

Dawn was unaware of any of this as Adam's recollections continued to race through her mind. She learned that shortly after handing over control of the man's body to Eve he had woken up to find himself back in the dolphinarium, and a little after that Eve had awoken too. They told their human mentors about these extraordinary drug-induced experiences, and everything was recorded in the GeneSys computer system – as indeed was every keypress that they had ever made. Their mentors had shown some interest and had asked a few questions, but none of them imagined that these experiences were anything other than figments of their imaginations. There were no further drugged meals, and after a little while the subject was never raised again.

But Adam never forgot, and he longed to become a man again, able to paint pictures and play music and grow flowers and gossip and do science and all the other wonderful things that humans did. The days and the weeks and the months passed, but his desire did not dim, and he dreamt that one day there would be a miracle, and a saviour would come who would restore to him his missing humanity. It seemed impossible, but that didn't stop him dreaming, and whenever someone new visited the dolphinarium he tasted their telepathic aura, hoping they might be the one.

And now, almost three years later, his saviour had finally arrived. A fresh memory of a girl walking up to the side of the pool flashed into Dawn's mind, and she recognised herself immediately, not just from her appearance but from her emotional aura. Adam had been almost overwhelmed by it, and at first he had been completely bewildered.

It was a complex aura, with several components. First there was her desire for Rick, unusually strong but not at all mystifying. Below it was a strange emotional undercurrent that Adam had never experienced before, and Dawn recognised the weird heat that had welled up within her. Finally, and most bewildering of all, was the sense of an enormously strong but dormant spiritual power lying deep within her. As he savoured this power, Adam's bewilderment had turned to awe and wonder. He could tell that great changes were taking place in her maturing body and that soon this pent-up power would manifest itself. She's a goddess, he had thought, this girl's a goddess! She's the one I've been waiting for!

Dawn's own reaction to these memories was a mixture of surprise and pleasure. She was surprised at Adam's sense of awe, for it was just like the awe she'd felt when she'd gazed down at that golden altar, that sense of a divine presence. It showed that, along with his other human mental traits, Adam had inherited man's religious instinct. And she felt pleasure because she really liked the idea of being a goddess. Not any old goddess, of course, for some goddesses were really gross with all kinds of weird features like snakes for hair, but rather a delectable love goddess. She didn't actually believe in goddesses, for that was too ridiculous for words, but if Adam had sensed something goddess-like about her then there was every possibility that she had a goddess-like power to captivate Rick so that he would find her utterly irresistible...

She suddenly realised that she could no longer feel Rick's arms around her waist. Alarmed, she spun round in the water to see what was happening. Her body was laid on the concrete walkway beneath the awning, with Rick standing beside it, leaning on the rail.

He glanced in her – Adam's – direction, and their eyes met. Her heart leapt, and she flipped her tail in a kind of wave, but he didn't wave back. He wouldn't, of course, for he didn't know that she'd taken charge of Adam's body. It occurred to her to tell him by swimming up to him and getting him to stroke and pat her, but although that was tempting she couldn't bring herself to do it. It would be altogether too flirty.

Rick had obviously got fed up with supporting her unconscious body and had unceremoniously dumped it on the ground, and that probably meant that she would soon wake up – she supposed her body needed his warm touch to maintain its fires, and thus her out-of-body state. It was only later that it occurred to her that a simple solution would have been to swim over to that row of letters and tell him to jolly well pick her up again. But she didn't think of that, and instead she decided to make the most of the time she had left by performing her first love-goddess trick: she would wow Rick with some amazing water acrobatics.

It was quite the most exhilarating experience of her life. She started by simply rolling around in the water, testing her reflexes and making sure that she was able to control Adam's body properly. She found she could, provided she didn't try to think too hard about what she was doing. All of Adam's instincts and learned skills were at her command, all she had to do was picture what she wanted and the action would automatically follow. It was a bit like riding a bike, she decided. If you really thought about what you were doing you would probably fall off, but if you didn't it was dead easy.

She whistled a warning to Eve, telling her to stay out of the way, and then she sped underwater to the far end of the pool. Before reaching it she threw herself high in the air, somersaulted over and over, then splashed back down, scattering water everywhere. She repeated this several times, performing more ambitious leaps each time, but then she became aware of the hard concrete of the poolside walkway beneath her prone body and the heavy breathing in her lungs and suddenly she was no longer thrusting through the water but blinking her eyes blearily at the dark awning above her head.

"Wow! Wasn't I great?" she murmured groggily, trying to sit up. Her body felt really stiff.

Rick turned his head away from the pool and stared down questioningly at her.

"All those acrobatics," she explained. "In Adam's body."

Rick frowned. "Adam often does that. He likes to show off."

"No, that was _me!_ I went into him. I rode in him, just like I said I would."

He gave a sceptical grunt, then turned back to the dolphins.

Feeling extremely aggrieved, she pushed herself to her feet and leaned against the rail. "Adam!" she called out. "That was me doing those turns, wasn't it? I was inside you, wasn't I?"

Adam stared back at her, then nodded his beak vigorously up and down.

Dawn flashed her eyes at Rick. "You see? It was me. You've got to believe me now!"

Rick sighed. "OK, maybe it was you. But what do you expect me to do about it? If I started telling everyone that you've got some kind of supernatural power and that you're able to take over dolphins, your father would go mad and I'd probably lose my job. Perhaps _you_ should tell him!"

Dawn thought about that. Rick certainly had a point. Her father would never believe her, and to convince him she would have to repeat the experiment and that would mean getting Rick to cuddle her. She could imagine what he would have to say about _that_.

"Well, you could tell the people here that your dolphins can sense emotions telepathically."

He stared out silently across the pool, then his face softened and he glanced down at her. "All right," he conceded, "I could do that. It doesn't sound too outlandish, and it's something that could easily be tested."

She smiled up at him gratefully. "Thanks, Rick. Once people accept that, they might be willing to accept the rest of it."

"Perhaps."

There was a faint buzz inside her head. She pressed a button on her wristpad, and the buzz was replaced by her father's voice. "I'm almost finished, Dawn. Are you ready to go? It's almost lunchtime."

Mention of lunch made her suddenly feel ravenously hungry. "Sure, Dad. See you at the entrance."

She pressed her wristpad again and cut the connection. Then she turned and waved goodbye to the dolphins. "I'll be back soon," she called out. "For another ride." At that Adam leapt high into the air and performed a double somersault.

"If that's OK with you, Rick," she added.

He grunted. "Have I any choice?"

"You could say no."

"And upset the dolphins – not to mention you, and therefore your father!"

"Dad sometimes has his uses," she agreed. "Same time next Sunday, then? When there's no one else around."

She had hoped that now that Rick had softened a little, he might be pleased at the thought of seeing her again. But his eyes didn't light up, and his only response was an acquiescent shrug. Greatly disappointed, she trailed after him in silence out of the dolphinarium.

A couple of hours later, lunch over, Dawn retired to her bedroom to sleep off her jet lag. Sitting in front of the dressing table mirror, she inspected herself sadly. If Adam thought she was a goddess, he was sadly mistaken. No one could look less like a goddess. She'd always been too keen on her studies and books and other cerebral activities to be bothered about making herself attractive, and it certainly showed. She was wearing no makeup, not even a dab of lipstick, and her black hair was strewn carelessly about her shoulders. No wonder Rick wasn't interested.

But Dawn had a sunny outlook on life, and she told herself that this particular problem was easily solved. After all, she wasn't a bad-looking girl. Indeed, according to her mother, she was actually very pretty ("I wish you'd put on something nice, dear, you would look so lovely"), so it shouldn't be too difficult to attract some appreciative male glances. Sorting out her appearance would be next week's project, she decided.

Dawn was a great believer in projects and lists, and as she listed in her mind the various things she would have to do – shopping for makeup, buying some smart clothes and shoes, experimenting with perfumes, getting a glamorous hairdo, trying on earrings – she was struck by the enormity of the task. But instead of feeling daunted and rather bored by it, now the prospect of transforming herself into a stunning superdoll was suddenly rather exciting, and she felt once more that dragon-fire erupting in her belly. She was more than a little surprised at herself, and supposed her sudden interest in such things was because, for the first time in her life, she had fallen in love.

But as she lay down on the bed and closed her weary eyes and prepared herself for sleep, she couldn't help thinking that there must be more to it than that. So much had happened today that was utterly mystifying, and this desire to tart herself up, though superficially trivial, was yet another aspect of the profound changes that had come upon her. The extraordinarily strong attraction that she had felt for Rick, the waves of heat that had enveloped her, and that amazing spirit journey into Adam were all consequences of some weird mental and spiritual transfiguration, and it was inevitable that something as profound as that should result in some kind of physical transformation too. No love goddess worth her salt would want to look scruffy.

Over lunch she'd told her family nothing about her strange experiences – she'd restricted herself to a mundane account of the way the dolphins communicated, the kind of education they'd received, and how good they were at performing in the water – but from the moment she'd left Rick she hadn't stopped thinking about what had happened. Was she really a goddess? Had she really turned into a fire-breathing dragon? And the strong power that Adam sensed maturing within her, where had that come from? Everything that had happened today was at odds with everything she'd ever learned. It was totally incomprehensible.

Abruptly, she sat bolt-upright in bed, her eyes wide open. At last the truth was beginning to dawn, and it was mind-blowing. Somehow she'd been genetically modified at conception, just like those dolphins, with parts of an alien genome spliced into hers. Now, some signal from her rapidly maturing body had switched on the rogue genes, and her alien nature was starting to appear. Falling in love had released the long-awaited hormone messengers!

Was she really the human equivalent of those GM dolphins? It seemed insane, but it was surely not impossible, that a race of extraterrestrial dragon-like superbeings had tampered with her genes. It was the only thing she could think of that made any kind of sense. Just as Adam was a human mind trapped inside a dolphin body, so she was a dragon mind trapped in a human body. But this kind of meddling should show up in her DNA profile, and so far as she knew nothing odd had been found. Maybe the alien part of her genome was so unearthly that no human genetic test would ever detect it. It might even be non-physical, like her spirit body, and therefore not subject to the physical laws of genetics and inheritance.

She lay back again on the bed, too exhausted to think sensibly any more. If some race of dragons from a far-off world were behind this, why had _she_ been chosen? Was it because she was the offspring of someone high up in GeneSys, and therefore ideally placed to have influence over the development and destiny of new life forms? And if that was the case, why had they given her no clue as to her calling? Surely they wouldn't expect her to stumble blindly towards some unfathomable goal, they must have left her some kind of message.

But as she tried to work out what kind of message that would be, her thoughts became incoherent and in a little while she was sound asleep.

## Five

Dawn didn't spend the week shopping for makeup and perfume and new clothes as she'd intended, though she did have her hair done, and she had spent an hour or so in a couple of shops experimenting with different shades of lipstick and eyeliner. When she awoke from her Sunday afternoon sleep she'd immediately realised that she couldn't possibly transform herself overnight into a paragon of female pulchritude. It wasn't that it was physically impossible, it was just that it would raise far too many eyebrows and provoke too many awkward questions, especially from her father. Certainly they would want to know what she had been getting up to with that young man at the dolphinarium.

And although she didn't like to admit it to herself, there really wasn't much point trying to win Rick's heart. She and her family were staying in the Solomons for less than a fortnight, and then they were moving on to Fiji where there was another GeneSys research facility, and after that they would be returning to England, where she would finish her schooling and then go on to university. It would be many years before she could return here.

But she had plenty of other things to think about. She visited a number of tourist spots with her family, including a pleasant lagoon lying several miles along the coast beyond the GeneSys site. The swimming there was very good, with a cluster of palm trees growing near the narrow strip of sand at the water's edge providing some shade. They went there several times, and she would splash around with her brother and then she would lie in the water beneath those trees and fantasise about Rick. She would picture them coming here to swim and play together, and she imagined them afterwards walking arm in arm in the moonlight and finally kissing and cuddling, and always that strange unearthly warmth would return to her stomach, becoming hotter and hotter until it seemed that her insides would burst into flame.

And all the while the mysterious force that had awoken within was extending its ghostly influence throughout her brain, making connections where none had been before. The only suspicion Dawn had that something odd was happening within was the occasional puzzled glance that her mother gave her. She thought at first that this was prompted by her sudden interest in her appearance, but as the week progressed she couldn't help feeling that _something_ within her had changed. She felt more self-assured, and on a couple of occasions she found herself being unusually assertive. She'd even stopped her dad in his tracks and got him to fork out for that expensive hairdo.

But these subtle changes to her character were almost imperceptible, and she didn't pay much attention to them. She was more interested in searching the internet, trying to find out all she could about spirit journeys, spirit possession, out-of-body experiences and the like, and in particular about dragons. Her own experiences were enough to convince her that the widespread belief in such creatures must have some foundation in fact. Maybe they had actually roamed the planet in the past, or maybe other people had been secretly tampered with by them, and their experiences had found their way into the mythology.

There were, of course, no 'facts' about dragons on the internet, other than the offerings of some weird cultish sites. But there was plenty of information on the mythology of dragons. She discovered that belief in them was widespread, both in the eastern world and in the west, and that whereas in western mythology dragons were regarded as malevolent beings, in the east they were seen as a force for good, and they were often associated with fertility. When she'd made that discovery she felt like punching the air, for love and fertility went together, just like love and marriage, and that meant she really was a love goddess. I'm a love goddess, she wanted to shout, so Rick won't be able to resist me!

But what intrigued her most of all was the association between dragons and fire. In the Bible, dragons never had the power of fire, as they were regarded as evil, and fire was a God-given power. Even the fires of hell were appointed by God and not Satan, and any spiritual being with the power of fire was invariably divine. A fire-breathing dragon would therefore be seen as good, both in the east and the west.

Her own weird experiences confirmed the benign nature of dragons. Never once had she had the sense that anything evil was involved. Indeed, apart from at times being extremely hot and uncomfortable, her experiences had all been positive. They had been stimulating and fulfilling and on the whole rather enjoyable. It would be true to say that she had taken to being a spirit as readily as a duck takes to water, and certainly without any fear or any sense of evil and foreboding.

Being a dragon would not appeal to most people, of course, but as she researched the internet and pondered her experiences Dawn found herself becoming more and more excited by her bizarre nature. It was exciting to think that she had been born in the stars, and particularly exciting to suspect that she was probably the most powerful being on this planet. And it was very, very exciting to think that being a dragon meant that she was a love goddess as well. They were obviously two sides of the one celestial nature, the dragon representing her fiery, warlike aspect, and the love goddess represented her warm, loving aspect. Although she had never considered herself as fiery and warlike, or, for that matter, as particularly warm and loving, one couldn't be in the god business without possessing both sets of attributes. Her religious studies lessons at school had made that very clear.

What bothered her was the lack of any kind of message from whoever or whatever had modified her genes. The dolphins knew exactly what the humans who had tinkered with their genome intended for them – that they should multiply and fill the seas and harvest them – and it seemed only right that she should know what _her_ progenitors had in mind. She was thrilled to have ultra-powerful transhuman abilities, especially if they allowed her to do exciting things like turning into an invincible fire-breathing dragon and performing dolphin acrobatics and becoming an irresistible love goddess, but it would be nice to have some kind of explanation. Even the tiniest hint of what was expected of her would be welcome. But there was nothing, at least nothing obvious. Not even an unusual dream or a small inner voice.

And so she turned up at the GeneSys site the next Sunday morning feeling excited at what lay in store but also disappointed because she had made so little progress – apart from having her hair done and applying some lipstick and eyeliner. Much to her delight, Rick's glances when he met her at the entrance told her that these small efforts had not been in vain, though the resulting eruption of fire and brimstone in her stomach was less welcome. She started to sweat profusely, and it occurred to her that unless she acted fast her eyeliner would be running in streaks down her face.

Today, though, she was well prepared. She instantly focussed her thoughts on that dead rat she had seen by the roadside a couple of days ago, half-eaten and crawling with maggots. This ruse worked like a charm, for something like a flood of cold water seemed to pour into her stomach, transforming what was threatening to be a volcanic eruption of cosmic proportions into a damp squib.

Dawn was greatly encouraged by this impressive victory over her insides, and as she and Rick made their way between the high GeneSys buildings to the dolphinarium she chatted happily and confidently about all the places she had visited and things she had done with her family that week.

When they reached the pool, Adam and Eve performed a few welcoming somersaults, and then Adam surged eagerly up to her with Eve in tow. Dawn knelt down and made a great fuss of them, stroking their beaks and patting their heads, not bothering at all about getting splashed.

"They're really pleased to see you," Rick observed with a chuckle. "I don't think I've ever seen them make such a fuss of someone."

"I think they're lovely. I'd really like to come here to work, one day."

At this Adam twisted away and raced round the pool, leaping high into the air and performing several more somersaults to show his delight.

Rick laughed out loud. "Wow! You've certainly got an admirer. It must be your new hairdo!"

She glanced up at him and smiled, pleased that he'd noticed. He smiled back, and then it took all her powers of concentration to fix her mind on that dead rat and prevent total meltdown. Stroking Eve's dripping beak and patting her head helped, and the seething cauldron within subsided.

She risked another glance at Rick. "I'd like to take a ride in him again."

"I'd guessed that."

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not. It's up to you and Adam."

"Well, it must seem so crazy. It _is_ crazy."

"I know. But the fact is... well, I've been talking to Adam, and he's convinced me that you really did go into him last Sunday. So... I believe you. You've got some kind of weird power."

"Oh. Right." She left off fussing Eve and stared up at him with delight. "The trouble is..." she stood up and looked away with embarrassment. "The trouble is, I only seem to be able to use this power when you're around."

She blushed, but continued resolutely. "The thing is, Rick, you've set off something in me. It's what made me faint last Sunday."

He struggled to keep a straight face. "I always have that effect on women," he said with a careless wave. "Don't worry about it."

She giggled. "I do worry about it. It means that if I'm to go into a trance, you've got to put your arms round me. And my Dad's in one of those buildings opposite. He might even be watching us now, through those big windows."

Rick followed her gaze, and his jaw dropped. "Did he see us last week?"

She shrugged. "If he did, he didn't let on."

"I don't think we can chance it again. Forget about riding in Adam, just stroke him instead."

"Don't be silly! We can hide in your office, and you can cuddle me – I mean put your arms round me – in there. I'll still be able to get into Adam. Spirits can move around, you know, they can even go through walls."

He looked at her uncertainly. "If you're happy with that. Me cuddling you, I mean. You hardly know me."

"I feel perfectly safe. When I'm in my trance I'll be aware of everything that's happening to my body, and I'm sure you wouldn't want me to report anything untoward to my father."

He blushed. "I wouldn't dream of doing anything..."

"I don't mind you dreaming it, just don't do it," she told him firmly. "At least, not till we know each other better." She turned and started towards his office. "Come on, I've only got an hour."

"You're quite a girl, you know," he muttered as he caught up with her. "You were a shy little thing last week, now all of a sudden you've grown up. I've never seen anyone change so quickly."

She gave him a sideways glance. "Do you mind?"

"No, except you're turning into a real bossy-boots. Anyone would think you were the master of the universe!"

That stopped her in her tracks, and she stared at him in dismay. Those puzzled glances that her mother had given her came flooding back.

"Rick! Have I changed that much? Something's happening to me, and I don't know what it is. I'm like those dolphins, part-human, part ... something else. I've got alien genes in me, I'm sure I have."

Her look of anguish evidently affected him, and he touched her arm. "You look very human to me. Perhaps we'd better go inside, and you can tell me all about it."

Then he grinned and added: "Don't worry about being a bossy-boots. That's a universal female characteristic."

She couldn't help smiling at that, and together they walked into his office and sat down in the easy chairs. And then everything tumbled out. She told him all that had happened inside Adam last Sunday, and what she'd discovered since then about spirit journeys and about dragons and their fire, and he listened quietly without scoffing or telling her she was nuts, or indeed interrupting at all. He listened so well, in fact, that by the end of it she was almost in tears.

"I've felt so alone," she whispered. "I couldn't possibly tell Mum and Dad what's happened, they'd think I'd gone mad, and the thought that I've been genetically modified by some monster from space is really frightening."

She hadn't actually been particularly frightened, nor had she felt terribly alone, but talking to Rick somehow brought out these sentiments. It wasn't that she was deliberately trying to deceive him, it was more that an evolutionary adaptation in the human female brain was going about its business of arousing the male protective instinct. It had the most gratifying effect, for he took her hands in his and assured her that he didn't think she was at all crazy and that he believed she must indeed have been tampered with by some alien force. He went on to tell her that both Adam and Eve had been acting quite differently since her visit a week ago, that they were full of life and unusually playful, and that they had been pestering him to persuade her to work in the dolphinarium, just as soon as she finished her education.

"That seems to be what's intended for you," he announced, still holding her hands. "You've got to work here, it's your destiny. I think that's why these changes in you are happening now. It's not just me triggering them, it's Adam and Eve as well."

Despite most of Dawn's mental energies being deployed in an almighty battle to save her bowels from nuclear meltdown, she was able to see the flaw in his argument.

"It couldn't have been them," she muttered, frantically trying to hold on to that dead-rat imagery. "They were as surprised by what happened as I was."

"They didn't deliberately influence you, any more than I did. There's something about them – maybe their telepathy – that you subconsciously picked up."

"But ... but what if I'd never come here? Are you saying that I was _destined_ to visit them?"

"I think that whatever gave you your strange powers also gave you a strong desire to get to know them. It was something you couldn't resist."

She thought carefully about that, and the molten lava swirling around her insides came off the boil. "You could be right. When Dad first told me about the dolphins, years ago, I knew I had to come here. It wasn't because they were dolphins, it was because they had human minds. They could have been chimpanzees or anything else. I suppose I've been programmed to respond to the emergence of a new intelligence."

"Our universe is designed for life, that's what some scientists say. Perhaps some cosmic force is promoting intelligent life everywhere, and it's chosen you to look after the intelligent dolphins of Earth. Perhaps you're their guardian angel."

"If you're right, then every intelligent species in the universe must have its guardian angel," she replied thoughtfully. "Though they're dragons, not angels."

He shrugged. "Dragons or angels, what's the difference? They've both got wings."

She smiled. "Isn't this weird? Us talking about guardian angels and dragons as though they're real? It's almost like we're in the middle of a crazy dream."

"Maybe we are crazy. Maybe there's a much simpler explanation for all this that doesn't involve alien intelligences or dragons or anything like that. Maybe it's just a combination of telepathy and your over-the-top imagination."

"You could be right," she sighed. "I haven't had any messages or instructions about my mission. If this cosmic force really exists, you would have thought it would have managed to tell me something, to leave some kind of message."

He stood up and started to pace around the room. He looked deep in thought. "Are you sure they've left nothing. You can't think of anything from your childhood that might be a message?"

"I've spent most of the past week wondering about that. I can't think of anything."

"But there must be something. What kind of message were you looking for? Something written across the sky?"

"Don't be silly. I was expecting a dream, or an inner voice, something like that."

He had paused by the window, and was staring out of it. "You're the silly one," he murmured. "I can't imagine anything more unreliable than dreams or voices in the head. You might as well rely on horoscopes. Messages in the sky are much more trustworthy. Get one of those, and boy, you really sit up and take notice."

"Now you're being _really_ silly. There aren't any messages like that."

"Yes there are." He was still gazing at something through the window. "Look!"

She jumped to her feet and joined him. He was staring at the company name, _GeneSys_ , written in glowing red letters across the top of the administration block.

"GeneSys? What kind of a message is that."

" _Genesis_ ," he corrected her, "The name of the first book of the Bible."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"It's the garden of Eden, all over again! Our two dolphins, they're called Adam and Eve, and their task is to fill the seas and rule over them. You're the dragon, which is like the serpent. Everything fits!"

"Oh! I see! But the serpent was evil. That doesn't fit at all."

"Don't you get it? That's the message! It's warning you not to use the power you've been given for your own ends. That's what the serpent did, and he was thrown out of heaven and his fire was taken away. Without that he wasn't a real dragon, and although he could still cause a lot of trouble, in the end he was doomed."

She thought about that. It did all seem to fit, but it just _had_ to be coincidence. No intelligence, however powerful, could have foreseen that events would turn out exactly like this and have organized that message accordingly. She said so to Rick.

"I guess you're right." He sounded quite deflated. "That can't possibly be the message. I was getting carried away."

"But I'm sure you've hit on something really important. I think that's why the serpent in the Bible doesn't have fire. He used it for his own ends instead of trying to help humans, and so it was taken away. I could do the same. I could try to rule the world instead of helping the dolphins, in which case I would really be in for it. So it is a message for me, even if it's an accidental one. It's telling me that I'm to be the dolphins' guardian angel, that's my destiny!"

And then she added: "It was very ingenious of you, Rick, to link GeneSys and Adam and Eve and the dragon together like that. Very clever."

"I've got Adam to thank for that," he confessed. "He's always been fascinated by the story of Adam and Eve, and how everything about the dolphin project seemed to match what was in the Bible. He didn't get the serpent bit, of course, because he didn't know you'd turned into a dragon, but he said to me last week that having you here was a bit like having God walking in the Garden of Eden."

"Wow! That's much nicer than comparing me to the serpent, which is what _you_ did!"

He smirked. "That seems a perfectly valid comparison to me. Women _are_ wily, just like serpents. That's as well as being bossy, of course."

"Huh! And men are horrid brutes! Now stop messing about and put your arms round me. Adam's waiting for me to take him for a swim."

"Time for his walkies, is it? You'd better tell me how I'm supposed to cuddle you without sending your father berserk."

"Just make sure he doesn't see us, that's all. Wake me up in about half an hour – that'll give us enough time before Dad tries to contact me. And you'd better lock the door, to make sure no one walks in."

"Good thinking." He went over to it and turned the key. "Now what?" He looked at her expectantly.

This was too good to be true. Her stomach was already gurgling warmly in anticipation, and she threw him a coy glance. "Well, I think it would be most comfortable for both of us if I sat on your lap."

"Yes. I suppose so." He sat down in the other easy chair and gazed up at her.

That warmth from her stomach had started to creep up her throat, and she was beginning to feel bloated. Dead rats were now the last thing on her mind, and trying hard not to blush she perched herself on his knee. He put tentative arms around her, and she sank into him, and now her heart was racing so fast and her internal fires had grown so fierce that she couldn't help panting, which was most embarrassing.

"It's starting to work," she gasped, hoping he would understand.

He gave her a little squeeze, her insides exploded, and then everything about her seemed to explode as well. But then her vision cleared and she found herself floating near the ceiling, with everything looking grey and ghostly, and the inferno gripping her body just a distant sensation. She gazed down at her wraith-like self curled up asleep in Rick's arms, and wondered if Rick minded cuddling such an unresponsive object.

It occurred to her that if she flew into Rick's brain she would discover what was going through his mind, and what his feelings were towards her. But then it struck her how affronted she would be if the situation was reversed and he started poking around in _her_ mind. It would be the most awful invasion of privacy, and she would never forgive him.

She resolved never to take advantage of her powers in that way. Going into Adam was quite different, as she wasn't trying to take advantage, and in any case he had invited her in. And if she didn't get a move on she would have hardly any time at all to get into him and practise those amazing dolphin acrobatics.

She floated down to the floor and started walking towards the door. It might have been more sensible to glide towards it, but walking seemed more natural. Although the floor wasn't carpeted it felt like thick wool, and it took her almost half a minute to cross it, and when she reached the door it seemed impossibly high and wide. As she'd discovered in her first such adventure a week ago, her spirit body was only 10 centimetres high.

The door handle was far too high to reach, and even if she floated up to it she wouldn't be able to exert any force on it to turn it, as she didn't have any physical substance or mass. In any case, Rick had locked it. She already knew the solution, of course, from her experience of floating into Adam's skull: she simply pressed herself against the door's spongy surface and imagined herself on the other side. There was a slight blur as she passed through, and then she was standing on the poolside walkway.

Although it was a bright sunny day, everything looked pale and indistinct, just as it had on her spirit journey last Sunday. She scanned the surface of the pool for any sign of Adam, but it was all a uniform grey. It would be impossible to distinguish him from the mass of water at a distance, and she mentally kicked herself for not agreeing a meeting spot with him before entering the spirit world. She peered in the direction of the screen on the opposite side of the pool, which was where she had found him on her spirit journey last Sunday. If he had any sense – and it seemed to her that he had a great deal of that – he would wait for her there.

She leapt into the air and kicked her legs vigorously, just as if she were swimming, and although there was nothing to push against, her body shot forward. This was the technique she'd used before to reach Adam, and it reminded her of how he and Eve had soared high into the sky when they flapped their powerful tails during their spirit journey. It was all a matter of belief and expectation and a strong imagination, she supposed.

In moments she had spotted Adam's grey shape in the water, waiting for her where he had before. She dived towards his skull, and as she entered it there was blackness a feeling that she was floating in goo. Almost immediately the blackness lightened, and then she saw the cathedral of his mind take shape around her. Exactly as before, she was standing in the middle of the nave with those doorways to his memories spaced out along the walls, and there was the golden throne that was also an altar at the far end and the red flame flickering above it and the stained-glass window behind.

The flame leapt higher as Adam sensed her presence, casting a reddish glow over the altar, and she was gripped by the urge to rush to it and embrace it. But she resisted its pull, and decided instead to try a little experiment. She wanted to see if she could turn herself into a dragon using her powers of concentration instead of allowing the altar to work its magic on her, which was what had happened before.

Closing her eyes, she visualised her smooth human skin transmuting into the scaly armour-plating of a dragon, and her delicate fingernails into steely claws, and she pictured a huge tail with its vicious blade extending from the base of her spine. As the picture coalesced in her mind there was a spasm of pain across her shoulders and a wrenching about her hips, and when she opened her eyes she saw that she was tall and broad and standing on all fours, and her body was covered with hard red scales. At the same moment her dragon telepathy kicked in, and she became aware of Adam's desire for her, and of his pleasure at her presence, and his excitement because she was about to possess him once more.

Lifting her great head and opening her jaws, Dawn let out a mighty roar. As the sound reverberated around the cathedral, the flame above the altar responded by leaping high into the air, and the entire cathedral took on a rosy glow. As for the altar, that was now gleaming brightly, and the sight of it filled her with desire. The fires in her belly burst into life, and, far away, she felt her heart fluttering in her sleeping body and the warmth of Rick's embrace. Flames and black smoke belched from her jaws, she emitted another ear-splitting roar, and then she was flailing her wings and hurtling headlong towards that most alluring of objects.

Settling upon it, she was embraced by Adam's welcoming presence, which was somehow all mingled with a sense of Rick's embrace, and then there was that moment of blackness and a brief sensation of expanding to embrace all the stars of the universe, and then of falling back into the stained-glass window and finding herself in full possession of Adam's body.

On this occasion she felt no need to practise tentative movements in the water, instead she immediately flapped her tail and drove her amazing body through the water. She swam twice round the pool, and then proceeded to performing a series of astonishing somersaults, although there was no one but Eve to watch.

A little later, her second great adventure in Adam at an end, she found herself back in her body, still nestled in Rick's arms. She kept her eyes closed for a moment, suddenly embarrassed at this intimate situation and at a loss to know what to say. But she had to announce her return somehow, so opening her eyes she said simply: "Hi, I'm back!"

"Thank goodness for that," he grunted. "My legs have gone dead. You weigh a ton!"

"I don't!" she retorted, jumping up. "Anyway, Adam loves me, he can't get enough of me. You should have seen how I rode him!"

"I heard all the splashing. It sounded like a ton of bricks had hit the water. Whatever had got into him was mighty heavy!"

Having a brother, she was used to such banter, and she laughed. He laughed too, and together they went outside to the dolphins. They frolicked in the water in front of them, evidently pleased to see them.

"I'm afraid I won't be back for another year," Dawn called out. Although she was speaking to all three of them, her words were especially directed at Rick. "I've got to go back to England and school."

"There are schools here," Rick pointed out.

She smiled at him. "I might be the most powerful being on the planet, but I'm only 17 and my father would never allow it. He's pretty strict."

"Zap him, then. Blast him to smithereens!"

She giggled. "That's precisely what I mustn't do. Use my power for my own selfish ends."

Adam swam up to her and rested his dripping snout on the side of the pool, and she knelt down to stroke him. It didn't feel particularly pleasurable, unlike stroking the soft fur of a cat or a dog, but Adam seemed to appreciate it.

"He's really going to miss you," Rick remarked. "We'll all have to be patient."

She hoped that Rick might add that he was going to really miss her too, but he didn't. Instead he pulled a business card from his pocket.

"Here's my email address. Any emails from you I'll display on that screen for Adam and Eve to read."

"I'll write every week," she promised, taking the card in her wet hands and slipping it into the pocket of her pouch.

Just then there was a buzzing in her head. It was her father, calling to say that he was ready to go. Although she had only known them a short time, she felt close to tears as she said her farewells to Adam and Eve, and then she walked with Rick through the GeneSys site to the entrance.

In a couple of days she and her family would leave this magical place and board their flight to Fiji. She longed to tell Rick that she was his love goddess as much as she was the dolphins' guardian angel, but it would sound so soppy. Besides, she might come to regret it later, for although she was hopelessly in love with him, no woman could entirely trust her feelings, and in her case this was especially true. There was something in her that hadn't been there before, tampering with her emotions, and she was still trying to get to grips with it. Only the passage of time would reveal if her feelings for Rick were genuine or whether they were just the product of some alien influence from the stars.

As they reached the entrance Rick took her hand, and she turned to face him. "It's a shame you can't stay," he said simply.

She felt her heart surge, but this time there was no heat, just a dampness about the eyes. "I know," she whispered. "But I'll be back, I promise, and then we'll really get to know each other."

Unable to trust herself any further, she quickly turned from him and hurried out to the waiting car.

## Six

Dawn began working on her presentation as soon as she returned to England. She was always zealous about her schoolwork, but what was prompting her now was the desire to make a record of her amazing experiences before they faded from her memory. Already some of it was beginning to seem absurd, unreal even.

She had thought of calling her presentation _Adventures in a Parallel Universe_ , but she wasn't altogether happy with that title, especially as hardly anyone believed in parallel universes any more. She settled instead on _Adventures in Neurospace_ , 'neurospace' being the term she'd coined as a respectable alternative to 'spirit world'. 'Mindspace' was another possibility, but that didn't sound quite so scientific.

In the end she changed her mind completely. At the last moment she had cold feet about sharing her amazing experiences and instead hastily put together a travelogue, illustrated with photos, about her family's South Pacific holiday, for which she received only an average grade. She'd come to believe that all the stories of evil spirits and the powers of darkness must have some basis of truth, and therefore the less anyone knew about her strange powers the better. She didn't want any inquisitive demons to come calling.

She'd phoned Rick as soon as she'd reached that conclusion, to tell him not to divulge what had happened to anyone, not even his family. Although it was several weeks since she'd left the Solomons, and although they'd sent each other several emails, they'd not actually spoken, and this had provided her with an ideal excuse for a chat. To her delight he seemed equally pleased to talk to her, and he assured her that he hadn't spoken to anyone about the matter.

"They'd reckon I was nuts," he said in his soft New Zealand accent. "Though I did suggest to the guys here that the dolphins might be able to detect emotions telepathically. You asked me to do that."

"I remember. So what did they say?"

"It turned out that a couple of them had begun to suspect the same thing, and they've now decided to set up some tests."

"Rick! That's great! But tell Adam to keep quiet about everything else. Tell him it's really important that no one suspects there's anything odd about me. If people found out that I've got alien powers..."

"They'd probably lock you up and throw away the key. I think he's worked that out for himself, Dawn. He asked me if I could erase all the records of what he told me about having you inside him from the system."

"He's a smart boy. And could you erase them?"

"'Fraid not, there's too much security. In any case everything's backed up, so I'd have to erase the backups too. We'll just have to hope no one bothers to read it. There's so much chatter between the dolphins and staff that anything important is likely to be swamped. It's information overload here."

They continued chatting for a while, and they agreed that they would phone each other once a week, in spite of the 12-hour time difference. Early morning here was evening for him, and vice versa. He told her that the dolphins really liked to read her emails, especially if they included photos of what she was up to, and that she should continue with those.

"Adam misses you," he added. "We all miss you. You've got to come back."

Her heart leapt at that, and fond memories of Rick cuddling her in his office flooded through her. "I can't wait!" she whispered.

After they'd said their goodbyes she couldn't stop pacing the room. Her heart was fluttering far too madly to allow her to sit down, and her stomach was playing up too, gurgling and rumbling as if great globs of lava were erupting from nowhere and splattering her insides. She had no doubt that, if she chose, she would be able to arouse herself to such state that her spirit would once more be able to leave her body and enter neurospace. The teenager in her really fancied that, as it would be a great adventure, but her fear of what lay out there restrained her. Evolution is an arms race, she reminded herself, and for creatures like dragons to have evolved they must have faced some seriously nasty competitors.

And so she decided that the less she did to attract the attention of whatever demons inhabited neurospace the better. She wouldn't go there again until something occurred that actually demanded another visit.

She didn't have to wait long, just a couple of months. By then her appearance had been transformed from a slightly unkempt dowdiness to what might be described as schoolgirl glamour. In other words, within the limits of the school dress code she was as eye-catching as it was possible to be. Unfortunately the eyes that she had caught belonged to a gang of rather unsavoury boys from a nearby school.

They each in turn tried to date her, but she spurned them all. Her heart was set on Rick, and these were meagre specimens in comparison. In the end, this continuing humiliation goaded Jake, their leader, to vow that he would personally sort her out and relieve her of her virginity.

She normally walked home from school with Alice, a friend who lived a few doors away. The shortest route was via a footpath across a meadow and through a copse, and one day the four boys waylaid them, hiding behind some bushes in the copse. Two of them grabbed Alice and tied a scarf tightly round her mouth and threatened her with a knife to stop her yelling, while Jake and the fourth youth dragged Dawn behind the bushes and pulled her to the ground. The youth pinned her down by kneeling on her shoulders and gripping her arms, while Jake grabbed her legs and tried to force them apart.

For a moment Dawn was paralysed by shock. She stared into Jake's eyes and saw his lust, but instead of horror she felt only numbness. This wasn't happening to her but to someone else, someone far away. But then the horror kicked in, and with it came anger at what was about to be perpetrated upon her by this despicable creature. The anger turned into rage, her cheeks turned a violent shade of crimson, and a firestorm exploded in her stomach.

"Get off me _now_!" she hissed. "Or I'll kill you!"

Jake responded by slapping her face. "Shut up, bitch!"

Hormones were now flooding through her body. Although they were quite different from those that Rick had aroused, they had the same effect: they ignited her alien nature. This time though she wasn't a goddess of love, she was a goddess of war, and she would invade Jake.

Past experience told her that invading someone's mind was far from instantaneous, and by the time she had taken him over it might be too late. But it was her only hope, as both boys were large and she was no match for either of them, and in any case the hormones and the heat raging through her were now so intense that it was becoming difficult to hold on to her body.

Dawn closed her eyes and let herself go. The weight of the youth on her shoulders and his grip on her arms and Jack's manhandling of her legs faded from her consciousness, and she found herself floating a couple of metres above her limp body. She saw Jake hesitate, and as if from a great distance she heard the other boy exclaim: "We've knocked her out!"

"That makes it easy, then," she heard Jake say, and proceeded to pull off her pants.

By now Dawn had transformed herself into a dragon. As she had discovered back at the dolphinarium, it was simply a matter of imagination. Now instead of hands she had razor-sharp claws, her smooth skin had become armour-plated scales, and a huge tail tipped with a vicious blade extended from the base of her spine. Although she was small, no more than a metre long she supposed, she was the top predator of the spirit world.

With fire and angry black smoke belching from her jaws, and flapping her wings furiously, she hurled herself at Jake's head. There was a moment of darkness as she entered his skull, and then the cathedral of his mind coalesced around her, with its stained-glass window straight ahead. Below the window was the golden altar, and on it a red candle with flames leaping so high they almost touched the ceiling. With scarcely a pause, she flapped her wings more, and with a blood-curdling snarl swooped upon the altar. Jake was too sexually aroused to offer any resistance, and she found herself exploding outwards to embrace the universe and then falling back to thrust his presence aside and take possession of his body.

Alice, watching through terrified eyes, saw Jake shudder so violently that he almost keeled over. She thought for a moment that he had ejaculated prematurely, but then he stood up and she saw that this was not the case. Then, as he quickly pulled up his trousers, her attention was drawn to the strange expression on his face and the murderous glint in his eyes. They were like cold steel, and she watched aghast as the awful intelligence behind them laid into the gang in a brutal act of revenge.

The boy kneeling on Dawn's shoulders received a vicious kick straight to the face. The force of it threw him backwards, and he rolled on the ground screaming agony, his hands over his jaws and blood spilling everywhere. Jake was wearing heavy boots, and Alice feared he had broken his friend's nose and probably most of his teeth.

But Jake didn't pause to look. He followed up that kick by leaping at the boy holding the knife to Alice, kicking him so hard in the stomach that he doubled up in agony, then smashing his fist into the side of his face. Before the boy had even hit the ground Jake had turned on the final youth, head butting him to the ground, then kicking him brutally while he screamed for mercy.

Even more astonishing was what happened next. Jake pulled off his boots and all his clothes, then picked up the knife and slashed at each garment until they were in tatters. Then he deliberately plunged the knife into one of his own buttocks. Gasping in pain, he pulled it out and plunged it straight into the other. Blood spurted out and poured down his legs, and Jake had to lean against a tree to support himself, but somehow he managed to pull out the knife and throw it into the bushes.

He turned to her, his face white with pain. "Don't just stand there," he rasped. "Wake Dawn up!"

He was obviously in shock, and Alice stared at him speechlessly as he lurched unsteadily and completely naked towards the cow-trough at the edge of the copse, his buttocks and legs dripping with blood. Abruptly she came to her senses, and, pulling off the scarf that was still tied round her mouth, rushed over to her unconscious friend. At the edge of her vision Jake was climbing into the cow-trough.

"Dawn! Wake up!" Alice wailed, shaking her friend's shoulders. "Jake's gone mad! He's almost killed everyone. Please wake up, we've got to get away!"

Dawn's eyelids flickered, then they opened and she gave a small smile. Alice gasped with relief. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she whispered, slowly sitting up. "How about you?"

"I'm okay, but look at what Jake's done! He's insane!"

Dawn looked around. The three boys were still lying on the ground, bloodied and whimpering. As for Jake, he was trying to climb out of the trough, and he was shivering with cold and pain and the shock of his wounds.

She pulled up her pants, which were still round her ankles, stood up, and adjusted her clothes. Alice helped her to brush herself off. By the time they had gathered up their things Jake was hobbling back to his pile of shredded clothes.

"Jake!" Dawn called out to him. Jake stopped in his tracks and stared at them. He was a pathetic sight. He was naked, his arms were wrapped round his chest in a desperate attempt to warm himself, and he was shivering so much that his teeth were chattering. But what was even worse was the terror in his eyes as Dawn strode up to him.

"If you interfere with Alice or me again," she hissed, "I really will kill you. Do you understand?"

The cowering wreck nodded dumbly. He was now shivering so much that Alice thought he would collapse.

"And if you tell anyone about what happened to you, I'll kill you. Do you understand that?"

Again there was a shivering acquiescence.

"Good. Now I suggest you and your despicable little friends get to hospital. Tell the nurses you got into a fight. That's what happened, isn't it? You got into a fight!"

He nodded again, and Dawn turned on her heel and strode off. Alice hesitated, thinking she ought to do something to help Jake. He looked utterly broken, and she wondered what would happen to him when the other boys recovered and exacted their own revenge.

"Have you got a phone?" she asked. Jake glanced towards his clothes and nodded. "You'd better use it. Call your parents or something."

She hurried after Dawn. "What was all that about?" she gasped when she caught up.

"I guess Jake's conscience caught up with him. That's why he turned on everyone. He thought he ought to protect us."

"So why did he nearly kill himself? And if he was protecting us, why did you tell him you would kill him next time?"

Dawn looked at her blankly.

"Don't pretend you didn't!" Alice protested. "You thought I didn't hear, 'cos you were whispering, but I did hear. You were behind all that, weren't you? You made him attack his friends."

"Don't be silly. How could I? He'd knocked me unconscious."

But Alice wasn't giving up. At last things were starting to make sense. "He only slapped you. I bet you went into some kind of trance so you could control him. It was some kind of mind control, wasn't it? I read a story about that once."

Dawn whirled round to face her, and Alice saw gleaming in her eyes the same cold steel that had been in Jake. "Just forget it, Alice. It wasn't anything to do with me, right?"

Alice hesitated, and Dawn grabbed her arm, digging her fingers into it so hard it hurt. "Do you understand?"

Alice blanched. "Yes, of course," she mumbled, looking away. "You couldn't have done it."

Dawn relaxed her grip and the steel left her eyes, and the two girls walked on in silence, Alice rubbing her arm. Glancing sideways at Dawn she wondered, not for the first time that term, what could have caused her to grow up so quickly. In the space of two or three months she had changed from a nondescript schoolgirl into an elegant, and suddenly rather intimidating, young woman. Whatever the cause, Alice felt very glad that Dawn was her friend and not her enemy.

As for Dawn, she was thinking that she would have to be more circumspect about her appearance in future. The fact that she was a love goddess didn't imply that she had to dress like one. At least, not when Rick wasn't around to appreciate her.

Nothing further untoward happened that term. She was in her final year at school and studying hard for her exams, and now that she had a definite aim in life, she was more determined than ever to do well and gain a place at a good university. The various learning goals she set herself made the months slip by, and soon Christmas was over and summer no longer seemed such a distant prospect.

In the spring, however, her father dropped an awful bombshell. Over dinner one evening he told the family that they wouldn't be going to the South Pacific this year after all, instead they would be visiting Kazakhstan, where GeneSys was establishing an important presence.

Dawn stared at him in dismay, unable to believe her ears. Suddenly she burst into tears, and then she had a tantrum so childish that even she was surprised by it. However, the effect on the others was most gratifying. Her parents both gaped at her, and then her mother told her father in no uncertain terms how unfeeling he was because he knew very well how keen Dawn was to visit the Solomons and the dolphins again and just to come out with something like that as though it didn't matter at all was just plain ridiculous.

Her father was completely taken aback, and to keep the peace he promised that Dawn could go there the following year. She could go alone if necessary, since she would then be 18 and able to look after herself, and he would foot the bill. The prospect of spending two months alone with Rick cheered her up no end, and she dried her eyes and settled down to eat her dinner.

"I really don't understand why it's so important to go there," he grumbled.

She blew her nose. "You know I want to study animal intelligence, and you know I can't wait to get back to the dolphins. I'd like to work with them, you know I would."

"Not to mention the young men out there. I saw the way you were eyeing that guy you met at the dolphinarium." He had drawn his own conclusions from the marked improvement in her appearance since then.

"Rick? Oh, he's okay. He emails me sometimes with news of the dolphins. Apparently they're doing very well."

Her mother, who had also guessed that Dawn had fallen for Rick, quickly changed the subject. "How did you do on your last maths assignment, dear? The one you were having all that trouble with."

"I sorted it all out in the end, thanks. I got full marks."

Apart from her presentation, she had achieved top grades for all her assignments during the current academic year, which was why, she supposed, her father was willing to pay for her trip to the Solomons. The flight alone would cost him a couple of months' salary, now that aviation fuel was so expensive.

As things turned out, the trip to Kazakhstan was a blessing in disguise. They visited the Tienshan Mountains in the south of the country, staying in a remote grassy valley dotted with trees with a river flowing through it and a couple of lakes which were teeming with fish. It was a beautiful spot, yet deserted apart from a few other tourists and some locals who staffed the lodges.

Dawn thought it magical, and as she walked alone along the shore of one of the lakes on their first afternoon there she couldn't help thinking about that strange GeneSys message that Rick had dreamed up in his office all those months ago, that she and the dolphins were like the garden of Eden story played out all over again. For this pristine lake, full of fish and surrounded by mountains, was a kind of dolphin Eden. She could imagine Adam and Eve and their progeny living here and feeding on psychotropic fish, allowing their spirits to escape from their animal bodies to roam like humans over this idyllic countryside.

Yet again she wondered about her mission to the dolphins. Almost a year had passed since leaving the Solomons, and nothing had shaken her love for them or her conviction that she was to be their guardian angel. Yet she still had no idea how to help them satisfy the deep-seated longings of their human brains, to be able to walk and talk like humans talk, and use those amazingly dexterous hands to mould the world around them.

Shortly after leaving the Solomons she had listed all the facts about them that might have a bearing on this knotty problem, and now, in the bright afternoon sun in that remote valley in the Tienshan hills, she sat under a tree to read what she had written. She pulled a small cylindrical object from her pouch, about the size of a pencil, and unrolled it to reveal a flexible screen which she spoke into. Almost immediately what she was looking for was displayed across it.

  1. Adam and Eve have human brains. So they've got human desires and human abilities, but since they don't have human bodies they can't achieve their potential.

  2. They've used their spare mental capacity to develop telepathy.

  3. Their telepathic powers allowed them to easily enter neurospace. It also enabled them to fuse their minds, so that they became a single entity with access to both their memories.

  4. In neurospace they could turn themselves into humans as easily as I could turn myself into a dragon, when they climbed on that island, and they were able to possess a human being. That experience awoke deep yearnings in them to be human.

As she read this list it occurred to her that the ability to fuse their minds in neurospace had profound implications for the next generation of GM dolphins. If hundreds of telepathic dolphins fused their minds in neurospace, the result would be an enormous merged mind able to access all of their combined knowledge. It would be as if all their brains had been wired together to become a superbrain.

Dawn lay back under the tree and stared up at the canopy of leaves fluttering in the gentle breeze. Each dolphin mind would be like one of those leaves, she thought, merging together to form a single vast canopy. Would that be a good or bad thing? Would it have any value at all? After all, the whole of human knowledge was already instantly accessible over the internet, and this wouldn't add anything to it.

But then, as she sat up and gazed across the lake to the trees and the distant mountains, everything seemed to click into place and a glorious vision unfolded. She saw that this fused mind, this _communal_ mind, could be the key to creating a neurospace Eden in which the dolphins could live out their essential humanity. It was the most extraordinary flight of fancy, and it could only be realised when GeneSys had produced the next generation of GM dolphins from Adam and Eve's DNA.

Dawn picked up her screen and translated this leap of imagination into a sequence of logical propositions. After some later reworking, this is what she dictated:

1 If Adam and Eve are able to enter neurospace by eating those psychotropic fish, then so will their progeny.

2 If Adam and Eve are able to easily transform themselves into humans in neurospace, then so will their progeny.

3 If, by the miracle dolphin telepathy, Adam and Eve are able to merge into a single neurospace entity with access to both their intellects and memories, then so will their progeny. The result will be a vast communal mind with unknown but huge potential.

4 If two individuals are able cooperate in neurospace to create a cathedral-like representation of a single mind – which is what she and Adam did, and also what she and Jake did – and if Adam and Eve, acting as one, had been able to create that lagoon with the island and all the other things when they invaded a human mind, then the communal mind will be able to conjure up a similarly complex representation of the combined dolphin minds.

5 This neural representation conjured up by the communal mind won't be a mere cathedral or lagoon, it will be the most wonderful place imaginable. It will be the Eden in which the dolphins would be able to live out their true humanity.

Dawn decided she would test out some of these ideas on Adam and Eve when she returned to the Solomons next summer. She would feed them those psychotropic fish to send them into a trance, and then work with them in neurospace to create something like a house. If she and the dolphins worked out the design before entering neurospace and fixed it in their minds, then it should appear as if by magic, through the power of their imaginations alone. It was, after all, the power of her and Adam's imaginations that had conjured up the cathedral with its golden altar.

This house, like the cathedral, would have many rooms, and in those rooms would be stored their combined knowledge. Perhaps that knowledge might appear in books, like in a library, and their spirits, roaming through those rooms in human form, could access any of it. Many years in the future, when Adam and Eve's progeny had grown up and ventured into neurospace, there would be many houses with a very large number of rooms, creating a vast library covering astronomy and biology and history and every other subject, and in this way a dolphin culture would develop. In their physical bodies each dolphin would hold only a tiny portion of this cultural wealth, but when they came together in neurospace all would be combined.

As she sat alone under that tree in that remote valley in the Tienshan thinking through all this, there arose in Dawn's mind a marvellous vision of a township from the time of Shakespeare's England. It would emerge, fully formed, for just a few hours each day, after the dolphins had eaten their meal of psychotropic fish, and it would have narrow streets and tiny shops and small workshops where all manner of arts and crafts would be pursued, and rooms stacked high with shelves of books and pictures. The dolphins, having taken on human bodies, would wander everywhere, talking and singing and playing and making things just like real humans did, and in that way they would fulfil their deepest longings.

As for the dolphin communal mind, it would have access to all the knowledge contained in all their individual minds, and its focus would be in the centre of the town, in a great cathedral with a magnificent golden altar. It would be here that the supermind would be interrogated like some Delphic oracle, perhaps by a high priest through whom it imparted its wisdom.

Was it really possible, through the power of thought alone, to create such a paradise out of nothing? It really would be like playing at God. She thought through all the steps in her reasoning once again, and she could find no flaw. All that had happened to her, and everything that she had learned about the dolphins, pointed towards such an outcome.

And yet it was such a fantastical, otherworldly vision, and she couldn't help wondering at herself for conceiving it. Perhaps she hadn't really conceived it at all, perhaps it had its origin in the otherworldly part of her brain that was responsible for all the other fantastical things that had happened to her. It was impossible to know which of her musings sprang from her ordinary human intelligence and which were born in the stars.

She gazed across the grassy valley and pictured that Elizabethan township springing up all around her, and she thought again about that GeneSys message. It felt really weird that this great biotech organisation had adopted that name, and that the first two intelligent dolphins had been named Adam and Eve, and that here she was, their self-appointed guardian angel, drawing up plans for a dolphin Eden.

Although her rational mind told her that nothing could be inferred from this choice of names, she couldn't help thinking that it affirmed her great vision. And although it would be many years before this vision would come to pass, and it was unlikely that things would turn out exactly as she had imagined, the fact remained that she could now see clearly the path ahead, and she now understood just what these GM dolphins with their telepathic powers and ability to enter neurospace might accomplish.

In the days ahead, as she turned these matters over in her mind, Dawn became ever more convinced that the creation of this dolphin Eden was her calling, and that she and the dolphins would change the world forever. It was impossible to predict how it would all turn out in the end, or what dangers and setbacks they might meet, but it was bound to be very exciting, especially with Rick around. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her that what lay ahead would be the mother of all fairy tales.

What she failed to see was that such a scheme was bound to attract fierce opposition, not only from humans but from demons as well. For now, though, there were no clouds to darken her horizon, and full of joy she jumped up and ran back through the trees to the lodge where the family was staying. She was about to embark on the most glorious adventure in the history of the planet!

## Seven

That autumn Dawn started her undergraduate psychology course. Having gained a place at the university of her choice, she was now living away from home and free of its rules and regulations. Many of her fellow students threw themselves into wild parties and romantic affairs with reckless abandon, but she was too mindful of her uniqueness and cosmic mission for that. Besides, her heart was set on Rick.

Her love-goddess skills, therefore, remained frustratingly untested. However, as autumn turned to winter, and winter to spring, their phone calls became increasingly flirty, and that prompted some delicious dreams. Unless she was very much mistaken, the day was fast approaching when those skills would not just be tested but worked off their feet.

Their emails were much more businesslike, for they had a wider audience: Rick normally posted them on the dolphins' poolside screen. Her emails were like a diary of her life, as she always made a point of telling them what she was up to and about the more interesting things she was learning on her course. For his part, Rick kept her posted on any developments at the dolphinarium. In one of his emails he summarised the results of the telepathy tests.

These had established beyond all reasonable doubt that Adam and Eve could indeed detect human emotions, and, to Dawn's surprise, some patchy images as well. They couldn't detect images nearly as reliably as they could emotions, and even emotions couldn't be detected consistently at a distance of more than 30 metres. However, if the dolphins concentrated their minds on a particular individual, even if he was many miles away, they could often detect his emotions and even a little of what he was seeing. In their report the researchers compared this to the hearing abilities of some animals: nearby sounds are easily picked up, but very distant ones will only be perceived if the animal pricks up its ears and points them in the right direction.

Rick told her that during their research the team had revisited the computer records of the dolphins' out-of-body experiences following that experimental meal of psychotropic fish. Somewhat to Rick's surprise, they didn't give Adam and Eve's accounts of what had happened any more credence than before, dismissing them as mere hallucinations. He had expected them to repeat the experiment, but the head of the dolphin project banned any further tests involving psychoactive drugs in case these harmed the dolphins, and Dawn said that this was just as well. She didn't want anyone delving into experiences that might ultimately lead them to suspect that she too had some special abilities.

A few weeks later Rick phoned to say that the research team had written a paper describing the tests and the results, and that it had been accepted for publication in a prestigious scientific journal. Dawn didn't know whether to be pleased or alarmed by that, as she had visions of scientists from all over the world descending on the dolphinarium to ogle at Adam and Eve and to carry out their own tests.

A couple of months later, when the report was finally published, there was indeed quite a splash in the media about the telepathic dolphins, accompanied by all kinds of wild assertions and scaremongering about their superhuman powers. However, when GeneSys and the rest of the scientific establishment emphasised that the dolphins' telepathy was no more threatening than the ordinary human ability to detect emotional states from facial expressions, the furore quickly died down, to be replaced by other more pressing news. However, the possibility of telepathy was firmly established in the public mind, and psychic research, which had been in the doldrums for decades, was given a new lease of life.

No sooner had the fuss about the dolphins' telepathy abated than Rick announced further exciting news. He told her that the dolphins had reached sexual maturity, and that everyone was on tenterhooks waiting for a mating. Dawn understood how they felt, for the long-term survival of the dolphins depended on their ability to procreate naturally. But week followed week without Adam showing the slightest inclination in that direction, so that by the start of summer everyone had become quite disheartened. The fear was that GeneSys would abort the project.

"Don't worry," Dawn told Rick over the phone. "Everything will be OK, I'll sort Adam out."

He laughed. "The trouble is, Adam's grown up with Eve. He treats her like a sister, so his human brain balks at the idea of mating with her. We're thinking of encouraging him to be sexually active by introducing a female wild dolphin into the pool. "

"Please don't do that! I know I'll be able to sort it. End-of-year exams are only a month away, and I'll take the first flight after that."

"OK, I'll talk to my boss. She'll take some convincing, though."

"Get Adam to tap out a message to her. Tell him to say that he loves me, and he'll mate with Eve if I'm around."

He was silent for a moment. "Well, that should be good for a few jokes. That you're Adam's pin-up girl, I mean."

She bristled a little at that. "What about you? Aren't I your pin-up?"

"That's the trouble," he muttered. "I've got a picture of you pinned up in my office. The guys all tease me about that. You're the non-existent fantasy woman who only lives in my dreams. If I tell them I'm sharing you with Adam..."

Dawn giggled. "We'll prove them wrong when I turn up. It's not long now, and I'm going to make them very jealous of you."

The conversation degenerated into the usual sweet nothings, and then she asked him which picture of her adorned his office.

"It's one you sent from Kazakhstan. You'd bought a new swimsuit, and you wanted to show it off."

She remembered it well. That photograph – and indeed the purchase of the swimsuit – had been prompted by her recurring fantasy of lying on the beach with Rick. The thought that he fancied her in it filled her with a dangerously warm glow, and she hastily turned the conversation to other things. She didn't want another eruption, not while she was on the phone.

A month later her long wait was finally over and she was on her way to the Solomons. It wasn't a direct flight – there weren't any from London – instead she had to overnight at Fiji and then a take short-haul flight onwards, via a couple of stops in the New Hebrides. Fortunately she slept reasonably well at the airport hotel in Fiji, despite the time difference, and in spite of her mounting excitement. An hour away from Guadalcanal she took a tablet to ward off the residual jet lag, so that by the time they finally touched down at Henderson airport to the east of Honiara she was feeling pretty good.

Indeed, to the cabin steward who followed her with his eyes as she walked out of the aircraft, she looked very good indeed. Just turned 19, Dawn was a tall, slim brunette, elegantly dressed in a smart black skirt and white top and new black shoes, and immaculately made up. Determined to look the love goddess on this long-awaited day, she had spent a while in the toilet on this last leg of her flight applying eye-liner and lipstick and perfume and making sure that not a single glossy hair of her glamorous hairdo was out of place.

Rick had promised to meet her at the airport, and shortly after leaving the plane there was a buzzing from her wristpad and it was him, confirming that he was awaiting her in the airport lounge. He sounded like an eager schoolboy, which although very gratifying, did her elegant poise no good at all. Heat erupted in her stomach, her heart started to pound, and a thin film of perspiration formed on her brow. Soon she would be dripping with sweat, and her make-up and clothes and hair would be a total mess.

In a panic she dredged up that old memory of the dead rat crawling with maggots. Now it was mixed with the memory of Jake's face when he tried to rape her, and that was too unbearable for words. Sickened, she pushed the image away, but it had worked its magic: her belly had turned to ice.

Feelings of revulsion lingered at the edge of her mind as she negotiated immigration control and baggage reclaim, and when she entered the aircraft lounge 15 minutes later she was a picture of cool chic.

The place was crowded, mostly with the dark-skinned, curly-haired Melanesians who were the original inhabitants of these islands. Rick spotted her at once, and he leapt from his seat and bounded up to her.

"Wow, you look terrific!" His eyes were shining, and he grabbed her hands. She gave him an excited smile, and parted her lips invitingly. She'd been waiting for this precious moment for ages. But instead of giving her a passionate hug and a scorching kiss, he contented himself with a quick peck on the cheek.

"That's not much of a kiss," she protested. "Even my brother can do better than that!"

She gazed longingly at him, hoping he'd take the hint, but instead he shuffled his feet and looked slightly embarrassed. "I wasn't sure how you'd react..."

"Rick! Did you think I'd bite your head off or something?"

That bantering look that she remembered from two years ago crossed his face. "As a matter of fact, I did. That's exactly what dragons do, isn't it?"

Before she had time to reply he'd grabbed her luggage trolley and was pushing his way through the crowd. "It's too busy in here. Come on, let's get to the car."

He headed for the nearest exit, and she followed behind. To add to her chagrin, they had to push past another couple who were locked in a passionate embrace. All she'd got was the merest brush on the cheek, he hadn't even brought her a bunch of flowers. She felt totally let down.

They emerged into the blazing sunlight. "It's over here," he said, nodding towards a nearby parking lot. She was too upset to reply, and followed him to the car. What had become of all the laughing and giggling and flirtiness of their phone calls?

A terrible thought struck her. He had fallen for someone else, someone he had recently met! That had to be it, it was the only possible explanation. Her mind went numb, and her stomach went cold. They reached the car, and she was too upset to notice that he had carefully cleaned and polished it for her.

He parked the trolley and opened the boot. Then he reached inside, and with an exaggerated flourish pulled out an enormous bunch of flowers. Looking very pleased with himself, he handed it to her.

"Rick!" she gasped. "They're lovely!

"I couldn't give it to you in the airport, not with all those people around. I wanted us to be alone. So that you could thank me properly." That mischievous look had returned, and he put his hands on her waist and gently pulled her towards him.

Her heart did a somersault and the ice in her stomach turned to steam. She wasn't entirely reassured, though. "I thought you'd gone off me," she complained. "You didn't cuddle me even a little bit. I felt horrible."

"We couldn't cuddle in there, not with all those people. Not properly, anyway." He tugged more forcefully at her waist, drawing her close.

"Don't squash my flowers!" she squealed, holding them out of harm's way. "They're orchids, aren't they?"

"They certainly are. They cost me an arm and a leg, and you still haven't thanked me."

"They're wonderful, Rick, and I really appreciate them. It was very thoughtful of you."

"It was Meg's idea," he confessed. "She's my boss. She said I couldn't possibly not give you flowers, not when you'd waited so long."

"I'll still thank you, but only a teeny little bit." She didn't know whether to be disappointed that he'd needed prompting or pleased because he'd been so honest. She leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, just like that dutiful peck she'd received earlier.

"Now we're even!" she declared, pushing herself off him.

"But you haven't read the card," he protested, pointing to the envelope tucked in among the blooms. "I wrote _that_ myself."

"Ah. Maybe there's hope for you then." Visions of what he might have written flitted through her mind. Romantic promises of undying love, perhaps? Or something a little more steamy? The temperature of her stomach was beginning to soar and her pulse had begun to race. With eager fingers she pulled at the envelope.

In her haste she managed to drop it, and they both bent down to retrieve it. Their bodies and their hands touched, and suddenly his arms were round her and she had dropped the orchids and they were gazing spellbound into each other's eyes. Still holding on to each other, they stood upright, their bodies touching, and in a secret part of her brain that had its origin in the stars some synapses fired. Hormonal messengers flooded into her bloodstream, and all at once she was overwhelmed with desire.

World War III exploded in her loins. Folding her arms around Rick's neck she pressed herself to him. A tongue of invisible fire leapt up her throat, cascading into her mouth. As her hungry lips met his, something like electricity crackled between them, and she found herself engulfed in a scorching kiss. Not any old scorching kiss, not even a Hollywood-style scorching kiss, but an all-consuming, earth-moving, Oscar-winning, X-rated sizzler of a kiss.

Her enchanted fire burst into Rick's mouth and swept through his body, releasing a flood of testosterone and adrenaline and other potent hormones. Suddenly his hands were everywhere, clasping her to him in a frenzy of desire. He couldn't get enough of her, squeezing her back and her waist to him and pawing at her bottom, and then his hands found their way beneath her top and were grasping her naked flesh. She certainly couldn't complain about any lack of passion now!

A wolf-whistle impinged on her consciousness. Several cat-calls and wolf-whistles, in fact. "Stop, Rick, stop!" she gasped, pulling her lips away. "Everyone's watching us!"

His passion immediately died down, and he glanced around. A number of people were standing by their cars watching the show, and a small cheer went up.

Rick blushed. "Let's get out of here," he gasped, reaching for her luggage. Hastily adjusting her top, she picked up the orchids and scurried into the car. Moments later he jumped in beside her.

They looked at each other in speechless embarrassment, and then she dissolved into a fit of giggles. "You look so guilty," she explained, almost choking.

"I feel terrible," he muttered. "I couldn't stop pawing at you. You must think I'm a wild animal."

"Of course I don't," she said, cuddling up to him. "Love goddesses adore that kind of thing. That's why I kissed you like that. I wanted to turn you on."

He put his arm round her. "You certainly did that! Where on earth did you learn your technique? Not at your posh school, I bet."

"I didn't learn it anywhere. It just happened. It's part of my love-goddess suite of skills," she told him proudly.

" _Suite_ of skills?" he echoed, gaping at her. "So what other skills..."

"I expect we'll find out," she interjected, then hastily changed the subject. "I can't wait to see Adam and Eve again. Come on, let's get going."

"Don't you want to check into your hotel?"

"No, let's go to GeneSys first."

He gave her a quizzical glance, then clicked his seatbelt and pressed a switch on the dashboard. "Destination GeneSys," he announced, and the car started to move.

Like most modern vehicles, Rick's car was electric, and it rolled silently out of the car park and onto the highway that led along the coast to Honiara. Off to the right was the brilliant blue of the Pacific, to the left lay the bush-covered hills of Guadalcanal's interior.

He reached out and took her hand, leaving the car to drive itself along the highway. "You'll never guess what crossed my mind when we were snogging back there."

She smiled. "I bet I can, you naughty boy."

"No, it wasn't that. It seemed like your dragon-fire had somehow got into me, and I remembered what you told me about Jake and how you had turned into a dragon and got inside him and attacked him. I couldn't help thinking that you might do the same thing to me if I carried on like that."

"Oh Rick! I love you and I really enjoyed our cuddle. In any case, you gave me this lovely bunch of flowers, so I couldn't possibly be cross with you."

He glanced sideways at her and that bantering look returned. "You goddesses are all the same. You're all sweetness and light so long as you get plenty of sacrifices and lots of offerings of flowers and chocolates, otherwise it's fire and brimstone all round!"

"Think of it as investing in your future happiness," she told him sunnily.

"Huh! It sounds like you're going to be a very expensive girlfriend."

"It doesn't have to be _that_ expensive. Goddesses like nothing better than a bit of worship and adoration, and that doesn't cost anything at all!"

"Worship and adoration? I'm no good at singing hymns, I'm afraid."

"I mean telling me how adorable I look, Silly! I went to a great deal of trouble to look nice for you, you know."

"You look absolutely stunning," he said simply, and she could tell he meant it.

A few minutes later they reached the outskirts of Honiara and were passing small concrete houses surrounded by banana trees, paw-paws, palm trees, and other tropical vegetation. Five minutes later the road, still running parallel to the coast, became the main thoroughfare through the town centre, with brightly-coloured flame trees spaced out along it. There were some large stores stocking the usual global brands, as well as lots of smaller shops selling local produce. There were many Melanesians wandering around, as well as some Gilbertese, who were the second largest ethnic group, together with the occasional westerner and several Chinese.

After a little while they reached the western suburbs, and a few minutes after that they left the town and were driving through a coconut plantation. She could still glimpse the blue of the Pacific through the trees, just a couple of hundred metres to the right. And then Rick took over the controls and parked the car outside the perimeter wall of the GeneSys site, near the entrance gates.

A couple of burly Melanesians dressed in the dark green uniform of GeneSys Security were manning the entrance. They eyed her curiously as Rick led her into the small office, where a white female officer examined Dawn's passport and issued her with a visitor's pass.

The officer leaned back in her chair and watched Dawn pin the pass to her top. A sardonic smile hovered on her lips. "So you're Sweetie-Pie."

Dawn stared at her askance.

"That's what the guys at the dolphinarium call you," the officer explained. "They reckon you're a figment of Rick's imagination, his 'pie in the sky'. So it's Sweetie-Pie, my dear."

Dawn glared at the woman, and then at Rick, who was looking quite shame-faced. Sweetie-Pie? How demeaning! She was one of the most powerful beings in the entire universe, dammit, not to mention the fact that she was the daughter of a top GeneSys manager. _Your Majesty_ or _Your Highness_ was a more appropriate form of address, certainly not Sweetie-Pie! And then she thought, if they joke about me, they won't take me too seriously, and then no one will suspect the truth.

Her glare softened and became a smile, and she cuddled up to Rick's arm. "I really like being Rick's sweetie-pie," she announced demurely. "I hope you're not jealous."

It was the officer's turn to scowl. "Me? Of course not."

They walked out of the office hand-in-hand. Rick was looking very relieved. "You don't mind being called that?"

Dawn glanced up at the security cameras dotted around the walls of the high buildings to each side of them. "Can we be overheard?"

"No. At least, I don't think so."

She whispered her reasons for welcoming the name. "Just don't call me that outside this place!"

Dawn understood well enough the need for the high wall around the site and the guards at the entrance and the cameras and other security measures, and why GeneSys had located its research facilities in remote places like the Solomon Islands. Animal rights groups as well as some religious crackpots were deeply opposed to the fabrication of transgenic organisms, in spite of the proven benefits of the technology. Restrictions on air travel as well as the cost meant that it was difficult for these groups to mount protests in remote parts of the world, and the tight security minimised the possibility of physical attacks.

It was approaching midday and the sun was blazing out of the cloudless sky, but fortunately the road between the buildings was lined with a variety of leafy trees and they were able to walk to the dolphinarium mainly in the shade. As they passed each building Rick tried to describe some of the research going on inside, but Dawn was too excited to pay much attention. After two long years of separation she was at last back with Rick and holding his hand and about to be reunited with her dolphins. Life with a capital L was about to begin.

Adam and Eve's welcome was every bit as rapturous as she had hoped. They must have sensed her presence on the site, for as soon as she appeared at the edge of the pool they kicked up a great commotion, leaping high in the air and rushing round in circles and splashing water everywhere. Then Adam raced up to her and lifted himself half out of the water, and she was on her knees laughing and stroking his beak and his head and getting herself soaked.

Eventually Adam pulled away and she was free to stand up. Rick handed her a towel.

"Yuk!" he teased. "You smell like rotten fish."

"No she doesn't," a female Australian voice retorted. Startled, Dawn turned and saw a small, wiry middle-aged woman wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

"I'm Meg," the woman said, holding out her hand for Dawn to shake. "And you don't need to tell me who _you_ are. I can see why Rick hasn't looked at another woman for two years. We all thought he was nuts, but you're well worth the wait. You're gorgeous!"

Dawn blushed, and not just because she was embarrassed. The delightful thought that Rick really had been true to all those intimate phone calls had ignited those dangerous fires, and now she had to struggle to keep her composure. Fortunately the dead-rat image had lost none of its potency, and in moments she had regained her poise.

Meg didn't seem to notice her rosy cheeks or the perspiration on her brow. "Come and meet everyone," she said, taking Dawn's arm.

Other members of the team were gathering a short distance away, beneath the poolside awning, and Dawn realised that her presence had been signalled by the dolphins' tumultuous greetings. There were eight people standing there, and they made a motley bunch. There were six men and two women, and half of them were white while the rest were Chinese (two), Indian (one), and a Melanesian.

"Do you know what the guys here call you?" Meg asked her in a low voice.

Dawn had no intention of letting a soppy nickname spoil what was turning out to be the best day of her life, and she smiled back. "Sweety-Pie? I think it's rather quaint."

"You're a good sport," Meg muttered approvingly, and promptly pulled a small handset from the pocket of her shorts and pointed it at the screen on the opposite side of the pool. It burst into life with an animated display of fireworks spelling out in huge letters the name _Sweetie-Pie_ , repeated over and over again in different colours and different sounds. Dawn managed to laugh with the rest of them, and Rick rewarded her by slipping his arm round her waist and giving her a squeeze.

Rick had told her that his colleagues were all highly qualified, with most of them being PhD's, and she feared that they might be rather stuffy. This wasn't the case at all, and the fact that she had taken the silly computer display in good part went down well. They all gathered round and made a big fuss of her, and Meg brought out cans of beer and some nibbles from her office.

"Alcohol's not allowed on the premises," she told Dawn, "but I managed to make this an exception. I persuaded the powers-that-be to classify it as an official reception."

Dawn didn't know whether to be pleased or worried by that. She'd wanted to keep a low profile. "I didn't think I was that important."

"You're not. It's because of your father."

After a while they split into small groups, and Dawn found herself talking to a rather dour Australian, Dr John Anderson. He was about 30, she guessed. Rick had already told her that he was the lead researcher in the telepathy experiments.

"At last I get to meet you," Dr Anderson said as they shook hands, peering through his spectacles at her as though she was some kind of biological specimen. "The amazing Dawn."

She gave him a sharp glance. "No one else finds me amazing. Apart from Rick, that is."

"The dolphins evidently think you are. All that fuss. And I think you're amazing too. You spent no more than a couple of hours with them, two years ago, and in that tiny space of time you managed to discover what everyone else had missed - that they're telepathic. That's more than amazing, don't you think? It's miraculous."

His eyes glittered unnervingly at her, and the warm glow that had filled Dawn's stomach froze over. He knew! Somehow he had stumbled upon the truth about her!

Lightning-fast, her brain listed the simple sequence of steps that must have led him to the inevitable conclusion. Rick had alerted the people here to the possibility that the dolphins might be telepathic, and everyone knew that Rick's girlfriend had struck up some kind of relationship with the animals. All those emails from her, posted up on the giant computer screen, had told them that. This John Anderson had put two and two together and examined the computer records of her interactions with the dolphins two years ago and realised that something extraordinary was going on. He had read Adam's message inviting her to ride _in_ him, and having also read Adam's account of his own incursion into the spirit world, Anderson would know exactly what that message meant. Certainly it couldn't mean ride _on_ him, as that would break his ribs and probably kill him.

And so he had deduced that she had somehow entered Adam's mind, and that meant that she could have learned all kinds of things about Adam, including the fact that he was telepathic. And now she was standing in front of him completely dumbstruck, confirming, if any confirmation were needed, that his deductions were correct.

She hastily tried to recover her composure. "The moment I met them I thought they might be telepathic," she said, doing her best to sound casual. "They said I was hot, and I had been feeling very hot, and then they said some other things that seemed to fit. So I thought you people ought to do a bit of research. You must have found it fascinating to investigate something that seems so impossible. I couldn't believe it when you hit the jackpot and came out with that amazing report. It made headlines round the world. You did brilliantly."

He gave a thin smile. "You're being too modest. A great deal of credit goes to you. You meet these creatures on a couple of occasions two years ago, and they go completely haywire when you return today. We could hardly believe our eyes. You obviously made a quite extraordinary impact on them."

Her blood froze. How incredibly naïve she'd been not to realise that the dolphins' frantic welcome would inevitably raise suspicions. She should have told Rick to warn them against any excessive displays.

She gave an off-hand shrug. Somehow she had to brazen it out. "I think it's because I'm Rick's girlfriend. I gather they're very attached to him."

"There's no need to hide your light under a bushel," he said softly, those piercing eyes never once leaving her face. They seemed to reach right inside her. "Why not admit that you have a strange rapport with them? Rick evidently believes so – he's been insisting that you'll be able to get Adam to mate with Eve, although all our efforts have failed."

She didn't know how to respond to that, and that unnerving glint returned to his eyes. "I very much hope you won't disappoint us, Dawn. A lot depends on your remarkable abilities."

Several of the others were glancing at her, and she glanced back at them nervously. She hoped they were merely sizing up Rick's newly-arrived sweetie-pie. If Rick had been aware of anything more than idle curiosity about her, he would certainly have warned her, so this Dr Anderson must have kept his suspicions to himself. And although Anderson must have deduced that she had somehow been able to enter Adam's mind, he couldn't possibly know anything about her alien dragon nature.

"You're quite correct," she told him brightly, deciding to make the best of it with another little lie. "I do seem to have some kind of paranormal rapport with Adam and Eve. I guess I'm psychic, 'cos they seem to be able to connect with me telepathically. I can't read their thoughts or anything like that, but there's some kind of emotional linkage. They respond to my feelings. I'm hoping that if Rick and I get down to some serious kissing and cuddling in his office, then this will put Adam in the right mood for making whoopee with Eve."

Dr Anderson couldn't help smirking at that. "That's what you're going to tell the others, is it? That you're going to have to make love to Rick in order to get Adam to mate with Eve?"

Dawn drew herself to her full height and flashed her eyes at him. "Yes," she said firmly. "I am."

## Eight

It was a red-faced Rick who accompanied Dawn into his small office a few minutes later.

"I'm really sorry about that," she whispered as he closed the door behind them. "I had to make up that story about Adam responding telepathically to my emotional state. It was the only way to explain my influence over him."

Rick's office was just as she remembered it, apart from the framed photo of herself in that slinky swimming costume hanging on the wall behind his desk. He sank into one of the two easy chairs as if he wished it would swallow him up. She couldn't help laughing at the expression on his face, and he broke into a sheepish grin.

"It's that Dr Anderson's fault," she explained, collapsing into the chair opposite him. She recounted their conversation.

"He knows I'm able to get into Adam's mind, I'm certain of it, and the others are bound to suspect that something very weird is going on. I had to tell them something they could believe without revealing too much about me."

"That John is too clever by half," Rick told her grimly. "And he's very thorough. He'll have gone through those computer records with a fine-toothed comb, you can bet your life on it."

"I'm not going to let him spoil our day," Dawn announced, and to prove her point she jumped up and deposited herself on his lap, wriggling up against him in a provocative way and wrapping her arms about his neck. He slipped his arms around her waist and squeezed her gently.

"I hope your colleagues don't tease you too much about what I said," she murmured, stroking his curly hair. "About you having to make love to me in order to get Adam to perform, I mean."

"They'll certainly tease me if Adam _doesn't_ perform!"

She giggled. "There's no risk of that, my darling."

"I don't know how you can be so sure," he grumbled. "There can be all kinds of reasons why he won't have it off with Eve. He's a male, after all, with male hang-ups. How are you going to get round those?""

It didn't matter what hang-ups Adam had, for she would be taking over his body. Dawn had known that she would have to do this, ever since it had become clear that Adam wouldn't mate of his own accord. To prepare herself for this, she had researched dolphin courtship rituals on the internet, and she hoped that if she followed those assiduously then his body's instincts would take over and she would be able to couple with Eve. She hadn't told Rick any of this, for nice girls didn't do that kind of thing, at least not in the bodies of male animals.

"Well?" Rick demanded. "You're a woman, dammit, so why in heaven's name do you think you can get Adam to mate?"

"Because I'm a love goddess, that's why. Mating is what love goddesses do best."

He gawped at her, his face a picture of bemusement, but she simply smiled back and rested her head against his shoulder. "We ought to get started," she murmured, hurriedly changing the subject. "Everyone's waiting with baited breath. We don't want Adam to disappoint them, do we?"

He glanced around the bare office. "The floor's very hard," he said doubtfully. "Are you sure you want to make love here?"

"Rick!" She jerked her head away from his and glared at him in mock anger. "We're not actually going to make love! That was just a story to satisfy the others."

"But we've got to kiss and cuddle to send you on a spirit journey, and if you kiss me like you did before..."

"I'm _not_ going to kiss you like that," she told him firmly. "That was a love-goddess kiss and they come from the stars, and they're reserved for very special occasions."

He looked so crestfallen that she couldn't help giggling, and she sank back into him again. This was a deliberate gesture of submission on her part, as her natural inclination was to cuddle his head against her shoulders. But she was very much aware that, in spite of her tender years, it was she who was calling all the shots, and her knowledge of psychology told her that this was no basis for a long-term relationship. She was bound to be dominant in some areas, for she had the stars in her blood, but she was determined in their love-making at least to let him take the lead. Or at any rate to let him _think_ he was taking the lead.

"Do you remember how we cuddled on this chair all those months and months ago?" she murmured. "I don't know how many times I've got myself off to sleep by remembering how we snuggled up together here." Actually, she had only replayed that particular scene a few times. Her favourite daydream was of them making love on the beach, but that was a private figment of her imagination that she'd never shared with him.

Rick was stroking her back and her shoulders and kissing her hair. "That's a coincidence. I often get to sleep that way too, imagining you in my arms."

This really is the best day of my life, she thought as she closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his neck. He responded by cupping one of her breasts in his hand and gently squeezing it. She was wearing a thin cotton top, and the slight pressure of his fingers through the flimsy material was very pleasurable, and her passion started to rise. She'd never let anyone to touch her like that before, and that it should happen at the dolphinarium on this very special day seemed most auspicious.

Suddenly, the fires in her stomach roared into life, forcing her to gasp for breath. It was embarrassing, and she hoped that Rick understood what was happening to her insides. He gave her a reassuring squeeze to tell her he did, and she squeezed him back and gasped some more. This seemed to fan the flames, so that they leapt high up her throat and into her mouth, filling with such a desire for him that she was sorely tempted to go back on what she'd said and deliver another of those red-hot love-goddess kisses. But this was not the time nor the place for that, and instead she released her soaring spirit from her body.

She found herself floating above their two entwined bodies, just below the ceiling. Although it was almost two years since she had last done this, she felt quite at home in this strange disembodied state. She looked around at the eerie ghostliness of everything, and it didn't bother her at all. I've been born for this, she told herself, I'm as much a dragon from neurospace as I am woman of Earth. And then she thought, why not turn myself into a dragon immediately, why wait until I get inside Adam? Why be a puny woman with nothing but bare fists to defend myself against whatever demons inhabit neurospace when I can be the most formidable mythological creature that has ever lived?

And so she focused her imagination on her skin becoming hard and scaly, and her fingers transmuting into claws, and there was a sharp wrenching about her shoulders and pain across her hips and suddenly she was a dragon once more. With a quick glance over her awesome new body and a shake of her steel-tipped tail, she unfurled her great wings and with a blood-curdling roar flew straight through the wall of Rick's office and out into the midday sun.

Everything was a ghostly grey, and she remembered how difficult it had been to distinguish Adam's tenuous body from the greyness of the water. As before, she had omitted to arrange a meeting place with him – though that was hardly surprising on this occasion, what with the embarrassment of that announcement she'd had to make to Rick's colleagues and them splitting their sides with laughter.

She flew to the same spot where she'd entered him all that time ago, beneath the large computer screen, and as before she found him patiently waiting there. Moments later she had drifted into his skull, everything was black and gooey, and then the cathedral of his mind was coalescing around her. Exactly as before, she found herself standing in the nave with the doorways to his memories spaced out along the walls, and the magnificent golden altar that was a throne at the end of the nave with the red flame flickering above, and behind it the stained-glass window showing the world through Adam's eyes. He was gazing at Meg and Dr Anderson and the rest of Rick's colleagues standing beneath the awning, and they were still chatting and drinking beer and occasionally glancing in Adam's direction.

The flame above the altar flickered more brightly as Adam sensed her presence, casting a rosy glow over everything, and she took to her wings again and swooped through the nave towards the golden altar. When she last did this, the flame above it had become a sheet of incandescence reaching up to the cathedral ceiling, but now it was no more than a few inches high. She fluttered over it uncertainly, and then settled upon the altar. It felt as hard as a rock, and there were no welcoming arms to receive her. She stared down at it in dismay, pressing one foot down on it and then another, but to no avail. Adam was rejecting her!

She flapped her wings and hovered above it, completely at a loss. What was wrong? Why couldn't she possess him? This close to the altar her dragon body could sense Adam's emotional state very strongly, and the answer came to her immediately. He wasn't aroused by her presence! Almost an hour had passed since that ecstatic greeting when he'd rushed madly round the pool and made a huge fuss of her, and now all his excitement and passion had died down, and instead there was a distinct sense of apprehension. Apprehension? It suddenly dawned on her that he must have overheard many of the comments that had been made at the poolside party, and realised that she was here to get him to mate.

She landed a short distance from the altar, at the top of the flight of steps leading up to it, and wondered what on earth she was to do. If Adam wasn't in a state of either religious or sexual ecstasy, then she wouldn't be able to overcome his brain's instinctive resistance to possession. She could of course return to her body and go outside and play with Adam and get him worked up again, but that was a clumsy and time-consuming solution to what should be a simple problem.

It occurred to her that the fiction she'd told the others – that Adam was influenced by her emotional state – was actually correct. Not when she was in her body, perhaps, but at least here, when she was inside his skull. She remembered how, when she had entered him before, they had each fed off the other's rising passion, until they were both in such a state of urgent desire that possession was easy. So if she aroused her own passion by imagining herself making love to Rick, then Adam would surely become aroused too.

Replaying that fantasy of making love to Rick on the beach was almost second nature now. Her visual imagination, which had always been good, had improved markedly over the past couple of years, and she was able to paint a quite detailed picture. As the delicious imagery unfolded, she sensed her pulse quicken in her physical body, and at the same time she felt the flames in her dragon body erupt in her belly.

Immediately, and just as she'd hoped, the flame above the altar responded by leaping higher. At the same time she became aware of Adam's growing excitement, and moments after that the flame was half-way up the stained-glass window. Her ruse was working!

And then, to her great surprise, the window flashed brightly, and suddenly her face was superimposed on Adam's view of the world. And then she was watching herself lying naked in Rick's arms and kissing him passionately. It was her fantasy, projected onto Adam's mind!

She watched in breathless fascination as the steamy scene unfolded on the big screen. At the same time she tried to work out how her most private thoughts had managed to plaster themselves all over Adam's consciousness in such embarrassingly explicit detail. She supposed that Adam's telepathy was picking up her imaginings and projecting them onto his own visual cortex, so that they were both sharing the same fantasy. She remembered that Dr Adamson's research had shown that the dolphins' telepathy could sometimes detect images, so perhaps what was happening wasn't too surprising. It was even possible that Eve might be picking up the imagery as well, in which case she too might become aroused, which would make Dawn's task very much easier.

The air around the altar was now charged with sexual excitement. The flame was leaping right up to the cathedral ceiling, and her own insides were going critical, so much so that thick black smoke had begun belching from her nostrils. The desire for consummation gripped her, and with a roar and a flapping of wings she hurled herself into the air and dived into the altar, and this time those welcoming arms embraced her and she was sinking into them.

It was a most delicious feeling, like sinking into Rick's arms, and her mind expanded to fill the universe, to become one with all the galaxies and stars. Then she shrank back and became aware that water was lapping against her skin and that she was looking at the world through Adam's eyes with her dolphin body gripped by his surging male passions.

But it wasn't the same as before, when she had possessed him two years ago. Then, he had slid into the background and handed over control of his body to her, so that she could use it as she pleased. Now she could feel his presence keenly, jostling with her, and a vivid image appeared of her clinging to Adam's back while he rushed through the water. He wanted her with him, but not controlling him. She projected puzzlement and confusion, and immediately his mind revealed the answer. It was an answer that made her feel deeply uncomfortable.

He made her feel his deep love for her. Not dolphin love, but human love. And after that he projected a feeling of jealousy, and at the same time showing her a picture of Rick. He had fallen in love with her, and now he was jealous of Rick!

Dawn was filled with a great sadness. She was at least partly to blame for this most unfortunate situation, she realised, for she had made such a huge fuss of him, not just when she was with him in the flesh but when she sent all those affectionate emails. His natural fascination for her had grown, over the two years of their separation, into an obsessive desire. No wonder he had refused to mate with Eve, he was waiting for her!

Adam must have sensed her sadness, for he now made her feel his joy and pleasure at her presence, and then he projected again that image of himself with her clinging to him, but this time he was not rushing through the water but mating with Eve. The implication was clear: he would mate with Eve if she was with him, sharing his love.

She should have guessed that something like this might happen. It meant that she would have to accompany him on all his couplings with Eve, at least to begin with. Hopefully his natural dolphin instincts would eventually take over. Well, there was no point worrying over spilt milk, as her granny might say, she might as well bite the bullet and prepare Adam for intercourse.

Once more she conjured up that steamy beach scene, and once more she felt Adam's passions rise as the erotic imagery unfolded in embarrassingly explicit detail. Now, though, Rick had taken on a distinctly dolphin-like appearance, and she realised that Adam was overlaying the imagery with his own private fantasies. And then, before she had time to fully take in the unfortunate implications of this, the image disappeared and he was charging through the water towards Eve. His passions now fully aroused, and with Dawn sharing his love, he was intent on fulfilling the biological urges of his dolphin body. As he cavorted and splashed and circled around the female dolphin, his instincts took over, and he started twisting his belly towards her and brushing against her.

Eve seemed confused at first and tried to retreat, but his advances became more insistent, and as well as that she must have sensed telepathically his strong desire, so that very soon his efforts paid off and she was rolling over and presenting her belly to him. Dawn also found Adam's urgent desire quite overwhelming, and she was conscious of her own physical body growing warm and breathless in Rick's arms as hormones flooded through it. Whether Adam felt this too she wasn't sure, but something seemed to further inflame him, and he pressed his belly grindingly hard against Eve. She yielded to him, and moments later there was the most enormous rush of pleasure as he thrust himself into her and released his sperm.

Dawn was filled with an enormous sense of satisfaction. She felt like holding a champagne party to celebrate, or even better to take over Adam's body and race through the water and fly high into the air and swim round and round until he fell back with exhaustion. I've made a baby, she thought! I've actually made a dolphin pup, the first-born of this new breed of intelligent creatures! Perhaps I'm jumping the gun, 'cos it's hours and hours before Adam's sperm reaches Eve's egg, but if and when conception occurs the tiny embryo will be as much mine as it is Adam's and Eve's. Not genetically, of course, but emotionally.

And then she thought how extraordinary it was that she should feel like this. Making babies was the last thing on her mind when she fantasised about making love to Rick. It occurred to her that perhaps she was picking up Adam's emotions and interpreting them as her own, but somehow she didn't think so. This feeling she had for that tiny new life was so strong that it had to come from within herself. In fact, it was so enormously strong that it couldn't really be human at all but must have its origin in her alien nature.

Two years ago this alien nature had responded to her natural female interest in Rick by making her fall in love with him. It was now clear that it was making her fall in love with Adam's offspring as well, not romantically of course, but maternally. She could understand falling for Rick, as he was really scrumptious, but why was she falling for this little creature? But as she analysed her feelings more closely, she realised what it was that was drawing her to this little one.

It was her awareness that this new life was infinitely precious. It was the first-born pup of the new generation of intelligent dolphins, and unlike the hundreds or even thousands of test-tube dolphins that GeneSys would now create, it was naturally-conceived. It was therefore their natural leader, the ruler of the species that would one day rule the seas.

As she contemplated that, Dawn felt a strong urge within herself to visit Eve's womb in a day or so to satisfy herself that this little one had indeed been conceived, and many times after that to check its progress and to bond with it telepathically. Later, after the pup was born, she would participate in its nurture and education, and later still they would together bring about the fulfilment of her great vision, conceived a year ago in that remote valley in the Tienshan mountains, to create a new Eden in neurospace. And as she turned all of that over in her mind, she was filled with a huge sense of tenderness and joy, and with that there arose within her a great desire to get back to Rick and shower him with kisses.

Adam and Eve separated, and a huge cheer went up from the watching humans. It would tell Rick, inside his office, that her mission had been a success and that he could start waking her up. Adam twisted around in the water to face his audience, and Dawn saw everyone clapping and hugging each other. This was an important milestone, as it meant that the future of the project was secure, provided Eve conceived.

With his passion sated, Adam was content to sink into the background and allow Dawn to take over his body. Much as she wanted to race madly around the pool, she knew it would be the height of foolishness. It would tell Dr Anderson that his suspicions were correct and that she must indeed have invaded Adam. And so she contented herself by nuzzling up to Eve and rubbing Adam's body gently against hers, and Eve responded in the same way. Dawn very much hoped that this lesson in post-coital affection was not lost on Adam.

She became aware that Rick was doing some gentle nuzzling of his own. He was shaking her, and she could hear his voice, seemingly a great way off, telling her to wake up. And then she was no longer lying in the water next to Eve but curled up on his lap being cuddled.

"Mmm," she said drowsily. "That's nice."

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I'm feeling squashed and both my legs are dead."

"Huh! That's exactly what you said before, you horrid thing."

"That was two years ago. You're even heavier now."

"Adam's much more romantic than you!" She was wide awake now, but still feeling post-coital, and Rick's banter jarred. "He acted very affectionately towards Eve after making love to her. It was quite an object lesson!"

He shifted his legs, trying to make himself comfortable beneath her. "So everything went swimmingly. I'm glad."

"I'm more than glad, I'm delighted. Your colleagues are too. You must have heard them cheering."

He nodded.

"Rick! What's the matter with you? I would have thought you'd be over the moon."

"I am, of course I'm pleased. It's just that I've been thinking."

"Thinking? About what?"

"About us."

The ice-cold feeling that she'd felt in Dr Adamson's presence returned, and she stared at him in alarm. "What's wrong, Rick? I know I'm a terrible bossy-boots, and I'll try to stop being like that, I really will."

"No, it's not that. It's, well, it's all this love-goddessing of yours. 19-year-old girls should be sweet and innocent, but you're able to go into male dolphins and get them to mate, you're able to deliver ultra-sexy kisses that send men berserk, it's like you're some 30-year-old sex expert who's slept with hundreds of men and learned all the tricks of the trade. It's not natural."

"Oh. I see. No, it's not natural, not at all. But I haven't learned any tricks, Rick, not one, and I haven't slept with anyone at all. You believe that, don't you?"

He sighed. "You were certainly inexperienced two years ago. But you've grown up a lot since then. An awful lot."

"I've not had any relationships, though. Apart from with you, that is. All my love-goddessing, as you call it, has come from the stars. If I'd have realised it would make you unhappy, I would have kept quiet about it. I thought you'd be pleased."

"I am pleased, of course. That love-goddess kiss of yours was terrific, and I'm really proud to have you as my girlfriend, I really am." He sighed. "I suppose, to be truthful, you make me feel inadequate. I'm just an ordinary human being, and you're this amazing cosmic superstar."

"Oh Rick! It's you that's the superstar! At least, you're _my_ superstar. I don't know whether it's chance or fate or the machinations of a race of galactic superbeings, but it seems to me that you were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time for me, just like that GeneSys message. You're part of my destiny."

"Do you really think so? You don't hanker after some handsome celebrity or millionaire businessman or anyone like that?"

"Of course I don't! Good grief, Rick, I've got the blood of the lords of the universe flowing through my veins, do you seriously imagine I care anything about silly baubles like that? If I wanted, I could invade a few business leaders' minds and take them over and make myself rich beyond the dreams of avarice. You're worth more than any of that to me, my darling. In fact, I think you're really yummy."

"Oh. Do you really?" His face lightened, and a smile began playing around his lips. "That's all right, then."

She said nothing, for there was nothing more to be said, and instead pulled his arm more tightly round her waist and cuddled up against him. He kissed her all over her face, like he had before, and squeezed her and stroked her in all the right places. She could hear the others outside, still celebrating her arrival and Adam's successful mating, and she knew that they should join them. She didn't say so, however, as she wanted Rick to take the lead whenever possible, and after a little while he gave her bottom a friendly pinch and said it was time to face the others.

"I dread to think what they're going to say," he muttered.

"I'll tell them what a hero you are. Your reputation will go through the roof. You've saved the dolphin project!"

"You reckon I deserve a promotion, do you?"

"Definitely."

There was indeed a great cheer and a few coarse jokes when they emerged, and even Dr Anderson came over and shook her hand, though his eyes had that same unnerving, watchful look. However, the party was by now more or less over and after a few minutes people started drifting away.

"It's 2 o'clock," Meg explained. "That's when afternoon duties start."

Dawn yawned. She was feeling tired and very hungry. "I think I'd better check into my hotel."

"Rick's exhausted you, has he?"

"He's quite a guy."

On their way to the hotel Dawn summoned up the courage to tell Rick about her exploits in Adam's body. She was afraid he might be upset, but in fact he reacted quite positively, especially when she described her steamy beach fantasy and how it had been picked up telepathically by Adam.

"Wow!" he exclaimed, licking his lips hungrily. The thought of cuddling her half-naked on the beach had evidently fired his imagination. "You really are a hot little number!"

She gave him a demure smile. She wanted to encourage him, but on the other hand she didn't want him to get the wrong idea about her. She was a love goddess, not a sex goddess, and to emphasise the point she told him how profoundly maternal she'd felt. "I feel like I'm that tiny embryo's mother. Not that I am a mother yet. It'll be a few hours before fertilisation occurs."

He nodded. "And it'll be a week or more before we can be sure that there is an embryo."

A week? That was an impossibly long time to wait. She was itching to visit that tiny speck of life. "I could make a trip into Eve's womb tomorrow, but I don't suppose I would be able to see anything. Even large objects in neurospace are quite indistinct."

"You could try. You must have been a tiny embryo in your mother's womb when a dragon came to visit. You were probably just a fertilised egg. Somehow it must have been able to detect you."

Dawn had always shied away from contemplating the mystery of her own conception. It was bad enough imagining her parents having sex, but the thought that some monster from outer space had also been involved was really gross. "It must have happened without Mum or Dad knowing," she said quietly.

"There's no reason why they should know, is there? Your father had a key position in GeneSys, that was enough to attract the aliens' interest. All they had to do was infect you with their dragonness and wait for your alien nature to mature."

"You make them sound like parasites, implanting themselves in other species."

There was silence for a moment he took the car's controls and cut though a tricky road junction. Then he shared a most profound insight. "I bet you'll pass on your dragonness in exactly the same way. You say you want Adam and Eve's offspring to be yours as well as theirs..."

She gasped as the staggering implications of Rick's words struck home. That was why her love-goddess nature had made her fall in love with that little one! And why she had such a strong desire to visit it in the womb! It was the first-born of the new generation and therefore destined to be its leader, and so the dragon in her wanted to make it a dragon too!

"Heaven help me, Rick! I'm one of those parasites! That's how my species has come to rule the universe, by secretly implanting ourselves in the offspring of key leaders of every intelligent species we encounter. We're not limited by the speed of light or anything like that, 'cos we can travel through neurospace, so we can reach the farthest stars. Nowhere's safe from us!"

"Is that such a bad thing? You reckon dragons are benign. I'm sure they benefit their hosts." He glanced sideways at her and grinned. "I'm certainly looking forward to some eye-popping benefits!"

His attempt to lighten her mood was wasted. "Benign parasites, that's what we are," she continued bitterly. "That's why people like St George had to spend half their time rescuing maidens from dragons. To stop them being impregnated with dragon blood. We're nothing but parasites."

He laughed. "Now you're being silly. 'Parasite' is a totally inadequate description for a noble creature like you. Even 'noble' doesn't do you justice. The most delicious creature that's ever walked the planet is what I'd call you."

This time his encouragement hit home. Her spirits lifted immediately and she smiled back at him. "Thanks, Rick. That's worth at least one love-goddess kiss."

"I can't wait," he declared, taking the wheel and accelerating through the traffic. "Adam's had all the fun so far. It's my turn now."

## Nine

Human love-making proved to be an altogether more complicated affair than dolphin coupling, and the results were less than satisfactory. Dawn had assumed that her love-goddess instincts, like Adam's dolphin instincts, would kick in, and that everything would go swimmingly, but this proved not to be the case. Those instincts had evidently evolved to meet the needs of a wide variety of life forms and were not tuned to cope with the specifics of human physiology.

After the initial love-goddess kiss, which was highly pleasurable and ignited Rick's passions most effectively, the proceedings degenerated into some embarrassed groping and giggles, followed by a sharp pain as he penetrated her, and ended up with them rolling under a bush and getting covered in sand because they heard voices approaching. Making love on the beach wasn't nearly as good as her imagination had cracked it up to be.

Rick had pestered her for that promised love-goddess kiss as soon as they reached the privacy of her hotel bedroom, but she had refused. Her last meal had been breakfast on the plane, and after her adventures at the dolphinarium she was starving. She couldn't remember when she had last felt so hungry. And besides, the effects of her jet-lag tablet had worn off and her body clock was insisting that it was well past her bedtime. But there was an even more important reason.

Dawn had royal blood in her veins. She was born of the stars, she possessed awesome powers, and she had a momentous destiny. A cheap and easy lay she definitely was not. Delivering that love-goddess kiss now, in her hotel bedroom, would make her that. If Rick wanted her, he had to perform a most important task.

"What task?" he asked in dismay. His expression was that of a medieval knight who had just been ordered to climb several mountains and cross the sea and slaughter an army of giants to win his lady's love.

"You've got to marry me," she told him primly. "It's total commitment or nothing. I've got very old-fashioned views."

A look of relief crossed his brow. "Right. No problem. Will you marry me, Dawn?"

"Not if you ask me like that," she replied petulantly. "You've got to do it properly. You've got to buy me an engagement ring and go down on your knee and ask me in the old-fashioned way. If you do that, then yes, I will."

He grabbed her and hugged her. Then he wanted to go shopping for the ring immediately, but she insisted on having lunch first, so they went down to the hotel restaurant, where he bought her a slap-meal. After working her way through her entire plateful and part of his as well, as well as sharing a bottle of wine with him, she felt so sleepy that she just had to get to bed – alone, she told him firmly. He kissed her very tenderly, then told her that he taken tomorrow off work and would pick her up at the hotel at 9 o'clock sharp in the morning for their momentous shopping exhibition.

And so, after sleeping the rest of that day and most of the night, she was waiting for him refreshed and full of eager expectation when he called at the hotel the next morning. Arm in arm, they visited several shops, and eventually she chose the most beautiful ring. It was rather expensive, but he said she was worth every cent, and after he'd bought it she asked him if they could go to the beach, to that lagoon where she'd gone with her family two years ago. It would be most romantic if he proposed to her there.

First, though, she wanted to visit the dolphinarium, to greet the two dolphins and tell them the happy news. She also wanted to let Eve know that she would be returning in spirit later on, to visit her womb and the new life that she hoped had germinated there. She had to interrupt one of the dolphins' lessons, but she managed to pass on her message out of earshot of the tutor. Stroking Eve's snout, she whispered that she should be ready to receive her spirit.

It was about midday when they reached the lagoon, which turned out to be deserted. She had been hoping that this would be the case, for it was a weekday, and the lagoon, though pretty, was a half-hour drive from Honiara. They settled onto the warm golden sand in the shade of a palm tree, and there Rick proposed to her. She accepted, and he put the ring on her finger.

Now properly betrothed, she told him that she couldn't imagine a more fitting occasion for that promised love-goddess kiss. Even the wedding ceremony that would formalise their union wouldn't be as fitting, for they could hardly indulge in such a kiss in front of all those uncles and aunts, not to mention both sets of parents. And so her unearthly fires had set their passions aflame, and after some frantic writhing they had ended up naked and covered in sand, their panting bodies entwined under a bush as some unexpected visitors walked by.

When the voices had passed out of earshot, Rick, still breathless, pushed himself up on an elbow and gazed down at her. He was looking very pleased with himself. "That was great," he whispered.

" _You_ were great. I think I've got a lot to learn."

"We've both got a lot to learn. Practice makes perfect, they say, so we need to practise every night."

It was lovely that he was so eager, but she couldn't help feeling disappointed that their first time had been less than perfect. She confessed as much to him. "I thought it would all come naturally, without any practice at all. Like I said, mating is what love goddesses do best."

"Your kisses are unbelievable," he assured her, glancing down at her naked body. "The rest of you is unbelievable too."

She smiled back at him, her confidence in herself somewhat restored. "Wait till you see me in my slinky swimsuit! Come on, I feel like a swim."

He looked out from under the bush to check that the coast was clear, then crawled out and retrieved their bag with their swimsuits. A little later, after frolicking in the water, they sat on the sand in the shade of a palm tree and ate their packed lunch. By this time she was so ravenously hungry that she finished off one of his sandwiches as well as all her own.

She burped. Loudly.

"Sounds like your dragon-fire's at it again," he murmured, wiping his hands in a tissue.

She pressed herself against him. "How about it then? D'you fancy another love-goddess kiss?"

He looked at her uncertainly. "More practice already? My passion's exhausted, my love. It needs time to recuperate."

That set off a fit of giggles, and she cuddled up to him, her body shaking. "I meant just a kiss," she managed at last.

Pushing her down onto the sand, he leaned over her and gave her a quick kiss on the end of her nose. "Are we talking about that kind of kiss, or are we talking about one of your turbo-charged scorchers?"

"One of my scorchers, of course."

He raised an eyebrow. "Good grief, woman, that dragon-fire of yours is unquenchable. It must burn up loads of calories. No wonder you eat so much!"

She stared up at him. He'd meant it as a joke, but it struck her that all the heat that her dragon self generated _must_ burn up the calories.

"Golly, I hadn't thought of that. It means that if we make love every night I can eat loads of puddings. I hope there are some good restaurants in Honiara!"

He groaned. "I knew you'd be expensive. Can't you cook your own puddings? All my friends' wives and girlfriends can cook. You must be brilliant at it. Just open your mouth and let rip with that oven-ready fire of yours."

"It doesn't work, I'm afraid. I burn everything."

"You're not a domestic goddess, then?"

"'Fraid not. Just a love goddess."

He sighed. "Nobody's perfect, I suppose."

"Marriage is a division of labour, surely you knew that. We're a partnership. I make the fire, you cook the food to feed the fire."

"A partnership! Of course! I do the cooking, you do the eating. I earn the money, you spend it. I wash the car, you drive it. That's the secret of marital bliss."

She pinched him on the bottom. "I bet I have to clean the toilet and wash your socks and tidy up after you!"

"Women's work and all that, you know."

"Hmm. Anyway, it's time for that love-goddess kiss. I want you to send me into neurospace so I can visit Eve's womb. To see my baby."

"Ah. It's not to sate your unquenchable lust, then."

"No. I've decided that lust and beaches are best kept apart. It's clean sheets in future, my darling."

And so, after another calorie-burning meeting of lips, she found herself a few minutes later floating above their ghostly bodies, with the sea and the sand and the luxuriant vegetation looking ghostly and washed-out too. Once more she transformed herself into a dragon, and flapping her wings headed east above the fuzzily indistinct shoreline back towards Honiara.

Although she felt like she was speeding along, the ground beneath her was slipping past quite slowly, and she guessed that she couldn't be doing more than 40 kilometres an hour. The trouble was, her dragon body was only about a metre long, so what seemed to her like an impressive turn of speed wasn't really very fast at all. At this rate it would take her at least 20 minutes to reach her destination.

There must be a solution to this problem, she told herself. If dragons can cross the vast distances between the stars, then they must be able to travel very fast indeed, many hundreds of times the speed of light. Normal physical constraints simply didn't apply in neurospace. If only her dragon parent was here to answer such questions and train her!

Perhaps the solution was simply to imagine herself larger. No doubt she could just as easily visualise herself as an oversize dragon as an ordinary one. Or perhaps, if she tried hard enough, she might be able to turn herself into an entirely different kind of creature, one that was light-weight and streamlined rather than built like a tank. If she got rid of her thick scales and those massive claws and that oversized tail...

There was a searing pain in her belly. She gasped as her body instinctively reared and lashed out with its hind legs. One claw made contact with something hard and threw it off, and there was an ear-splitting shriek. A silvery disc-shaped object spun away, glinting in the ghostly sunlight and splattering blood.

She caught only a brief glimpse of the creature, but that was enough to fill her with fear. It was the most hideous sight, a flying saucer that was a face with black holes for eyes and a leering mouth and bat-like wings. Its most awful feature was a long horn, projecting like a spear from the middle of the creature's face and covered with blood – her blood.

Another intense stab of pain lanced through her belly, and again her body reared and her legs lashed out. Once more her claws made contact with something hard, there was shriek, and a second silver demon was ripped from her and hurled away, its horn red with her blood.

Dawn lowered her head and examined her wounds. There were two gashes in her belly, and blood was pouring out of them, spreading across her scales and trickling down her legs. It looked awful, though thankfully the pain was dying down. She supposed that her dragon body was suppressing it so that her brain could focus on a counter-attack.

She reared her head angrily, and inside her ruptured belly her fires roared into life. As the heat and the pressure built, the pain returned, forcing her to dampen her fires. If she allowed the pressure to climb further it might split her wide open. That must be why those creatures had attacked her there, to disable her deadliest weapon. There was no time to wonder how they had acquired their knowledge about dragons or whether this ambush was anything more than a chance encounter, as already the two demons had righted themselves and had begun circling in readiness for another attack. They flew faster and faster, their wings whirring like a swarm of angry bees.

A sudden chill swept over her, and with it came a sense of overwhelming evil. A great fear swept over her, prompted, she realised later, by the demons' telepathy. She stared paralysed at those menacing horns, glinting in the sunlight and still dripping blood. Pictures of dying dragons she'd seen on the internet, slain by swords such as these, sprang into her mind. She couldn't avoid the same fate, for it was impossible to repel a simultaneous attack from the two of them.

In anguish she uttered a silent prayer to the dragon that had begotten her. Why have you abandoned me? Why did you not train me? She had no idea how to fight a battle like this, she'd never even used her fire in anger. Her only experience, such as it was, had been that fight with Jake and his gang, and then she'd been in a human body. All she could do now was rely on her dragon instincts.

Suddenly the two demons were hurtling towards her, one from the left and the other from the right, horns down and aiming straight at her. She had to use her fire, it was her only hope. Somehow she had to hold her belly together to allow the pressure to build, but how could she do that?

An idea hit her – whether it came from her human intelligence or her dragon instincts, she did not know – and she reached down to her wounds with her enormous front claws, clasped the shattered scales, and clamped them together. The pain was intense, as her claws had to penetrate her skin to get a good grip, but the rupture was sealed and the flow of blood staunched.

The two demons were now almost upon her. Unconscious instincts took over, and she flapped her wings and twisted her body so that her head faced the one and her rear faced the other, simultaneously lashing out with her tail. All the while her fires were exploding within her, much hotter than ever before, so that her belly heaved and stretched under the pressure. But her improvised clamp held firm, and the searing inferno burst up her throat and into her jaws.

There was a terrible shriek from behind, and at the edge of her vision she saw that the blade at the tip of her tail had sliced through the wing of one of the creatures, disabling it. That was her lucky break. Hope surged through her, and she aimed her jaws at the other demon and released a roaring jet of incandescence.

A white-hot fireball engulfed the demon's body. Its shrieks and howls reverberated through her brain as it tried desperately to spin away, but she kept her fire trained on it, never letting the blistering incandescence leave the flailing body. The creature writhed in agony, but in moments the screams had stopped and then all that was left were a few charred remains spinning lifelessly to the ground.

She immediately cut off her fire and twisted round to see what had become of the other demon. She had to finish it off, otherwise it would tell others of its kind about her. But it was nowhere to be seen, neither in the air nor on the ground. She circled around, her eyes flicking everywhere, and then she spotted a glint of silver hiding beneath some ghostly vegetation.

Still gripping her damaged belly, Dawn allowed her fires to erupt once more, then dived towards the creature. It must have sensed her, for again she felt strong emotions coming from it, no longer filling her with fear but appealing for mercy. Deaf to its pleadings, she allowed another bolt of that awful fire to explode from her jaws. The demon tried to scuttle away, but the flames wrapped themselves around it, and her brain was filled with a terrible screaming. It shrieked and howled as its body crackled and burned, and then there was silence and all that remained were a few blackened scraps and some acrid-smelling smoke rising from the ghostly undergrowth.

Quenching her fire, Dawn hovered above the spot. Hugely elated because she had been able to overcome these demonic adversaries, she wanted to spend a few moments savouring her victory, and, more importantly, to contemplate the implications of that encounter. Where had those creatures come from? Was it from some kind of hell in the bowels of the earth, or had they too come from the stars? Their charred remains gave no clue.

She was also curious to see if the plants or anything else in the real world had been burned. Gliding lower until she was just above the ghostly vegetation, she examined it closely, but there were no signs of fire-damage or any other indication of the great battle that raged above that spot. That was proof, in any were needed, that neurospace and the physical world were entirely separate domains, so that even her fire could not pass between them. Satisfied, she rose up again into the air and turned her attention to her wounds.

What she couldn't see, however, because the physical world was too ghostly and fuzzy to make out such details, were the tiny creatures scurrying through the undergrowth. They were not fighting or fleeing or searching for food, they were all desperately trying to mate. And if she had returned a few weeks later, she would have seen that the plants growing here had sprouted a wild profusion of flowers. For by directing her fire on this spot she had, in effect, delivered a love-goddess kiss.

Had she seen all that, Dawn would have been most intrigued, for it confirmed that dragons were indeed bringers of fertility, as eastern cultures believed. Indeed, she had at one time wondered if she should think of herself as a fertility goddess rather than a love goddess, but that didn't seem very appealing, and Rick wouldn't have been able to boast about her to his mates to anything like the same extent. To be feted as a love goddess with amazing powers was one thing, to be joked about as the world's top fertilizer was quite another.

But such thoughts were far from Dawn's mind as she fluttered above the trees, examining her wounds. They were quite ugly, but the blood had dried and she wasn't in too much pain. She wondered briefly how it was that a spirit had blood, for that seemed utterly absurd. It was only much later that she came to realise that spirit blood was unique to dragons, and that it was the means by which the energy in her physical body was released into her spirit body to be transformed into fire.

As the pain died down she became aware that her throat and her tongue and the roof of her mouth were quite sore, and it occurred to her that her dragon-fire must have reached a temperature that was at the limit of what even her amazing body could stand. Such a weapon gave her the edge over any opponent, however tough their skin, and she supposed that countless millennia of evolutionary adaptation must have gone into the fine tuning of her dragon physiology. Either that, or she had been superbly designed.

In spite of these discomforts, she saw no reason to abandon her journey. If she wanted to impregnate that fertilised egg with her dragon nature, she had to reach it soon, before it divided. And so she pressed onwards, following the coast towards Honiara and the GeneSys site. She was now much more circumspect, keeping a wary eye open for any attackers, and after a little while she struck out over the sea, so that the coast with its dense vegetation and numerous hiding places was well to her right.

However, there were no further attacks, and she gradually relaxed, though she couldn't stop thinking about her brush with death. Although the battle had been brief, it had been terrifying and painful and very ferocious. Apart from a few creepy-crawlies, she'd never killed anything before, and certainly not with such ruthless ferocity, and she supposed that the memory of it would haunt her for many nights to come. But then she became aware of Rick's warmth and his arms wrapped around her unconscious body, and that was very comforting. She could only feel it dimly, and it seemed a great way off, but she tried to let her mind dwell on it for the remainder of the journey.

At last the GeneSys buildings rose up ghostly white before her. The sight filled her with excitement, and she forgot her wounds and sore throat and that vicious battle and the feeling of Rick cuddling her. She was about to visit Eve and discover if she was indeed making a baby. And if she found it, she would impregnate that little one with her dragon nature and so make it truly her own! Perhaps she ought to feel guilty, for it was Eve who would bring it to term and suckle it, but she didn't feel the slightest remorse. She wasn't actually depriving Eve of her offspring, any more than her dragon parent had deprived her mother and father.

What worried her now was the thought that she might fail, either because she couldn't find the egg, or, having found it, was unable to work out how to impregnate it with her dragonness. All she could do was trust those dragon instincts that had proved so effective in her battle with the demons.

Soon she was hovering above the dolphinarium, and she spotted a dolphin lying in front of the giant screen, watching some programme or lesson, but the imagery was too indistinct to make out what the lesson was about. A little further away was a second dolphin, also evidently watching the lesson.

Dawn swooped down to the shape nearest the screen. She'd warned Eve about this visit, so hopefully Adam had told her to wait at this spot. Being telepathic, whichever dolphin it was should sense her presence and make some kind of response. She fluttered close the creature's head.

The dark shape stirred. Then, waggling its tail and splashing its flippers, it turned over and arched its back, thrusting its belly upwards. The message was unmistakable: Eve was greeting her and inviting her into her womb! Without more ado, Dawn swooped down to the upthrust belly and dived into it.

Everything went black, and she found herself engulfed in tenuous goo. It was not unlike the sensation she felt when she first drifted into Adam's brain. Now, though, there was no need to construct a mental picture of a neural reality, instead her mission was to find a physical object, a single fertilised egg. But how on earth could she do that?

She paused, mulling over the problem. It seemed like an impossible task. But then, to her surprise, she felt a sudden warmth in her belly. What had prompted that? Was it perhaps the maternal instincts of her dragon self, sensing her close proximity to the little one? It occurred to her that her dragon fire might be the answer she was seeking, for she could use it to illuminate her surroundings. Certainly it could do no harm to Eve's physical body or to her fertilised egg.

She could dimly feel Rick's arms about her sleeping body, and she let her mind dwell on that, thinking it would arouse her fire. But then something told her that this was not the time nor the place for erotic love. It was her maternal instincts that should be aroused.

And so she focussed her mind on the darling little pup that she would one day cuddle in her arms. Immediately the flickering embers in her bowels roared into life, and she felt a tongue of flame licking up her throat. On this occasion, though, there was no scorching heat, instead the flame was soft and caressing.

How odd, she thought. A fire with no heat! It occurred to her that her maternal instincts must be at work, regulating the bodily functions of her dragon nature so as not to harm the little one. She had no evidence for this, and as she discovered later it was an entirely erroneous and sentimental deduction. What she didn't know, but would soon find out, was that these gentle flames contained within them the neurospace equivalent of DNA.

Tongues of cold fire flickered around Dawn's jaws, casting a pink glow over everything. Now she could make out the ghostly outline of Eve's skeleton stretching away from her, and nearby the blurred shapes of her stomach and intestines. It was rather like an X-ray image, though in three dimensions. Happily, she knew where Eve's womb was located relative to her other organs, for she had made a detailed study of everything that was known about dolphins, and by using her legs like paddles she propelled herself through the goo until she reached a shape that she knew must be it. She pushed herself inside.

Now she faced the hardest part, locating that microscopic egg. It would, she knew, be attached to the wall of the womb, and she peered this way and that through the gloom. It seemed hopeless, for she was surrounded by a pink fuzziness, with no discernible features at all.

There was, of course, no way her dragon eyes could detect something as small as an egg, especially as everything in the physical world was such a ghostly blur. But if this was how dragons passed on their genes, there must be some way of locating it. The solution had to lie with that cool fire that was still flickering faintly around her jaws, she felt sure of that.

She imagined herself fondling her precious little dolphin pup. Immediately the flames grew more intense, filling the womb with a faint pink light. Something glinted on the opposite wall, like a tiny star in the night sky, and she arched her head closer to examine it. The flames flickering about her jaws seemed to caress it, and it responded by sparkling more brightly. Dawn's heart leapt within her: this had to be her little one!

She let her flames caress it for a few moments, and then she let them die away so that all was dark. But the tiny speck continued to sparkle in the blackness, and something within her brain responded by filling her with joy. It was an alien instinct, she knew, telling her that she had reproduced her kind. This was her baby now!

Dawn remained a few moments longer, watching over the twinkling point of light. It slowly dimmed as the energy it had gained from that caressing fire was expended and the alien DNA that it had inherited from Dawn mingled with that of Adam and Eve. No physical device could detect its alien genes, but this little one would have the power of fire, and it would grow up to be one of the most powerful beings in the universe. For, unlike Dawn, it would have its dragon parent to nurture and guide it.

When all about her was dark, Dawn turned and swam out of the tenuous goo that was Eve's body into the tropical afternoon. Rising into the air, she hovered over Eve's ghostly form, hoping she would sense the joy that filled her. For it would tell the dolphin that she had conceived.

Eve responded by turning away from whatever it was she watching on the giant screen and performing several somersaults. For the first time Dawn noticed that there was a human – perhaps their tutor – standing nearby. She couldn't imagine what he made of this sudden display. She would never enlighten him, and she knew the dolphins wouldn't either, for to do so would reveal too many secrets.

It was time to return to her body. She felt exhausted, doubtless because all that fire and brimstone had depleted her energy reserves, but she had no choice but to retrace her flight back along the coast. If Rick woke her up she wouldn't have to bother, but she had no way of telling him that her mission was accomplished.

She checked her wounded belly. There were two ghastly scars where those demons had ripped into her, but there was no bleeding and no pain. Her dragon body was evidently well able to heal itself. Satisfied, she rose into the sky and headed back the way she had come, flying over the sea as before, away from any dangers that might lurk in the tropical bush.

As she flapped her tired wings, it occurred to her once again that it must be possible to fly really fast through neurospace, but she was too weary to put her mind to the problem. But she comforted herself with the thought that, in spite of her battle scars and her exhaustion, this had been a most excellent day, a day she would always remember. She'd got hitched to Rick, she'd made a baby, and she'd slaughtered some demons.

Only one thing remained, and her joy would be complete. That frolic on the beach with Rick had been unworthy of a love goddess, and she wanted to give a proper demonstration of her powers. She'd waited two years for this, and she licked her dry lips in eager anticipation. Her sleeping human body, still nestled in Rick's arms, seemed to respond, for she sensed her pulse quicken, and moments later her dragon body was fired with renewed energy. Now able to flap her wings vigorously, she couldn't help wondering how many calories her journey back would consume, and how much cake and pudding she would have to consume to make up the deficit.

## Ten

About half an hour later, after much tedious wing-flapping, she arrived back at the lagoon. Her unconscious body was still in Rick's arms, lying in the shade of the coconut palm near the water's edge. He was still gently stroking it, obeying her instructions to keep it in a state of mild arousal. Otherwise, she'd told him, she feared she wouldn't be able to maintain her disembodied state long enough to complete her mission.

Although Rick hadn't objected to this little chore, it had seemed to him a very odd thing to have to do. She'd agreed that it was indeed odd, and said that it must be possible for her to remain in neurospace without such ministrations, it was just that she didn't know how. With no one to teach her, there was so much she didn't know about that strange state – including, now that she was back, how to wake herself up.

One way of course would be to go into Rick's mind and tell him that she was back, but she had sworn never to invade him like that, at least not without his permission. Much better to invade her own mind and somehow jolt it awake.

It was not all difficult to slip into her own skull. The cathedral of her mind rose up as if by magic around her, with the altar and the stained-glass window facing her at the end of the nave. The window was in darkness, for her physical eyes were closed, but the flame above the altar was burning brightly, no doubt in response to Rick's warm presence.

Spaced out along the cathedral walls were the doorways to her memories. She was half-tempted to enter some of them, to revisit her past, but she was too tired to bother. That little adventure could await another day. All she wanted to do right now was to repossess her body and lie back in Rick's arms and take a well-earned nap.

She studied the golden altar at the end of the nave. This was the seat of her own consciousness, and presumably the only way to reclaim her body was to fly onto it. It was the only thing that made sense.

And so she launched herself into the air once more and swooped between the high walls until she was above it, then sank easily into it, meeting no resistance at all. There would of course be no resistance, for there was only a void within, her spirit having left her body. A sudden, awful thought struck her: what if an alien spirit had invaded my body while I was away? There would be nothing to stop it possessing me!

A nightmare scenario flashed through her mind. One of those silver demons, instead of attacking her spirit, had found her body, taken it over, and then grabbed a knife from the picnic bag and murdered Rick. Then, after examining her memories to find the worst thing it could do, it had driven Rick's car back to GeneSys, attacked the dolphins, and then plunged the knife into Dawn's own heart.

This horrific vision was mercifully cut short by a sense of oneness with the universe as the altar swallowed her up, and then she found herself lying in Rick's arms with the gentle waves lapping the sandy shore just a few metres away.

She lay there, eyes closed, profoundly thankful that they were both safe. She shuddered at the thought of the risk she had taken by spending all that time away from her body. She decided that whenever she ventured into neurospace in the future, she would get Rick to tie her up. He would only release her when she was safely back and he was certain that she really was his Dawn and not some invading demon. Getting her to deliver one of those love-goddess kisses would be an infallible test.

Opening her eyes, she gazed up at him. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be nodding off. That didn't surprise her, as it had been quite a day. Her gaze drifted over the still water of the lagoon and the sandy shore and the palm fronds above her head above her head and the clear blue sky beyond, and the horror that had gripped her at the thought of those demons ebbed away.

But then she became aware that her body was stiff, her mouth was horribly dry, and her throat felt like a burnt-out chimney. She ran her tongue over her parched lips, then touched Rick's face with a finger.

"I'm back," she croaked.

He opened an eye. "Hi. What happened?"

"I slaughtered a couple of demons, I almost got killed, and I made a baby."

He yawned. "Beach parties often end up like that."

"Rick! I'm serious! Some demons did almost kill me! And I did find Eve's embryo and I did put something of me into it! So please get me something to drink, I'm shattered and my mouth feels horrible. It must be all that fire I spat out on those demons."

He stared at her with a bemused look, then reached over for the picnic bag and poured out a glass of water. She really wanted a cup of tea or coffee, but they hadn't brought any. She downed it, then asked for another.

"You look quite pale," he observed. "Are you OK?"

She gulped down some more water. "I'm feeling much better, thanks. At least, my mouth feels much better. The rest of me feels exhausted. Utterly drained, in fact."

"That fire of yours must have got through loads of calories. If you carry on like this there won't be anything of you left for me to cuddle!"

"Rick! Be serious! Don't you want to hear about all my adventures?"

"Of course I do, if you feel up to it. You do look very pale, though."

She realised she was famished, and helped herself to a large slice of cake from the picnic bag. It went down very well. Then she told him all that had happened.

He was greatly impressed, and asked many questions. And he was very pleased to learn that she intended to steer clear of neurospace, only venturing there if it was absolutely necessary.

"That rules out any more of your little trysts with Adam," he pointed out. "I'll have you all to myself!"

She gave a tired smile. "I hope he doesn't get too jealous of you."

"I should damn well hope not! I'm the one that's marrying you, not him! In any case, he's dolphin. It's ridiculous he feels the way he does about you. It's not healthy."

"It's not his fault. Perhaps he'll get attached to Eve now. And to his little pup, when it arrives. Eve's probably told him that she's conceived. She seemed very excited when I let her know."

He grunted. "We'd better warn those dolphins not to let on that they know. About Eve being pregnant, I mean. Otherwise the guys might start asking awkward questions. Especially that John Anderson."

"Let's drop by on our way home. I ought to see them again anyway, to thank Eve for being so cooperative." She pushed herself off him and stood up. "I can't wait to get back, Rick, back to the hotel. All I really want is a bath with a cup of tea."

"And lots of sticky cake, no doubt." Suddenly he gasped. He was staring at her tummy. "Dawn!"

"What? Is my swimsuit torn?"

"No! Look!"

She peered down at herself. To her horror, her stomach was disfigured with two vivid red gashes. She touched them gingerly, but the skin was intact, and there was no pain. There was no need for a doctor, but they looked awful.

"Stigmata!" she exclaimed suddenly. "They're stigmata! I've read about them on my psychology course. The brain makes them appear, but after a while they go away."

"Nothing serious, then? Thank God for that!"

"People sometimes get them after a trauma. Those two demons ripping open my belly, that was pretty traumatic. I guess this is my brain's way of coping with the memory."

"Better than having nightmares, I suppose."

"But they're horrible!" she wailed. Her eyes filled with tears as she examined them. Her flawless body had been marred by evil. Those fond dreams of being an irresistible love goddess were in tatters, and she would never be able to wear that slinky swimsuit again. Her voice almost a whisper, she asked tearfully: "Do you mind terribly?"

He pulled her back down onto the sand and hugged her. "Of course I don't mind, you daft thing! Here, let me kiss it better!"

With that he pushed his head down to her tummy and proceeded to cover the gashes with kisses, as if doing that would make them go away. The memory of that terrifying attack by the demons flooded back, but she stroked his hair and let him continue, for it seemed to her that there could be no better way of freeing herself of the trauma. Certainly his continued ardour was most reassuring, and her confidence in herself started to return.

She was unusually quiet and pensive on the drive back to Honiara, and Rick asked if she was OK. Those horrible gashes, were still playing on her mind, making her feel defiled, but she didn't want to tell him that. Instead she assured him that it was only tiredness and that she would feel much better after a bath and a cup of tea. However, she had perked up somewhat by the time they reached GeneSys and the dolphins, and was able to enjoy the great fuss they made of her. Away from human earshot, she was able to tell them not to let on that they knew about Eve's pregnancy.

At length they arrived back at her hotel and Dawn was able to relax in that hot bath, with that cup of tea. She made Rick leave the tea at the door, as she didn't want him to see her naked body with those revolting blemishes. Afterwards, and much to Rick's relief, for he was feeling quite worried about her, she announced that she was really, really hungry. He took her to a smart restaurant where they had a slap-up meal. Even the waiters seemed surprised by the size of her appetite, especially when she finished off Rick's pudding as well as her own.

"You ought to move in with me," he told her over coffee. "There's no point paying for that hotel room."

"You just want someone to clean your toilet."

"I've already got someone doing that."

"What? Who?"

"A cleaning lady. Quite an old cleaning lady, actually. She does most of the apartments in the block."

"Ah. I don't need to feel jealous, then."

"Depends if you like cleaning toilets. If that's what turns you on, I'm quite prepared to sack her."

She reached out with one of her legs beneath the table and rubbed it against his ankle. "It's clean sheets that turn me on. What's your bed like, Rick?"

"It's OK. Actually, it's a bit small for two of us."

"You think it'll cramp my style?"

"You won't be able to roll around like you did under that bush, if that's what you mean."

"Perhaps we'd better get a double bed, then."

"Good idea. We'll buy one tomorrow."

She felt much better with the meal inside her and their living arrangements sorted out. She hadn't wanted to remain at the hotel, but she didn't feel it was her place to suggest that she move in with him. But she was also very tired, and she asked him to take her home.

"Hotel home, not your apartment home. I need my beauty sleep."

And so a little later she got undressed in the bathroom and put on the new nightdress that she had bought for this occasion. It covered up those horrible gashes most effectively, but not too much else. Rick eyed her appreciatively, and then said that he was feeling tired too and could be join her. He pointed out that her hotel bed was very large and could easily accommodate the two of them. She smiled and said she didn't mind at all, and he pulled off his clothes and put out the light and jumped in with her. They kissed and cuddled for a little while, but she was too exhausted for anything more, and in a little while she dropped off into a deep sleep.

She awoke with a start in the middle of night. Nightmare visions of silver demons brandishing blood-stained swords were racing around her mind. They quickly faded, but she was left in a cold sweat. Rick stirred and touched her arm.

"Are you OK?"

"Just a bad dream. It was nothing."

He put his arms round her and began gently kissing her shoulders and then her throat, and then he moved his lips down to her breasts. The dream now quite forgotten, those dragon fires erupted within her and she was filled with an overwhelming desire for him. Gasping, she wriggled beneath him and pulled his head up to hers. Her lips found his, and her body prepared itself for that killer kiss.

Heat exploded up her throat, bursting into her mouth and pouring over her lips. The invisible force swept into him, and she felt his body twitch as chemical messengers cascaded through his veins and into the pleasure centres of his brain. At once he was all over her, squeezing her with his hands and devouring her with his lips, and then, quite unable to hold himself back, he was into her and they were thrusting rhythmically together and she was gasping with pleasure. When her climax came it was a spasm of pure ecstasy, and as she sank back her human body felt as satisfied as her dragon body had earlier that day, when she had impregnated Eve's egg. Her joy was complete.

"Wow!" Rick exclaimed, gasping. He spoke for her too, and she squeezed his hand. This perfect act of love was the consummation of their relationship, and no words of hers could add to it. How odd, she thought, that I should feel such love for a human although I'm a dragon, and that I should feel such love for an unborn dolphin although I'm a human.

Rick's breathing grew deeper, and after a while he fell asleep. But her body clock, which was still out of sync, was going about its business of telling its owner that it was time to get up. She was bursting, not with desire for Rick, but with the need to go to the toilet, and she wanted another cup of tea. She ate a couple of biscuits as well, and then, with nothing else to do, she climbed back into bed.

It was just after four in the morning. Their proximity to the equator meant that day and night each lasted about 12 hours, with daybreak at 6 am, so she had two hours to wait. She didn't really mind, because so much had happened since her return to the Solomons and she wanted to spend some time alone to ponder and come to terms with it.

She reflected how well everything had gone. There had been some very nasty moments, first with that John Anderson and then with the demons, and even Rick at one point had expressed some doubts about their relationship. And it was a shame that Adam was so enamoured of her. The worst thing of all was that her marital bliss had been marred by those horrible stigmata and the prospect of more nightmares, but these were trifles compared to the magnitude of her victories. In any case, she wasn't actually married yet, and by the time the wedding day arrived there was every chance that those stigmata would have disappeared.

Her adventure was only just beginning, and she knew now that many battles lay ahead, both from the likes of John Anderson in this world and from demonic forces in the next. But there would be many awesome victories, and she would discover how to travel to the stars, and maybe the day would come when she would meet others of her kind.

All that lay many years in the future. For now, she would concentrate on her relationship with Rick and with the dolphins, and also of course with Rick's colleagues. Her affinity with the dolphins was apparent to everyone, and she felt sure they would offer her a job. As for her undergraduate psychology course, which she was only part way through, she was at a loss to know what to do about that. Somehow it didn't seem important any more, though when her life here had settled down she might continue it over the internet.

Her most immediate concern was the small matter of breaking the news of her engagement to her parents, and telling them that she wanted a very special wedding because Rick Goode was the man of her dreams and would Dad mind forking out for it. Once the wedding was out of the way she would concentrate on bringing up her dolphin baby and getting involved in the programme to bring up all the hundreds of test-tube dolphins that GeneSys would now produce from Adam and Eve's DNA.

Where were all those GM dolphins going to live? She supposed a huge artificial lagoon would have to be constructed somewhere along the coast. Who would be involved with their education? All kinds of experts from many disciplines would have to be brought in. Who should oversee the project? For sure it had to be her and Rick. She would do everything in her power to make that happen, if necessary by invading the decision-makers' minds. For if she was to set up a programme to train those young dolphins in the technique of spirit journeys and guide them towards the establishment of a dolphin Eden in neurospace, then she had to control the project, and no human would stand in her way.

It was almost a year since she had conceived this bold idea, while on holiday in the Tienshan Mountains. Now, lying in the darkness and on the brink of this great adventure, she rehearsed the logic behind it and the shape that it might take. One by one, she ticked off the points in her mind.

If Adam and Eve could enter neurospace through eating psychotropic fish, then so can their offspring. If Adam and Eve could merge their minds in neurospace through the power of telepathy, then so can their offspring. If she was able to create a neurospace structure like a cathedral of the mind, and if Adam and Eve could also do this, then so can their offspring. If Adam and Eve were able to transform themselves into humans in neurospace, because neurally that was what they were, then so can their offspring.

There would be many hundreds of those dolphin offspring, nurtured and trained by her. It was impossible to be sure of the kind of neurospace structure their combined minds might create, but she had envisaged an Elizabethan township inhabited by dolphins in human bodies and offering many opportunities to exercise their human abilities.

It was also impossible to foresee the intellectual and spiritual potential of such a fusion of minds, but it would be very great. Though one thing she could now see very clearly, which she hadn't seen before, was that this dolphin Eden would arouse much opposition, both from humans and demons.

But she would be there to protect it, along with her equally powerful dolphin child, and together they would go forth and fight all the forces of evil that were ranged against it. Whether by evolution or design, their dragon bodies had been fitted for such a battle, and this was their destiny.

#  Part 2: Eden

## Eleven

A remote valley in the Tienshan Mountains, 2055 AD

Donna opened her eyes, instantly awake. She was curled up in a chair, for there was no need of a bed, and the first hint of dawn was lightening the blackness beyond her open window. Jumping up, she opened a box of matches on her dressing table and lit the candle, then pulled a shawl over her naked body and unfastened the door. It was adjacent to the window, and it opened onto a small balcony.

A few moments ago she had been floating in the sunlit waters off Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, drifting peacefully into a trance, now she was the high priest in a parallel universe, staring out over the moonlit roofs and chimneys of a small town that would not have looked out of place in Shakespeare's England. Her balcony faced south, down the valley, and to each side the dark mass of the enclosing mountains rose up to merge with the blue-black of the pre-dawn sky.

Her room was on the first floor of a group of cottages at the edge of the temple precinct. Stepping out onto the balcony, she could see to her left the golden façade of the magnificent temple. This was quite unlike anything from late 16th century England, for it glowed in the darkness, casting a golden aura over the quaint dwellings surrounding the precinct.

The other inhabitants of Eden would also be stirring, and soon smoke would be rising from those chimneys as they went about their business. Later on, in workshops across the town, artisans would be busily making all manner of toys and ornaments and bits and bobs, as well as useful artefacts such as candles and the matches to light them. Outside the town, in a castle further up the valley, soldiers would be marching and parading and practising their swordsmanship, and on the surrounding farms the workers would be tending their fields.

There were no computers or machine tools or cars or factories in Eden. It would have been easy to modify the dream and conjure up labour-saving gadgets and an abundance of wealth, but what would be the point? For this great enterprise had an altogether loftier purpose.

Like the others, Donna enjoyed working with her hands. Her clay models littered the various surfaces in the room. Mythological monsters such as dragons and centaurs and chimera were her favourites, but she'd enjoyed making vases and other ornaments as well. She painted them in bright colours, and a potter who lived nearby had fired them, and now her creations could be found in several of the small art galleries across the town.

She and all the other inhabitants of Eden were bottlenose dolphins in real life. Their genetically-modified brains were more human than dolphin, with capabilities that couldn't be satisfied by their physical bodies. That was why they all liked working with their human hands during the two hours each day they spent here. It was an opportunity to fulfil a deeply-felt need. And it was also why, every morning in their artificial lagoon at Crocodile Bay near Honiara, their human masters fed them their magic fish – fish that had been genetically modified to produce a powerful psychoactive drug. The resulting state of transcendental trance into which they jointly entered enabled them to recreate, each day, their communal mind and with it this Shakespearian paradise.

To all outward appearances Donna was no different from the other GM dolphins. Unknown to the others, however, her genome had been secretly augmented by dragon genes. Those genes could never be detected by any science known to man, for they existed not in the physical world but in the parallel universe of neurospace.

Like Dawn, her dragon mother, Donna was able to enter neurospace without the assistance of the magic fish. Despite this, she always joined the others in their midday meal – partly because she was always hungry, and partly because she had to keep her strange capabilities a secret. The drug also ensured that she remained in the trance state for the same length of time as the others, and that was something she couldn't otherwise guarantee. Without such an aid, even Dawn found it difficult to control the duration of her spirit journeys.

The sky to the east was growing brighter now. The meal the dolphins had eaten was always timed so that they would wake at the start of a new day on the other side of the world. Donna hastened back inside, for she had to get ready for the temple service welcoming the dawn.

She opened the wardrobe and inspected her vestments. A local tailor had made her several fetching outfits, in different colours to suit her moods. First there was a flowery green garment, the one she wore when she was feeling frivolous, then there was blue, the colour of thoughtfulness, then a sober brown for sadness. Next was a glamorous red number, the one she wore when feeling amorous. Red was definitely today's colour, she decided. She'd been feeling frisky back in the lagoon before entering her trance state, and her mood hadn't changed. She could still feel that unearthly warmth in her belly.

Quickly dressing, Donna sat at her dressing table and carefully applied some matching lipstick and then some dark eyeliner, and after that combed her long black hair. She was always meticulous about such matters, for most of the township attended the temple services and she liked to look her best. Attendance was good because the service was short, everyone enjoyed the singing, and afterwards they would gather in the temple forecourt chatting to friends using human speech rather than their limited dolphin language of whistles and clicks. As well as that, there were usually some popular after-church activities like art lessons and games.

Face and hair done, Donna reached down and opened a drawer in her dressing table to reveal a pair of high-heeled shoes. They were the same shade of red as her dress and very elegant, and when she'd first worn them there had been quite a few raised eyebrows. Not only were they entirely out of place in this historical setting, their exquisite workmanship surpassed anything that could be achieved in the workshops here. But Donna was the leader of the community, with privileged access to the Mind, so no one dared say anything.

After a final check in the mirror, Donna blew out the candle, slipped on those shoes, and went out into the early dawn. A flight of wooden steps led down from her balcony to the temple forecourt. The forecourt itself was cobbled, as were all the squares and alleyways in the town, but she had persuaded a stonemason to lay a nice smooth path from the foot of her steps to the temple entrance. Glamorous heels and old-fashioned cobbles, she had discovered, make an unhappy combination.

Donna clattered down the steps and hurried across to the temple entrance, which was still shrouded in darkness. Stepping inside, she emerged into an imposing pentagonal structure, with huge marble pillars and painted walls, and, barely visible above her in the gloom, a high arched ceiling decorated with a representation of the night sky, with all the constellations and some of the planets and, to the side, a crescent moon. No one had built the temple, it had been conjured up by the Mind, as indeed had all the dwellings round about and everything else in Eden.

Clara, the new temple assistant, had already arrived and was busily lighting the candles around the altar. This splendid object was covered in gold leaf and encrusted with jewels which sparkled brightly in the flickering candlelight, and it was the seat of consciousness of the Mind. Clara was careful not to touch it, or indeed to approach it too closely, for to do so would to risk being hurled to the ground by a bolt of lightning. Several people had suffered this fate, and although they had quickly recovered they had never dared go near it again.

Donna greeted her, then watched as the girl took the lighted taper from candle to candle. Unlike the others, who were often quite clumsy, she was a fast, efficient worker, and soon the interior of the temple was aglow with flickering light. Clara was obviously completely at ease in her human body, as indeed Donna was.

"I don't think I've ever seen you before," Donna had said to her when the girl had arrived out of the blue a week ago, looking for work. People swapped jobs regularly in Eden, for the sole purpose of work – which was voluntary – was to accumulate human experiences and exercise their human brains.

"I've never lived in the town before, Ma'am. My last job was on a farm, and before that I worked in the castle."

"I'm still surprised we haven't met. For instance at the swimming competitions in the river. Everyone goes to those."

"I'm not keen on them, Ma'am. I do enough swimming as a dolphin. I like doing human things here."

Donna nodded approvingly. "You're certainly good with your hands."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

"No doubt we've met in our dolphin bodies."

"I expect so, Ma'am."

Which had been an odd thing to say. Donna was the leader of the GM dolphin community, and Clara would certainly have known if they'd met. In fact they must have met, for there were only a thousand or so of them in total. But she seemed a shy girl who kept herself to herself, and in these human bodies it was impossible to read her emotions or have any inkling of what might lie behind that strange remark. Donna hadn't pursued the matter, as she didn't want to upset someone who was so good with candles and incense and serving up tea and toast afterwards as well as helping with the other temple chores.

She glanced around, checking that nothing was out of place. Clara was now busily lighting the candles that were fixed to the walls, and Donna could make out clearly the five small chapels set into the five sides of the temple, each decorated with mythological figures and scenes from the Bible. It was an extraordinary feat of the imagination, conjured up by the dolphin communal mind.

But then, the Mind itself was extraordinary. It was probably the most significant outcome of the GM dolphin project. Eden itself with its temple and township and Elizabethan society was a mere by-product of that mind and of no real interest to the dolphins' human masters. And although the dolphins would one day rule the seas and help mankind to farm them, that enterprise would only partly solve the problem of global food supplies.

No one fully understood the Mind, although all the dolphins unconsciously participated in it. Indeed everything here originated in their brains: all the artefacts they made or pictures they painted or poetry they wrote were stored in its communal memory, to be resurrected each day when Eden reappeared.

The Mind was the unification of the non-human telepathic faculties of all their individual minds, able to access their combined memories and cognitive functions. The closest analogy was a network of computers, each individual computer being autonomous while at the same time sharing its resources with all the others. The Mind was a telepathic network, waking each day when the dolphin population entered their trance. Although it lacked the number-crunching and data storage powers of computer networks, in terms of genuine intelligence and knowledge it was unsurpassed.

The colours in the stained-glass windows of the temple were coming alive in the dawn light, and now worshippers were trickling in. Watching them take their seats, Donna reflected that the Mind was somewhat like an act of worship. If everyone sang their own song the place would be filled with a mindless babble, whereas by singing in unison they were able to create a harmonious sound. From the beginning this had been Dawn's grand concept, that the dolphins should all enter their trance together and with a common purpose, to merge their minds into a single coherent intelligence.

At the beginning, when the dolphins were young, Dawn had participated in this daily ritual, imposing her vision of a 16th century township upon their joint imagination. She had also organised a large number of experts in many fields to spend time with the dolphins, so that each dolphin had a personal mentor who imparted to them their specialist knowledge. This did not involve conventional teaching but a radical new learning technique that depended on the dolphins' telepathic abilities, and in effect it involved downloading the mentor's knowledge directly into the dolphins' brains. The dolphins themselves were unable to make much sense of most of it, and certainly they made little use of it in their daily lives, but the Mind was able to make sense of it, and it had integrated the knowledge of all these experts in different fields to create a vast expert system.

Five years earlier, when she was only seven, Donna herself had made the initial discovery that had led to this learning technique. Dawn, who treated her like a daughter, had sometimes let her invade her mind to explore her memories. Possessing dragon genes, Donna was easily able to the disembodied state and fly through neurospace from the dolphin lagoon to Dawn's house in Honiara and slip into her mind.

Donna remembered clearly the first time she had done this. It was a totally new experience, and although Dawn had warned her what to expect it was still very strange to find herself as a girl standing in a shadowy cathedral with a golden altar and a stained-glass window at the far end and doorways spaced out along the walls.

After several such visits, she had found the doorway leading to the area of Dawn's brain where her specialist psychological knowledge was stored. After poking around in here for a while she had made the momentous discovery that if she paced up and down through this room like a farmer ploughing a field, so that she covered every inch, she could copy its entire contents into her own brain. The knowledge she assimilated in this way was disjointed and disorganised, but for a short while afterwards she was able to recall all kinds of facts about psychology that she had never known before.

Although most of it had quickly faded from her mind, it had occurred to Dawn that if she repeated this procedure day after day for several weeks, then most of what she assimilated would find its way into her long-term memories. And so it transpired. Although Donna did not become an expert in the subject, for she had understood little of it, when tested a few weeks after the trial she could recall a great many facts. And when Dawn repeated these tests on the Mind, during a visit to Eden, she discovered that it too could recall those facts. Not only that, the mind seemed able to integrate those facts with all the other knowledge at its disposal and to arrive at a deep understanding of the subject.

Dawn carried out further trials with more dolphins and other human experts, and when those were also successful she mounted a full-scale programme to transfer as much human knowledge as possible to the dolphin communal mind. Over the course of two or three years experts in many fields visited the dolphin reserve on Guadalcanal. The initial visit would last about a month, and during this time their knowledge would be laid down in their pupils' long-term memories, and after that they would visit twice a year for a few days to refresh the dolphins' memories and impart any new knowledge.

The trickle of worshippers had grown to a chattering throng. The front rows were already full, for this was a Wednesday. Dawn only worked mornings on Wednesdays, and in the afternoons she would fit in a trip here before a session at the Honiara gym. The purpose of this weekly visit was to talk to the community about any developments that might affect the dolphin project and answer any questions. Although she could address them equally well in her physical body back at the lagoon, it was only here, in their human bodies, that the dolphins could talk to her.

And after that would come Donna's happiest times, when Dawn accompanied her back to her room. There she would sit with her and thoroughly spoil her, chatting like a mother to a daughter, sharing her deepest secrets and making a big fuss of her, and even modifying the dream to give Donna a few treats like the red high-heeled shoes she was wearing now.

"Morning, Donna," someone called out. She turned to see Jonah, eyeing her glamorous outfit and carefully combed hair approvingly. He was a respected member of the community and a close friend.

The life-cycle of dolphins is similar to that of humans. At the age of 12 the GM dolphins had already reached puberty, with full adulthood just a few years off. However, the growth of their near-human brains had been artificially accelerated, and this, combined with their intensive educational programme, made them the intellectual equivalents of human 18-year-olds. That was the apparent age of all the inhabitants of Eden.

"Red suits you," Jonah said, coming over to her. "You always look good in it."

She felt the warmth in her belly return, and she gave him a coy smile. "That's because I've got Dawn's black hair and dark eyes. She says red's her best colour."

Donna had no intention of letting on that she always wore red when she was in a romantic mood. Jonah would probably run a mile if he knew.

Jonah's mentor was a man called John Anderson, and so he resembled him, or rather an 18-year-old version of him. Dr Anderson had at one time worked at the dolphinarium in Honiara, but he had since returned to his academic roots. He had become an expert in English social history, and now taught the subject at some university in Australia. When he heard about Dawn's teaching project he had offered his services, and in due course had downloaded his expert knowledge of the subject into Jonah's brain. Many of the architectural features of the township and the castle had been drawn from Jonah's brain by the Mind, as well as many of the features of this temple.

Jonah glanced around at the people crowding into the temple. "Where's Dawn? It's Wednesday, isn't it?"

An impish look came into Donna's eyes. "I might be her, for all you know."

He laughed. "No, I can tell. You're much prettier than she is."

"Oh. Do you really think so?" Donna felt a sudden breathlessness as her insides filled with fire.

"Yes, you're much prettier. Your breasts are smaller and your tummy's bigger."

Donna felt flattered and insulted at the same time. It was her dolphin nature that made her that shape, of course, as it did all the people here. Certainly Jonah had intended that remark as a compliment, for his sexual orientation, like that of the other male inhabitants of Eden, was towards the female dolphin form. Donna looked away from him, pretending to watch the people taking their seats, in reality to hide her sadness and frustration. For her secret desire was to be loved in the human way.

"Dawn isn't coming today," she told him brusquely.

His eyes lit up. "In that case, how about a walk by the river after the service?"

His evident desire for her made her feel hot and bothered again, and she giggled. "If it's to chat me up so you can mate with me when we wake up, forget it. But if you fancy getting up to something in these human bodies..."

Jonah shied away from her, as she knew he would. The thought of engaging in human coupling was repugnant to him, as it was to all the dolphins. All apart from Donna.

Her insides returned to normality. "Let's go for a walk anyway," she said with a sigh.

Helena had arrived and was inserting the numbers of the hymns she had chosen into the wooden holder near the pulpit. She was the organist, and her mentor was Helen Lockhart, a professor of music at an American university. Donna reflected that the Mind must have drawn upon the knowledge that had been deposited in Helena's brain to conjure up the temple organ with its huge pipes and traditional keyboard. Even so, Helena had to practise hard to bang out her hymns, and she still made the odd mistake. Donna couldn't help wondering if Clara with her nimble fingers might not make a better job of it.

High above them a bell tolled. It was the signal that the first rays of the sun had touched the western peaks and that it was time to welcome the dawn. Donna walked over to the pulpit and climbed up the steps. The buzz of conversation died down only slightly, and she had to clap her hands sharply to bring the assembly to order.

"All right everyone, let's get started. I'm afraid Dawn won't be joining us today as she's visiting someone in hospital in Australia. But James has organized a games morning in the crypt if anyone wants to join him there after the service, and Christa will be holding her pottery class in the Ivory Chapel. And don't forget that the next Passion play episode will be staged on Sunday in the temple forecourt. Now, Helena's chosen a couple of new hymns for us to have a go at. The first is number 63 in the blue book..."

Half an hour later, the service over, Donna walked with Jonah down the narrow alley that led between the cottages and workshops to the bridge over the Chilik, the river that flowed through the valley. She'd changed out of her red dress and high heels into more sensible traditional clothing. It was a bright new day, and the air was filled with the smell of wood fires and forges and food being cooked as well as the sound of hammering and snatches of conversation and laughter. There was plenty of time for talking, for everything here was done for enjoyment and personal fulfilment rather than to meet any economic need.

When they reached the Chilik they walked in silence along its grassy bank. The river was broad and slow-moving here, and home to several species of duck and a family of swans. Fishing was a favourite pastime, and spaced out along it were several people with fishing rods.

The Chilik, like the town and the rest of Eden, was a product of the Mind, as were the water birds and the fish that inhabited it. Donna knew that there was a real river Chilik meandering through the physical landscape hereabouts, and by looking hard she could sometimes make out its ghostly outline, but the parallel world to which it belonged didn't impinge at all upon the neurospace world of Eden.

The source of the Chilik – the neurospace Chilik, that is – was a huge glacier nestling high in the mountains at the valley head, several miles to the north. This too was a creation of the Mind, for there were no longer any physical glaciers of this size in these mountains. As it meandered south the river was fed by thermal springs, and by the time it reached the township the water was quite warm. The valley came to an abrupt end a few miles further south, where the river plunged through a rift in the mountains on its way south. Although Donna had never explored the rift, she understood that the river disappeared into a large hole in the ground somewhere along it, at the point where the neurospace world of Eden ended.

They stopped beneath a tree and sat down at the water's edge. "Why won't you be my mate?" Jonah asked her suddenly. "You know I really like you. We could have a wedding ceremony if you like, here in the temple. I'm sure Dawn would be happy to marry us."

He had been pestering her in a gentle, teasing way for several weeks, and she had not discouraged him, but in the last few days he had become increasingly forthright about the matter. Her continued prevarication was obviously irking him.

She touched his hand. "I like you too, Jonah."

"So what's the problem?"

She gazed out across the river, avoiding his eye, but the gently flowing water merely mocked her inner turmoil. The 'problem', as he put it, had in recent months grown large within her, and now it seemed to overshadow everything. She was scarcely able to confess the truth of the matter to herself, let alone to him, but now that he had asked her directly, she could prevaricate no longer. She would have to tell him sometime, and there was no time like the present – as Dawn might say.

She swallowed "I... I don't want a mate, Jonah. Not a dolphin mate, that is."

He stared at her uncomprehendingly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Conflicting emotions were swelling within her, and she felt close to tears. "I'm all mixed up inside, Jonah," she said in a small voice. "I've never told you this, but I'm not like you and the others. You just visit the minds of your human mentors for a few times each year. You go into their minds and check out their expert knowledge, and that's that. It's different for me, I go into Dawn's mind every Saturday–"

"When there are no services at the temple–"

"And often at other times as well." Now that she was finally revealing her secret the words were tumbling out. "I've absorbed much more than Dawn's expert knowledge, I've made _all_ her memories my own. All of them, you see. It's like I'm becoming her. All my desires and my feelings are _her_ feelings. It's not just my intellect that's human, it's my desires as well. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you, Jonah? I'm more human than dolphin!"

"So you were serious when you asked me if I'd like to fool around in these _human_ bodies?" He almost spat the words out.

"Yes, Jonah, I was. Very serious. I want you in your human body, not as a dolphin."

He stared at her, appalled. "That's disgusting," he muttered. "In fact it's perverted _._ I can't believe you're like this. You're the leader of the community, dammit!"

She managed to hold her gaze steady. "I'm sorry, Jonah, but please try to understand. I'm like this because I've shared all of Dawn's experiences. _All_ of them..."

It was not something that Dawn herself had wanted. But about a year ago, during their regular Wednesday morning tête-à-têtes in Eden, Donna had pestered her.

"Why won't you let come into your mind while you're making love to Rick? You've let me be in you while you're at work, and when you're meeting your parents, as well as going to the toilet and doing everything else. Why not while you're making love? I so want to."

"Human love-making is very private, that's why. We don't like to share that kind of thing. It's something between me and Rick and no one else."

"You mean you don't ever do it in public?"

"We _never_ do it in public."

"But...but I've seen it on television. Loads of times!"

"That's television, not real life. Most people would never make love in public. Anyway, why do you want experience it?"

"Because there's something of you in me. I'm more than just a GM dolphin."

Dawn gazed at her silently. Unlike all the other GM dolphins, Donna was not a test-tube baby, and Dawn's mind went back to that moment, 13 years ago, when she'd gone on a spirit journey into the womb of Eve, the first experimental female GM dolphin, to impregnate her newly-fertilized egg with dragon genes. That egg had grown to become Donna, and Donna had finally reached puberty. Now her hormones were signalling her maturity, and a strange organ hidden deep within her brain had been activated and her dragon genes had been switched on. Her dragon nature starting to express itself.

Dawn put her arms round her young protégé. "It's the fire I told you about, my darling," she whispered. "You're beginning to feel it. It makes you a goddess of war, but it also makes you a goddess of love. That's why you desire human love. It's the only truly romantic love on this planet."

Donna was given some magic fish that evening, as she was not yet able to induce a trance without it, and a little later, when she slipped into the cathedral of Dawn's mind, Dawn allowed her to alight upon the altar and share her consciousness. And so that night Donna experienced the fire surging through Dawn's body as she gave Rick a sensational love-goddess kiss, and she felt the urgent caresses of Rick's hands and the warmth of his lips on her throat and her breasts. And after many other intimate acts of love she shared Dawn's passion rise powerfully within her, finally reaching an ecstatic climax in which she seemed to soar up to the highest heavens.

It was an experience that profoundly affected Donna. The hormones that flooded through her own physical body while it was taking place seemed to accelerate the neurological changes in her brain, and in the days that followed she became very aware of the dragonness forming within her and of the mysterious fire in her belly. At the same time the conviction grew within her that she could never be satisfied with dolphin love. For dolphins have no hands, and their lips had not evolved for kissing.

Donna couldn't tell Jonah about these changes, for it was all a secret, but as they resumed their walk along the riverbank she told him about her experience of human love. His initial shock that she could have done such a thing quickly gave way to curiosity as he listened to her account.

"Dawn never told Rick that I shared their love-making," she said at the end of her tale. "She let me experience it several times after that, but still she never told him."

Jonah glanced at her in surprise. "Why on earth not?"

"I don't know. Perhaps she felt embarrassed. Humans are strange that way. I wanted her to let me take her over completely so that it would be me and not her making love to Rick. I told her that I needed to practise, but she wouldn't hear of it."

"How odd! It seems a reasonable enough request. I don't suppose Rick would have noticed the difference. I bet you'd be pretty good at it."

"That's what I told her. Anyway, she refused, though she wouldn't say why. Well, I said to her, if Rick's out of bounds, then perhaps I can borrow your body to make love to someone else."

"Fair enough. What did she say to that?"

"What _didn't_ she say! She practically hit the roof. It was like I was going to shit in her pants!"

She kicked morosely at a stone. It rolled into the river with a splash, startling a small water bird. "Are you sure you wouldn't like me to kiss you, Jonah? I know I could do it really well."

He grimaced. "I'm sorry, I really don't fancy it. I would probably throw up all over you."

She sighed. "It doesn't matter. Those sexy kisses probably won't work on these neurospace bodies anyway."

"Look!" he exclaimed suddenly. "What's that?" She followed his gaze upwards. What looked like a red shooting star was streaking across the sky.

"That'll be Dawn."

"Wow! She must be in a tearing hurry. How on earth does she fly so fast?"

"She always flies like that. Usually she arrives when it's still dark, that's why you haven't seen her. Anyway, I'd better get back to my quarters, it's me she's coming to see. Something must have happened at that hospital."

"What on earth has that got to do with you?"

"Search me."

## Twelve

At the same moment that Donna was waking up in Eden, Dawn was locking herself into her office on the other side of the world. She didn't want to be disturbed. Outside her window the sun was shining brightly, for it was the middle of a sweltering tropical day, but it was pleasantly cool in here. Like all the GeneSys offices on Guadalcanal, hers was air-conditioned.

She unlocked her filing cabinet and carefully extracted from it a metal object about the size and shape of a shoebox. It was quite heavy, and she held it close as she carried it over to her desk.

"I'm depending on you, Baby," she murmured as she gently set the metal box down.

Baby didn't respond. Baby wasn't even aware that she'd been spoken to, for she had no ears. Her only sensor was the lens at the front of the box, and her only output device was the small monitor screen at the rear. And although she could detect Dawn's affection for her, it gave her no pleasure, for she had no circuitry for either pleasure or pain.

Dawn turned the box round so that the lens was pointing away from her, rotating its housing to give a wide-angle view, then she checked the screen at the rear. It displayed a grainy, out-of-focus picture of the opposite wall with the window and the hazy sky beyond.

"Good girl," she murmured. The spirit detector was working perfectly.

The poor-quality image was not the result of any fault in the device but of the imperfect information reaching its neurons. For they were not picking up light or electrical signals or any other form of electromagnetic radiation, but they were detecting what for a better term might be called clairvoyance, in other words information originating in the parallel universe of neurospace. Dawn didn't understand the physics behind it, except that it had something to do with quantum mechanics and the interconnectedness of everything in the universe.

She picked up Baby again and carried her to the window. Resting her on the sill, she pointed the lens in first one direction and then another over Crocodile Bay, and then she turned the box round to scan her office. Wherever she pointed the lens, the picture on the screen remained a ghostly blur.

She grunted in satisfaction. The last thing she wanted was to see something that was sharp and detailed, for that would have been a spirit. The screen showed ghosts and spirits not as wraiths but as solid objects, whereas physical objects appeared as wraiths. Baby reversed the normal human view of the world.

She put the device back on the desk and ran her fingers across the cold metal surface. Baby couldn't feel her touch, though she could detect the emotion that lay behind it. Had Rick been present he would have undoubtedly have teased his wife. _What do you think is inside that thing? A cuddly puppy?_

There was something alive inside the box, but it wasn't a ball of fur or anything cuddly. It wasn't even sentient in any normal sense. It was a small squishy part of Dawn's brain, or rather a copy of a small squishy part of her brain, kept alive by half a pint of her blood. This was pumped through it by a tiny artificial heart, and fuelled by oxygen bubbling into a miniature lung and nutrient dripping into a miniature intestine. The box itself was insulated, and its electronic temperature control system maintained Baby at body heat.

Dawn was emotionally attached to the device not because she had any illusions about the nature of the half-creature that dwelt within it, but because she had been intimately involved in its development. She had come up with the original concept six years ago, and after that she had been closely involved in the isolation of the relevant parts of her DNA and in their insertion into a host cell. And it was she who had painstakingly guided the development and growth of the strange, misshapen embryo that was to ultimately become Baby.

The part of Dawn's brain that Baby replicated was an organ that was sometimes called the god-spot. In Dawn it was unusually well-developed, and MRI scans had shown it to be hyperactive when she went on spirit journeys. In Baby this organ was used to detect clairvoyant information. Part of Dawn's visual cortex had also been replicated, as this was needed to process and output the clairvoyance to the screen, and there were also copies of her retinal cells, to register the input from the lens.

Baby's purpose was to monitor Dawn's immediate surroundings when she was in a trance in case a demon or some other spirit tried to invade her body. If a demon was detected a loud alarm would be activated, which would immediately awaken Dawn and prevent an attack. Up until that time, she had always gone into a trance securely handcuffed, in case something evil took over her body.

The dolphins were also at risk during their trance, and Dawn sometimes took it upon herself to patrol neurospace in the vicinity of Crocodile Bay. If Baby continued to work successfully – and trials with Donna acting as the invading spirit had proved very successful – then more of the devices would be produced to watch over the dolphins. Not that there were many demons left in the Solomon Islands, for Dawn had slaughtered most of them.

This was the first time that Dawn had entrusted her entranced body to the device, and she wasn't sure where to put it. She decided the corner shelf would be best, as that would give the widest view. Placing Baby on it, Dawn pressed the Menu button and checked the various settings, and then pressed the Recording button. This had been set to automatically start recording when a spirit appeared, then stop when it disappeared. That done, Dawn closed the blinds of her window, sat back in her chair, closed her eyes, and then let her mind drift into that well-worn fantasy that invariably induced a trance.

Moments later she was floating above her sleeping body, and now her office and everything in it had taken on a ghostly appearance. She glanced across at Baby, and noted that the red warning light was flashing. That was good, for it meant that Baby had detected her. Her spirit body would form a clear, sharp image in its visual cortex and on the screen, in contrast to the pale haziness of everything else. The alarm wasn't sounding, because Baby was telepathic and had also detected her emotions, classifying them as benign. Had there been the slightest hint of evil or malice, there would be a huge din and Rick would come racing down the corridor. A different menu setting would have triggered the alarm whatever the emotional status of the spirit.

Satisfied that everything was in order, Dawn prepared herself for her spirit journey. Normally on these occasions she transformed herself into her native dragon body, but this time she had to travel to Australia and dragon wings were not designed for long journeys. So she conjured up something quite different, though it had the same colour as her dragon body and in its own way equally impressive.

As she firmed up the imagery in her mind, its structure coalesced about her, completely enclosing her. Now there was a window immediately in front of her, and through it she could see the ghostly outline of her office and its contents. However, this was not the stained-glass window of earlier journeys, and the structure encasing her was not a cathedral. Rather, she was in the driving seat of a bright red vintage VW Beetle, customised with some really nifty features such as a pair of swept-back aeroplane wings extending from its sides.

Dawn turned the ignition key and the engine roared into life. Although it was mounted in the rear, this was by no means your typical Beetle engine. It was massive, with what looked like an enormous exhaust tube sticking straight out of it. It was in fact a Rolls Royce jet engine, and it throbbed with suppressed energy. She strapped herself in, grasped the steering wheel with one hand and released the handbrake with the other, then pushed the accelerator pedal down hard to the floor. The car leapt forward through the office wall with an ear-splitting roar, and moments later she was hurtling above the tenuous waters of the Pacific Ocean, heading south towards Australia.

Dawn had figured out how to travel fast through neurospace four years previously. Amazingly, it was some demons who had given her the idea. Dr Juan Song from the UN headquarters in New York had come to visit her, ostensibly to learn about the dolphin project and to see the dolphin lagoon at Crocodile Bay. After examining the facilities there and meeting some of the young dolphins, Dr Song had accompanied Dawn back to her office for a cup of tea and confidential chat. She was a diminutive middle-aged Chinese lady.

"I'm impressed, Dr Goode," she murmured. Her English was impeccable, with hardly a trace of an accent.

"Please call me Dawn. Everyone does."

Dr Song smiled briefly. "Your project has aroused a great deal of interest at the UN, Dawn. Even the Secretary General has asked to be kept informed of its progress."

"Really?" Dawn shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She didn't know whether to be pleased or alarmed by that.

"Yes. We are monitoring what's going on here, you understand. By all accounts you're doing an excellent job."

"Thank you." Although Dawn had not been aware of any overt investigations, the dolphin project with its huge potential impact on the world's oceans was bound to attract the attention of the UN security arm.

Dr Song sipped her drink and gazed at her thoughtfully. "Your success has had some unfortunate consequences, however," she said at last.

Dawn tensed. "What on earth do you mean, Dr Song? I'm not aware of any 'unfortunate consequences'."

"I'm referring to the abduction cults. In particular the Church of the Blessed Rapture and Abduction – COBRA."

"Ah. You can hardly blame me for the rise of COBRA, I think."

"Indeed not. However, you are the world's foremost expert on the parallel universe that you call neurospace, and cults such as COBRA operate in that universe. Indeed, they have arisen as a direct result of your work. We are hoping therefore that you would be willing to help us." She paused and took another sip of her tea.

Interest in paranormal phenomena had mushroomed over the last few years, mainly thanks to the dolphins' ability to enter a disembodied state and to telepathically merge their minds. If dolphins could do this, why not humans? And would not this merging of minds be some kind of nirvana, in which the individual would become subsumed in a corporate intelligence? Such ideas soon became mixed up with other weird notions, in particular a belief in alien abduction experiences, and so the abduction cults had been born.

The biggest of these was the Church of the Blessed Rapture and Abduction, which cloaked its claims in Christian terminology. The COBRA membership numbered many tens of thousands, and 'believers' were 'raptured' during its meetings and taken to a giant spaceship in the sky called Paradise, where they enjoyed all kinds of pleasurable experiences. Many believers had given large sums of money to the church, as this was a route to church leadership and heightened rapture experiences, and in a short space of time COBRA had become very wealthy and built up powerful business interests. Other abduction cults had amalgamated with it, and now COBRA was a global organisation with branches on every continent.

"Matters have come to a head," Dr Song continued, "and we believe that the Church of the Blessed Rapture is becoming a significant threat to mankind." She paused for effect, and then added: "And also to your dolphins."

Dawn looked at her dubiously. Was Dr Song trying to alarm her? No doubt COBRA was a threat, in fact she suspected that alien forces were behind it. Indeed, it might even be demonic, for there was no way that humans, unaided, could conjure up a neurospace structure like a giant spaceship. Even she would be hard-pressed to create something like that.

But was it any more of a threat than other demonic activities? Maybe it was. Maybe that spaceship was the vehicle that had originally transported the demons to Earth from their home planet. Indeed, if the reports of alien abductions from the last century were to be believed, this ship had been hanging in space above the earth for a very long time. No human telescope would ever be able to detect it, of course, for it was not a physical object.

"What I'm about to tell you is classified information," the little Chinese lady said quietly, interrupting Dawn's train of thought. "It must not go beyond the walls of this room."

"I give you my word."

"You're word isn't sufficient, I'm afraid. You could be bugged." Dr Song removed what looked like a mobile phone from her handbag, switched it on, and walked slowly around the office, pointing it at all the fittings and furniture. "It will glow red if it detects any kind of transmitting device," she explained.

"You're clean," she announced at last when she'd checked everything, including Dawn's clothing.

"I work for the DGS, the Department of Global Security," Dr Song told her as she settled back in her seat. "That's the UN's investigative department. COBRA has recently come to our attention. A year ago hardly anyone had heard of it, suddenly it is large and powerful, and many of its leaders hold influential posts in government and business organisations. Including GeneSys, by the way."

Dawn gaped at her. "GeneSys? I didn't realise..."

"That's hardly surprising. None of these people advertise their connection with COBRA. In case you're worried, your father isn't one of them."

"I can't imagine him getting involved with anything like that."

"You'd be surprised who is involved. One of our operatives joined the church, to find out what's going on. She attended a few of its rapture meetings, and reported back that it all looked harmless enough. It seems they use hypnosis to induce their out-of-body 'rapture' experiences, together with a drug similar to the one in the GM fish you feed your dolphins."

"That's a pretty harmless drug. It's not addictive."

"So I understand. In her report our operative stated that the rapture trances last about an hour. Afterwards there's a time of sharing when they give emotional accounts of their experiences."

"I've read the newspaper reports. They recline on beautiful couches in Paradise, and they're ministered to by golden angels. And it's pretty obvious what those ministrations involve."

"Quite. Alien abduction experiences have always had strong sexual overtones, even at the beginning in the 1950s. Sometimes they are pleasant, often they are deeply unpleasant. The COBRA abduction experiences, it seems, are all pleasant."

"I can guess what happened next. Your operative fancied a bit of that angel delight, so she decided to pay that spaceship a visit. She got herself raptured."

Dr Song nodded. "She cleared it with us first, of course. But it was the only way to find out what was really going on. She joined the church and underwent the course of hypnosis, and then she attended one of the rapture meetings and took the drug. She never awoke from her trance. She died of a heart attack."

Dawn gaped at her. "You think they discovered she was a spy?"

"We have to assume that. She was young, there was nothing wrong with her heart. Whether their suspicions were aroused during the hypnosis sessions, or whether they found out when she was raptured, we can't say, but somehow they engineered her death."

"By spiking the drug, perhaps?"

Dr Song shook her head. "There was no trace of poison in her body. Our people did a thorough check. We think they killed her spirit – or whatever it is that leaves the body during out-of-body experiences."

Dawn studied her thoughtfully. "Could be. If the spirit dies, then the brain stops working, I suppose. And if that happens, the heart stops beating."

"That's the conclusion we came to. We ran checks on police records, and it turns out that several other people have died mysteriously in COBRA rapture meetings. In each case the cause of death was heart failure."

"It sounds like they've discovered a foolproof way of getting rid of awkward people. Make them die of natural causes. And there's no way the police or your people can find out what's going on without getting themselves killed. You can't pin anything on anyone, you don't even know who's done it."

"That's why we need your help, Dawn."

"You want me to get myself raptured? You must be joking!"

Dr Song smiled faintly. "Of course not. You have other ways of getting to that COBRA spaceship. I'll come straight to the point. As I told you, our people have been keeping tabs on this project, and they've been able to access the GeneSys computer records of all conversations with the dolphins that involved you. The transcript makes fascinating reading. It seems that your very remarkable powers include the ability to travel at will through the parallel universe and to invade other minds and control them. How and why you are able to do this we do not pretend to understand, but the facts are not in doubt."

"You've bugged my home!" Dawn's voice now had a cold, hard edge. "You've been listening in to my intimate conversations with Rick!"

Dr Song saw the steel in her eyes and flinched. "No! We did nothing like that. I told you, we got everything from the GeneSys computer records. We want you as our friend, not our enemy."

She hastily rummaged through her handbag for the bug detector and handed it to Dawn. "I want you to have this. It's state-of-the-art technology and very secret, so don't let it out of your hands. Please check your house regularly. If you find any bugs, they won't be ours. Don't tamper with them, call us."

"Thank you, I will." Her iciness melted, and she gave Dr Song a speculative look. "I'm surprised you want to involve me in this. There must be much bigger threats to the planet than these COBRA crackpots. It's not just because they've eliminated one of your people, is it?"

"As I said, matters have come to a head. There's something big going on, and we don't know what it is. In three weeks' time they're holding a very big rapture rally at a convention centre in London. All the leaders from across the world will be there, and thousands of ordinary members as well. They haven't advertised it, but they've let their people know by word of mouth. They've even booked the centre under a false name – the Millennium Congress. The word is that they're going to appoint many more leaders, and then they'll all be raptured to that spaceship for a great celebration to mark the start of a new age on earth."

"Sounds like quite a party. And you want me to blast them out of the sky?"

"We thought you might be able to follow them to that spaceship of theirs and find out what's going on there – and take whatever action you think necessary to safeguard the future of the human race."

Dawn couldn't help being intrigued, and although she was careful not to show it, she was very flattered that the UN had come cap in hand seeking her help. She'd wondered before about paying that spaceship a visit, but if there were demons involved it would be very risky, and she still hadn't figured out how to travel long distances in neurospace without endless amounts of wing-flapping. Well, maybe she would venture into space – provided she got something in return.

"The dolphins are as important to me as the human race. You're asking me to risk my neck, so what about their future?"

"You won't find us ungrateful, Dawn. We are not opposed to your plans for the dolphins. We know you want them recognised as a nation state in their own right. If you help us with this, then the Secretary General gives you his assurance that you will have his full support in this matter. That would of course include all rights under international law, as well as the right to appoint a human representative at the UN."

They must be seriously worried about COBRA to make an offer like that, Dawn thought. She would have settled for less. "It's a deal, Dr Song."

Later that day, while she was looking up flights to London, because it was out of the question to attempt such a journey as a wing-flapping dragon, the solution to long-distance travel through neurospace suddenly hit her. If the dark forces behind COBRA were able to conjure up a rocket-propelled vehicle like a spaceship, then so could she. Enclosing herself in a supersonic jet aircraft when she was floating in the air should be no more difficult than surrounding herself in a massive cathedral when floating in someone's brain.

The trouble was, she had only the vaguest idea what the cockpit of a supersonic jet looked like, and even if she could conjure it up, she would have no idea how to fly it. On the other hand, she would have no trouble at all with a motorcar, and in neurospace, where the laws of physics broke down, there was nothing to stop a car flying through the air at many times the speed of sound.

Dawn had been so excited by her idea that she had immediately locked her office door, sat down in the most comfortable chair, and performed the mental exercises that never failed to raise her temperature and launch her into neurospace. Then, floating above her body, she visualised herself being in the driving seat of a car. Not any old car, but the car which for some reason she'd always wanted to own, a vintage VW Beetle. And so Dawn's magnificent flying machine had been born.

It was a joy to fly. She could bank to the left or the right by turning the steering wheel in the usual way, and she could point the car up or down by pushing the wheel down towards her lap or away from her. And if she slipped the gear lever into reverse she could fly backwards. Hitting the accelerator, she careered at up to 70 miles per hour over the ghostly houses and the bush and the tenuous grey of the sea, and it didn't matter at all if she drove into something because she and her car existed in a parallel world.

She'd almost immediately modified her design by adding that massive Rolls-Royce jet engine mounted in her rear, and a satnav to the dashboard. Both of these completely transformed her driving experience. She was particularly intrigued by the jet engine, for though she hadn't consciously willed this, there was something very dragon-like about the way it worked. It belched out black smoke and fire, it was very powerful, and if she went on a very long journey – as she did when she'd put her impressive new machine to the test by circumnavigating the world at breakneck speed – she'd be left feeling distinctly peckish. But it was good fun, and she could go so fast that the speedometer recalibrated itself, changing miles per hour to miles per second.

As for the satnav, that worked pretty well too, though it was not terribly accurate. She would speak into it her destination, and then she would hit the accelerator and the car would roar off in almost the right direction so that she would end up within a mile or so of where she wanted to get. The lack of accuracy was a bit of nuisance, and she guessed it was to do with the general haziness of the spirit world. Just as her spirit eyes could see the real world only indistinctly, so, she supposed, the reception of GPS signals was somewhat indistinct too.

Although she was soon to gain a vague understanding of the operation of the jet engine, for it was indeed based upon dragon physiology, Dawn never did figure out how the satnav worked. In fact it wasn't based upon the Global Positioning System but upon a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, and its inaccuracy was due to the uncertainty principle. That explanation, however, would have to await the development of the mathematics of neurospace, and this lay many decades in the future.

## Thirteen

And so it was, three weeks after Dr Song's visit to the dolphin project on Guadalcanal, that Dawn found herself speeding north-east through the night, her engine belching smoke and fire. Just a few minutes after leaving her body lying on her bed at home in the Solomon Islands she had crossed over the shadowy darkness of the Pacific Ocean and the hazy lights of North America were below her. A few moments more and she met the dawn over the Atlantic, and minutes after that she was skidding to a halt above central London.

Her massive engine throbbing, she hovered in neurospace over the ghostly shape of the Thames with the Houses of Parliament off to the left. Although nothing was distinct in the pale morning sunlight, it was clear that her satnav had brought her to within a mile of her destination, which was a large conference centre located off Trafalgar Square.

The vehicle winked out of existence as she transformed herself into a dragon. Unfurling her wings, she turned and flew off in what she thought was the right direction, and after about a minute or so she was able to make out the fuzzy outline of Nelson's column off to her right. Adjusting her course, she recognised some more landmarks, and then she was swooping down to what she took to be the COBRA venue.

Flying in through the roof, she found herself hovering over a huge auditorium. She knew at once that she'd arrived at the right place, for a powerful aura of demonic evil hit her. It was hanging in the air like a foul odour, and it brought back horrific memories of that encounter with demons on her engagement day almost a decade earlier. Although it had been so many years ago, and so much had happened since, it still gave her nightmares.

She spun round, her eyes darting this way and that. She could see nothing threatening, but the sense of evil unnerved her, and she beat a hasty retreat upwards and tried to hide above a large light fitting. Although she had mastered the art of travelling through neurospace, she was still only a novice when it came to fighting battles. It was only subsequent to today's great victories that she would gain sufficient confidence to take on and destroy the demons inhabiting the Solomon Islands.

Perched high above the auditorium, she peered nervously over the edge of the light fitting at the scene below. The hall was large enough to accommodate several thousand people. Although everything was grey and ghostly, she could make out people trickling in to the auditorium through the various entrances. The meeting wasn't due to start for another half-hour, but the place looked full and she could hear ghostly music coming from the loudspeakers located above the stage.

She scanned the walls, the stage, and every corner of her ghostly surroundings, but there was nothing bright and solid to be seen. But disembodied spirits or demons lurked somewhere in this building, she was certain of that. She had expected to find them on the COBRA spaceship, but she hadn't thought they would be here. Somehow they seemed out of place in the heart of London.

The sense of evil continued to assail her. Where were those demons hiding? Although she could fly through solid objects such as these walls, she couldn't actually see through them, so the creatures could be in any of the other rooms or corridors in this building.

She came to a decision. It was most likely, she reasoned, that any demons here would be monitoring the entrances and doorways for any unwanted visitors, like Dr Song's unfortunate spy. So she would scour those areas first, and then the corridors and other rooms in the building, and finally she would seek out any demons in the people themselves. Grimly preparing herself for what lay ahead, she summoned up fire in her belly.

With a final look round the auditorium, she gulped in some air to fan the flames, then launched herself into the air and headed straight for the wall above one of the entrances. She emerged into one of the corridors, above a small group of people. They were, of course, unaware of her presence. She glanced both ways, and immediately spotted a silver disc floating at the far end of the corridor. It was identical to the demons that had attacked her on her engagement day, with the same leering face and sword-like horn. At the same moment the creature spotted her, and she sensed its surprise. Its reflexes were fast, and before she could react it had spun round to face her and launched itself at her, its wings buzzing angrily. She watched in numbed horror as it hurtled towards her belly.

At the last moment Dawn's dragon reflexes kicked in, releasing her fire. Lightning streaked from her jaws, wrapping itself around the silver disc and transforming it into a blazing inferno. There was a piercing scream and the creature crashed harmlessly into her belly then fell flaming to the ground, writhing in agony. Dawn twisted her head and followed it down with her fire, and in moments only a few blackened scraps and a wisp of acrid smoke remained.

The group of people below were now strolling into the auditorium, blissfully unaware of the battle that had been fought above their heads and the smell of smoke and death in the air. But if any more demons lurked in this building, they would have heard that scream and sensed the creature's agony.

Certainly she was not safe here. Turning, she flew back through the wall to the middle of the auditorium, as far as possible from any walls and other hiding places. Almost at once a silver demon flew in through one of the doorways, and then a second emerged from the opposite wall. Spotting her instantly, they hurled themselves angrily at her, one from the left and the other from the right, aiming straight at her belly.

Although lacking experience, Dawn had taken the trouble to devise a number of defensive manoeuvres to protect this most critical part of her body against such an attack. The one she thought offered the greatest protection was to curl up like a hedgehog while jetting a thin blast of fire through pursed lips. It was expensive in terms of energy, and she couldn't maintain it for more than a couple of minutes, but it turned her into a giant catherine wheel, and by twisting her head to deliver a sideways thrust she was able to adjust her orientation. She had spent a long time practising this manoeuvre, and now her diligence paid off. In moments she was spinning like a top, and with a quick twist of her head she angled herself so that the first of the creatures rushed headlong into a deadly disc of fire. There was an ear-splitting shriek and its flaming body tumbled to the ground.

The second demon swerved and attacked from the side, and she felt a sharp pain as its vicious horn shattered one of her scales and penetrated her thigh. It wasn't a deep wound, for the damaged scale had absorbed most of the blow, and the force of her spinning body sent the demon tumbling away, though it quickly righted itself.

And then, to her dismay, she saw that two more demons had joined the fray. They were circling around, their wings buzzing angrily. Suddenly all three charged her, from different directions, and there was no way that spinning like a catherine wheel would save her from such an attack. Her only hope was to surround herself with a ball of fire.

Dawn twisted her head at right angles to her body and blasted more fire. The force of it sent her spinning about a second axis, so that what had been a wheel of fire became a ball. She had to open her jaws wide to broaden the jet and achieve the full fireball effect, which would rapidly deplete her reserves, but with three demons attacking her she had no choice. There was an ear-splitting shriek as one demon hit the unexpected wall of fire, followed in quick succession by two more.

She immediately quenched her fire. That didn't stop her spinning, and she had to uncurl her body and extend her tail and flap her wings furiously to right herself. Hovering with her wings outstretched once more, she looked around the auditorium to see what had become of her attackers. They were lying on the ground below, charred and writhing. Hurling herself down at them, she raked them with a final blast of fire, turning them to ashes. Then, pulling out of her dive, she swooped high over the auditorium, and to her huge relief could no longer sense demonic evil hanging over the place. She was safe.

But it wasn't an unalloyed victory, for all her fires had been spent and she was totally drained of energy. If there had been any more demons she would have to turn tail and try to get away. Fortunately she'd anticipated that something like this might happen, and she'd taken the precaution of eating a large dinner before leaving home with two generous helpings of pudding. It had made her feel uncomfortably full, but it ensured that after a while her strength would return.

Wearily, she flew back up to the light fitting where she'd perched before and surveyed the ghostly scene. Although she could see and hear nothing clearly, it was obvious that the auditorium has nearly full. Moments later the music stopped, and then someone stood up at the front and addressed the congregation. Dawn strained her ears to make out the words, but it was too much of a mumble. She launched herself from the lighting fitting and swooped down nearer to the loudspeakers, and although she could now make out the odd word most of it was still too muffled to make out what was being said. It was like listening through a wall.

The only way to find out what was going on would be to invade someone's mind. She watched as the congregation rose to their feet and started to sing what sounded like a hymn, and then she selected a woman at random and pounced. There was a moment of blackness and a sense of floundering in goo as she entered her skull, and then the walls of the great cathedral coalesced around her and she was standing in the nave gazing up at the stained-glass window – her neurospace representation of the woman's visual cortex.

Now the view of the auditorium was crystal-clear, as was the sound of singing. At the front of the stage was a lectern, with a man standing behind it, and filling the stage behind him was a large crowd of seated men and women occupying a dozen or more rows of chairs, all smartly dressed in dark suits. Dawn estimated that there were about 200 of them, and she guessed that these were the church leaders.

Above the stage was a large screen on which the words of the hymn were displayed. The people sang gustily, and if this were a normal church and a normal hymn then it would be very inspiring. But this was not a normal church, and this was unlike any hymn that she'd ever heard. There was no mention of God or Jesus Christ or the love of God, instead it was all about angels and spirits and the sensual joys of Paradise, and the coming reign of spirits over the earth.

But the woman seemed to find it uplifting, and Dawn sensed her excitement. The atmosphere in the hall was charged with energy, and people were swaying and even jumping in time to the beat of the music. It was clear that something very important was about to take place. It was also obvious that, with all the excitement and sense of expectancy, the woman hadn't detected her presence. There was no startlement or any feelings of unease, and Dawn damped down her feelings as much as possible in an attempt to keep herself hidden. It was essential that no one here suspected her presence, or all might be lost. She wondered if anyone had realised that the demon doorkeepers had disappeared.

The hymn came to an end and everyone sat down. The man standing at the lectern welcomed everyone to this important gathering, paused for dramatic effect, and then gestured to the side of the stage. "Our new leaders!" he proclaimed.

A stream of smartly-dressed men and women emerged from behind a curtain, and everyone clapped as they walked down a short flight of steps and assembled in front of the stage. More and more leaders trooped out, until they filled the entire space between the stage and the front row of seats. There must have been several hundred of them, and they made an impressive sight.

"These wonderful people have all been filled with a spirit," the man proclaimed. "Today they will be ministering to you in Paradise!"

At this there was more clapping and some cheering. This is a complete travesty of the Christian religion, Dawn thought. Filled with a spirit? What nonsense! This was London, and these people looked urbane and calm and completely normal. But then she reflected that the woman in whom she was hiding would look completely normal too. If a neurospace dragon could dwell undetected in her, what demonic forces might be hidden in them?

The clapping died down, and now the leaders sitting behind the speaker stood up, and there was more applause. From what Dr Song had told her, several of these leaders worked for GeneSys, but she was unable to study their faces because the woman's eyes didn't rest on any of them but instead kept glancing at some of the younger men among the new leaders gathered below the stage. Dawn's own gaze was distracted too, for the flame above the golden throne had grown in size and was now flaring up in front of the stained-glass window, and she realised that the woman was becoming aroused by the prospect of being ministered to in Paradise.

This was her opportunity. When planning her mission, it had struck Dawn that the easiest way to reach the COBRA spaceship was possess one of the church members and so partake in the rapture. But that seemed a risky thing to do, as she would have to arouse someone to possess them, and that would surely give away her presence. Not only that, she would only be possessing her victim's body, not his spirit, and it was the spirit that ascended to the ship.

But whatever alien spirits were residing in these leaders, they would surely continue to possess them after they entered the disembodied state. How else could they be transformed into the golden angels that Dr Song had talked about? If those spirits could get to that ship, then she could too.

Dawn didn't hesitate. Flapping her wings, she thrust herself into the air and swooped between the cathedral walls, heading straight for the golden altar with the flame leaping high above it. She felt the woman's sudden alarm as she sensed her presence, but by then she was dropping into the altar and it was too late. The altar embraced her, there was a flicker of blackness and a sense of oneness with the universe, and then she found herself in control of the woman's body. There was a moment of dizziness, but fortunately the woman was seated, and Dawn was able to steady her new body by grabbing the back of the seat in front.

Glancing at her flawless hands, she realised that she must have taken over a teenage girl. Sitting next to her was another girl, who nudged her and gave her a knowing look.

"Are those guys giving you the hots, too?" the girl whispered. "I can't wait to get up there!"

"I do feel hot," Dawn whispered back. "I intend to set them on fire."

The girl smirked. "You've got it the wrong way round. We're the ones who'll be set on fire!"

"Not this time," Dawn murmured.

The man behind the lectern was speaking. "We'll get straight down to business," he announced. "Our ushers will pass the communion cups along the rows. Remember not to drink of your cup until I give the word, and then drink all of it. It'll take just a few minutes to enter your bloodstream, and then we'll all rise up together. Please relax into your seats after drinking it, and remember that the ushers will remain to watch over your bodies, together with their spirit helpers. Now, please lock the doors and pass round the cups."

About 20 ushers, men and women, handed trays containing glasses of a red liquid to each row, and these were passed quickly along, each person taking a cup. Other ushers passed similar trays among the leaders, who all sat down. The job was soon done, and then the man at the lectern sat down and said in a solemn voice, "Now! Everyone drink of the cup!"

He raised his glass and drank, and everyone in the congregation did the same. The liquid had been flavoured to taste like sweet wine, and flowed easily down Dawn's throat. She relaxed into her chair, and after about a minute her vision started to blur and her eyelids felt heavy. Slowly her eyes closed, then suddenly she was rising out her body, and the girl's own spirit was rising with her.

For a moment they floated together above the girl's body, which appeared blurred and hazy, as did everything in the auditorium. The girl had her back to her, and Dawn immediately threw arms about the girl's spirit waist and held her tightly against her. If the girl couldn't see her, then she wouldn't be able to identify her when all of this was over. More importantly, if Dawn was to be caught up with this girl and transported to the COBRA ship in the sky, then she needed to cling on to her for dear life.

The girl twisted and struggled, lashing out with her hands and her feet, desperate to break free. She would have succeeded had not Dawn transformed herself into a dragon and encased her in limbs of steel.

The girl twisted her head and gaped in horror at her monstrous captor, then started struggling even more desperately. All of a sudden something seemed to snap inside the girl, she gave an agonised gasp, and suddenly she was no longer struggling. She couldn't have broken a bone, surely, for spirits didn't have physical bones that could be broken. It was very odd, but for some reason all the fight had gone out of her. Dawn was too relieved to wonder what had happened, and, still holding the girl tightly, turned herself back into her human form.

Across the auditorium, hundreds of other spirits were now rising up from their sleeping bodies. Dawn glanced around in alarm, thinking that some of them must have witnessed her momentary transformation into a dragon. But no one was paying the slightest attention to her, and she relaxed.

"It's OK, it's OK," she whispered to the girl, who still had her back to her. "I'm not going to harm you. I just want to hitch a ride to Paradise."

The girl nodded in silent acquiescence, and let her captor continue to cling on to her. Dawn wondered about the spirits that it was claimed filled the leaders – were they now gripping them as she was this girl? She twisted her head to face the front of the auditorium, to see what was happening there.

To her astonishment, her view of the stage and the leaders was blocked by a large golden wall that had suddenly appeared, cutting off the congregation from the leaders. It was a neurospace object, for it was bright and solid, and it meant that whatever was happening to the leaders and their spirits was completely hidden from everyone else.

Four more golden walls sprang up to each side of the congregation, completely enclosing it and blocking out the physical walls of the auditorium. Glancing upwards, she saw that these five neurospace walls arched inwards to form a domed pentagonal structure similar to the temple of Eden. Like that temple, this was a mental construct, the product of the combined imagination of its inhabitants. Dawn supposed that the course of hypnosis that was required of all COBRA members included training on conjuring up this imagery.

Dawn gazed around in puzzlement, at a loss to understand the purpose of this golden structure. Its similarity to the Eden temple suggested that it had some religious significance or function, and this was confirmed as details of the decorations on the walls solidified before her eyes. Crosses and other Christian symbols appeared as well as signs of the zodiac and pictures of angels and other creatures that she didn't recognise.

By now the temple was becoming quite crowded as more and more spirits emerged from the sleeping bodies. Several spirits jostled against her, but none paid her any attention, despite the fact that she was clinging like a limpet to the girl, which must have looked a little strange.

Suddenly there was a sound like the blast of trumpet, and everyone around her gulped in air and held their noses. It was as if they were about to jump into a swimming pool. Even the girl, who was otherwise completely listless, raised her hand to her nose. Dawn thought she should do the same, though that meant she had to cling on to the girl with only one arm instead of two.

Suddenly there was an upward pressure on the girl, and Dawn almost let her slip from her grasp. Desperately clinging on with her free arm, she suddenly found herself in the blackness of space with the Milky Way stretched out fuzzily before her, and off to one side the intensely bright but blurred disc of the sun. This was why everyone had to hold their noses, Dawn realised, else they would die in the vacuum.

Up ahead a golden disc emerged out of the blackness, growing quickly larger to become an enormous flying saucer. An opening appeared in its base, and then she and the girl and the whole congregation were inside an enormous airlock and a great door was sliding shut behind them.

There was a loud hissing as air rushed into the airlock, some lights came on, and Dawn looked around at her cavernous surroundings and the people pressed against her. There must have been thousands crammed in this huge airlock, she supposed. They had stopped holding their noses and were now sucking in the thin air, and Dawn couldn't help wondering why disembodied spirits needed air to survive. It was most odd, for they didn't need oxygen to metabolise food or any other physical processes – their physical bodies, back in the auditorium, were looking after that side of things. Then she reflected that she needed to gulp in air when she was a dragon in order to fan the flames of her fire, so oxygen clearly served some function in the spirit world.

As she gazed around and listened to the noise of the air filling the airlock, it struck her that this cavernous structure was very similar to the golden temple that had formed in the auditorium back on Earth. It too was pentagonal, and the only difference that she could see was the decorations on the walls. They were no longer religious symbols and pictures, instead they depicted giant wasp-like creatures performing strange rituals. Were these aliens from another world? It seemed likely that they were, for they resembled nothing from human mythology. And if they were from another world, then could they be the creatures that had built this flying saucer?

Most mystifying of all, though, was the extraordinary rapture experience. The entire congregation had crossed many thousands of miles of space – perhaps millions of miles – in literally the twinkling of an eye. It really was amazing. It was as if this temple and its twin back in the auditorium in London were like those hyperspace portals beloved of science fiction writers, allowing almost instantaneous travel between two widely separated locations.

The more she thought about it, the more she felt sure that this must be the explanation. But how on earth could COBRA have acquired such a technology? A flying saucer with a hyperspace portal could not possibly be the product of human minds. It was amazing enough that COBRA had developed the drugs and techniques for communal out-of-body experiences, let alone this. There must have been some alien input, presumably from those wasp-like creatures depicted on the walls.

Dawn's train of thought was interrupted by the sound of whirring machinery, and one of the golden walls slid aside. She caught a glimpse of the vast, brightly lit interior of the spaceship, and then the mass of people was shuffling forward and spilling through the opening into the light. Dawn released the girl, who still had her back to her, intending to disappear into the crowd, but to her dismay the girl immediately twisted round and managed to sneak a glance at her face before Dawn could turn away. She could only hope that this brief glimpse would not result in her eventual unmasking.

The interior of the flying saucer, when she reached it, was astonishing. She was at the rim of a vast hemisphere which must have been more than a kilometre across. The highest point of the huge domed roof was hundreds of metres above her, and the surface of the dome shone with an inner light that illuminated the entire ship. Everything about her was bright and colourful, there was no hint of any ghostly fuzziness, which meant that there was nothing physical here. This spaceship was entirely a neurospace artefact.

Dawn could see why these people called this place Paradise, for it was a veritable Garden of Eden. Extending before her over the entire interior of the ship was a manicured park, with grassy banks and clusters of trees and shrubs and colourful flowerbeds and a stream meandering through it, together with many paths leading through the shrubbery to numerous pagodas and other small buildings. A couple of hundred metres away, directly in front of her, was a lake with fountains, and beyond that, in the middle of the ship, was a large five-sided golden temple, again resembling the temple in the dolphin Eden. Unlike that temple, however, it had an oriental-style overhanging roof supported by pillars, and although she was too far away to make out any details, it seemed to be adorned with carvings of those wasp-like creatures. It opened onto a wide forecourt lined with flowering shrubs.

In contrast to the alien carvings and decorations that she had seen in the airlock and on the temple in the middle of the ship, the tranquil scene before her was entirely of Earth, and she supposed that at least this part of the giant neurospace structure was the product of human minds.

Along with the rest of the vast congregation, Dawn was not standing in the garden itself but was gazing at it from behind the glass wall of a wide enclosure that extended almost a quarter of the way around the rim of the ship. This wall of glass extended from the floor up to the domed roof, separating the congregation from the park beyond.

Turning her attention to the enclosure itself, where she was standing, Dawn was reminded of the first-class lounge of an airport, though it was much larger and instead of chairs there were rows of king-size couches, extending as far as she could see, each one covered with red velvet and decorated with gold braid. Underfoot was a vast expanse of deep-pile pink carpet, and there were potted plants growing from large tubs dotted along the curved outer wall. This was five-star luxury on a gargantuan scale.

As she gazed around, it suddenly struck her that gravity here felt exactly like gravity on Earth. She'd never thought about it before, but it occurred to her that spirits, being non-physical and without mass, shouldn't really experience gravity at all, and she wondered what Einstein would make of it. It could only be that some neurospace analogue of gravity operated, connecting neurospace objects with their surroundings. If it was possible to create a structure like this through the power of imagination alone, it should certainly be possible to create a gravitational field as well. It was, she supposed, a warping of the fabric of neurospace, just as real-world gravity was a warping of physical space.

These musings were interrupted by the abrupt realisation that she was the only one left standing. The rest were hurrying to the couches and preparing for what was to happen next. The idea seemed to be that once you had bagged a couch you opened the drawer at its base and selected an appropriate garment to wear: all around her people were undressing and donning these garments.

The women's attire was diaphanous and very low-cut, while the men were putting on short tunics. Dawn watched the women adjust their garments and then recline on their couches in seductive poses, and it struck her that this was like a scene from a Roman orgy. What a grotesque parody of Paradise this is, she thought.

Spotting a vacant couch, Dawn hurried over to it and opened the drawer and pulled out the white diaphanous garment. Trying to ignore the others round about, she hastily removed her clothes and started to pull the thin silky material over her head.

To her consternation, several whoops and then a great cheer went up, and she grabbed the hem of the garment and frantically pulled it down to cover her nakedness. But, to her relief, no one was cheering her, they were all gazing through the glass at the temple in the middle of the ship, and some of the people were even leaving their couches and hurrying to the glass for a better look. What on earth could be going on? She climbed onto her couch to see what was happening.

Angels! Dozens of golden angels were streaming out of the temple, their bronzed limbs gleaming under the bright lights. They too were scantily clad in white garments, with what looked like wings folded across their backs. She watched transfixed as more and more angels emerged, until they filled the temple forecourt. There were several hundred of them, men and women, and they had to be the church leaders. They must have travelled separately to the ship, and the temple from which they were emerging was another portal.

When they had all assembled, there was a loud trumpet blast, and one of their number stepped onto a small raised platform at the edge of the forecourt and started to address them. She couldn't hear what he was saying, and she couldn't make out his features, but he was obviously in charge, and she supposed he was the same man who had addressed the congregation back in the auditorium.

He finished his short speech, the other angels clapped, and then there was another trumpet blast and they all set off, marching behind him in procession. They were following the broad track that meandered through the park towards the glassed enclosure and the assembled congregation. Here, people were murmuring with excitement, and those who had crowded to the glass were returning to their couches. The great celebration was about to begin.

Dawn glanced around uncertainly. She could easily turn herself into a dragon and go on the rampage and kill thousands of people, but nothing that she had seen so far could possibly justify such extreme measures. She had no qualms at all about destroying demons, but humans were different. The thought of killing all these people gave her no pleasure at all. Although they were terribly misguided, most of them were not evil. Certainly she'd had no sense of evil when she'd invaded that girl. Her best course of action, she decided, was to join a group that had remained standing near the glass and see how things developed. She climbed off her couch walked over to them.

"Look how many there are now," one woman was saying. "The church is growing so fast! It's amazing."

"They say our people are in key positions everywhere," another woman replied. "Nothing can stop us now."

"Yeah, and we're next in line for leadership," the man next to her grunted, gesturing to indicate the whole group. "Then we can fuck the whole damn planet!" Everyone laughed at that.

The procession of angels was now only a couple of hundred metres away, and Dawn could make out their features. Here the track was winding around the lake, so that she had a sideways view of their wings, and she saw that they were covered with white feathers. And then she saw something else, something that filled her with dread.

Horns! These angels had horns! Each had a single horn sticking out from the middle of their forehead. They were long and sharp, and they looked exactly like the horns of demons. These angels are chimera, she thought, part human and part demon. The leaders of COBRA, having given themselves up to demonic forces on earth, become amalgamated with their demons here. Just as she had managed to hold on to that girl, so these demons had managed to hold on to their hosts during the rapture, and had so infected their minds that they were able to share the same spirit body here.

She stared in dismay at the army of chimera approaching the lounge. There were hundreds of them, and for all she knew there might be more waiting inside that temple. She was hopelessly outnumbered. Her fire would be exhausted before she'd killed even a fraction of that number, and then the rest would cut her to ribbons with those horns.

But destroy them she must. She no longer doubted that COBRA with its alien spaceship was energised by demons and a threat to Earth. She felt her heart pounding in her physical body as she watched the golden procession draw nearer. What could she do to defeat them? Would she ever leave this place alive? She was trapped on this ship, just like that UN spy had been.

What fate had that spy suffered when her cover was blown? They probably threw her out of the airlock into the vacuum of space. Dawn pictured the poor woman gasping for breath with her lungs bursting. And then, as the grizzly scene flashed across her imagination, it came to her what she should do.

She glanced left and right, looking for a door in the glass wall. She couldn't see one, but she could see where the broad track was leading and guessed that there must be some kind of entrance there. She walked briskly along the inside of the wall towards it, and sure enough there was a large glass door with a red button at its side. Quite a few people were gathering in that area, waiting for the angels to arrive, and they watched her curiously as she walked up to the door. She kept her face turned towards the glass, hoping that none of them would be able to identify her later.

"Can't you wait?" a woman called out as she pressed the red button. "You're not allowed out there yet. They'll excommunicate you – or worse!"

The door slid open and Dawn stepped through it onto the grass. She heard the door slide shut behind her, and now she was alone with the procession of angels. The head of the procession was about 50 metres away to her left, so she ran off away from them, over the grass towards a cluster of trees. They couldn't fail to see her, of course, and someone yelled out to her.

"You there! Where the hell d'you think you're going?"

She slowed to a halt and turned round. The procession had stopped, and the angel leading it was standing with his hands on his hips. She could make out his face clearly, and he was indeed the man who had addressed the congregation in the auditorium.

"Get back inside!" he barked. "Now!"

"I've got a little surprise for you," she called back. "Watch!"

"For chrissake! Get back inside, I said!"

Dawn ignored him and broke into a run. Glancing back, she saw the man give a signal, and some of the angels broke ranks and started to chase after her. A couple of them even took to the air, their wings flapping noisily, but their human bodies were not designed for flying and they couldn't travel any faster than those running over the grass.

If the demons inhabiting them had chosen to separate themselves from their hosts it would be different story. They would be on her in seconds, cutting her to pieces with their horns. But she was gambling that they would not risk revealing their true identity to all the members of the congregation watching from the lounge. It could destroy the church, and a solitary girl indulging in a futile act of rebellion would not be worth the risk.

She reached the cover of the trees and ran through them to a small clearing. Panting, she collapsed onto the ground, closed her eyes, and visualised herself as a dragon. There was a brief spasm of pain as her body twisted and stretched itself into its new shape, and then she was gulping in air to ignite her fires while at the same time launching herself into the air. Flapping of wings, she rose above the trees, just as her pursuers reached them.

They halted in their tracks and stared up at her in astonishment. She didn't attack them, instead she drove herself upwards, towards the domed roof of the ship. One of the angels cried out in pain and fell to the ground, and glancing back she saw that his wings had shrivelled and that the horn in his forehead had turned silver, and then it was attached not to his forehead but to a silver disc that was emerging from his head.

His possessing demon was leaving him! It had recognised her for what she was and was prepared to reveal itself to destroy her. The demon floated above the man's writhing body for a moment, and then its wings whirred furiously and it came hurtling towards her, its horn aimed directly at her belly. Fire exploded up her throat, she aimed her jaws at the creature, and moments later its incandescent remains were spinning to the ground.

Now more of the angels were screaming out in pain, and she knew that more demons would soon be hurtling at her. She didn't have much time, but she had reached the ship's roof and now she was directing her fire at it. To her rear she heard the furious whirring of wings, but they were too late. The roof was already ablaze, its inner surface was peeling away, and now the outer skin was glowing bright red. She held her fire, and at once the outer skin exploded outwards and then air was rushing past her into the blackness of space beyond.

She held her fire for a few seconds more, directing it at the edge of the gaping aperture, and then the wall of the ship buckled and split wide open and the rush of air was so great that she had to brace her legs against the twisted metal to keep herself from being blown into space.

There was a stab of intense pain in her side, and her whole body jerked, almost throwing her off-balance. Righting herself, she whipped her head round, and saw that a silver demon had buried its horn in one of her scales, shattering it. She snarled, and fire burst from her jaws and wrapped itself around the creature. There was a howl of agony and a puff of acrid black smoke, then all that was left of the thing was the stub of its horn protruding from her side. She grabbed the stub with her teeth and yanked it hard. The pain shrieked through her, but the horn came out, to be caught by the wind and sent spinning through the jagged hole into the void beyond. Blood spilled from the wound, and it too was caught by the wind and swept away into space.

The air was noticeably thinner now, and alarms were sounding throughout the ship. Thinner air might compromise her ability to produce fire, and she glanced around anxiously, afraid that more demons might be coming at her and that she would be unable to defend herself. But what met her eyes was a scene of utter panic. Angels were rushing over the grass towards the enclosure, and some had already reached it and were banging on the glass wall and the door in a desperate attempt to get in. The door refused to budge, and Dawn supposed that an automatic emergency system had locked it to prevent air escaping from the enclosure. That meant that the ordinary COBRA members were safe behind the glass, at least for the moment.

Many of the angels were now collapsing and writhing on the ground, gasping for air, and everywhere demons were emerging out of their skulls. They hopped around by their human hosts like demented frogs, evidently unable to fly in the thin atmosphere and as desperate as their human hosts for oxygen. Even demons abhorred a vacuum, it seemed.

As for Dawn, her dragon body seemed to be entirely unaffected by the lack of air. This puzzled her, and the explanation only came to her later. It was because she, alone among the spirits gathered here, possessed blood – spirit blood. Not only did that mysterious substance transport energy from her physical body to feed her fire, it fed her sufficient oxygen to sustain her.

Unaware of this aspect of dragon physiology, she played safe by gulping in as much of the thin air as she could and then transformed herself back into her human form and then promptly enclosed herself in her red VW Beetle. Now she could no longer feel any pain from that stab wound, and when she looked down at herself there was no sign of any blood seeping onto her clothes. That, of course, was because, unlike her dragon body, her human spirit body didn't have blood. Just like all the other spirits here.

It also meant that her human spirit would die in the vacuum of space. For the moment, though, she was safe inside her VW Beetle, and now her only question was, would this machine be able to fly in a vacuum?

She thought it would. She was convinced that the Rolls Royce jet engine in her rear, belching fire and hot gases, utilized her dragon nature. Certainly it wasn't powered by aviation fuel, and the only alternative that she could think of was that dragon blood flowed through it, feeding it with energy from her sleeping body. She realised later that it was also this blood, flowing through a converter in the engine, that was replenishing the oxygen in her cabin.

The alarms were no longer sounding, and Dawn guessed that there was now too little air to carry the sound. So would her car really be able to fly in a vacuum? Settling into the driving seat, and with her heart in her mouth, she turned the ignition key. To her great relief, the jet engine roared into life, billowing black smoke and fire. Releasing the handbrake, she spun the steering wheel and gently pressed the accelerator pedal, and the car responded perfectly. Taking her foot off the accelerator, she glided high above the idyllic parkland.

Above her, the domed roof of the ship was still shining with its internal light, as though nothing was amiss, and below her the grass and the shrubs and the flowers were still full of colour. But that was the only sign of normality, for scattered over the grass and the glass window of the lounge were hundreds of gold and silver bodies, and although many were still twitching most were motionless.

As she watched, one of the golden bodies suddenly vanished, and then another, and moments later dozens more disappeared. They had ceased to exist in the neurospace universe. Perhaps they had been obliterated, or perhaps they had departed to some kind of afterlife. But whatever their ultimate fate, they were disappearing fast, and in a little while only the motionless bodies of the silver demons remained. Unlike the humans, they were denizens of neurospace, and their bodies survived even death.

With a light touch on the accelerator pedal, Dawn allowed her Beetle to circle above the park and the temple. Now nothing moved below. Flying past the lounge, she saw through the glass the frightened faces of the people crowded in there, staring out at her. Evidently the air within the lounge was not escaping, or only very slowly, so they would survive.

She felt hugely pleased with herself. She had accomplished everything she had wanted, and the great mass of innocent – or largely innocent – people were safe. And now, thankfully, she could depart. Steering her car to the gaping hole in the roof, she managed after some reversing and wheel-twisting to manoeuvre it through. The trouble was her wings stuck out quite far, and the gap was only just large enough, and she wasn't used to having to steer her Beetle with such precision. If this had been a real-world object she could have flown straight through it, of course. However, she was eventually through and speeding out into the blackness of space.

The golden expanse of the huge flying saucer filled her rear-view mirror. As she watched it shrink to a disc behind her, it struck her that it was shining not with the reflected light of the sun, which was off to one side, but with its own illumination. She was reminded of the temple in Eden, which glowed with an inner light in the early dawn, except that this was a brighter, harsher light.

The earth, which had been hidden behind the gleaming saucer, swung into view. Unlike the ship, this had a ghostly, washed-out appearance, but she could make out the blueness of sea and the darker colours of some of the continents. Part of it was in darkness, and here she could make out fuzzy splotches of light from the large centres of population. But it was too indistinct to identify what part of the planet she was looking at or where the South Pacific and the Solomon Islands were located. Since she had travelled straight up to the ship from London less than an hour ago, she supposed the Pacific must be on the opposite side of the globe.

She swung her car round in a wide arc to head for Earth. As she sped past the ship, she noted its high domed roof and its flattened base, and the jagged rupture that she had made in its smooth surface was clearly visible. Studying it, she had no doubt that it must have been fashioned by aliens from another world, and she wondered if any more of their vessels were circling the planet. No physical telescope would be able to see them, and to try to search for them in the vastness of neurospace would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But whether there was one ship or many, all those tales of alien abductions and flying saucers must have had their origins here.

She wondered what would become of this ship when all the people in the lounge awoke from their trance. They would find themselves back in their bodies on Earth, and the ship would be left empty. It was a purely mental construction, just like the dolphins' Eden, so what would happen to it when there were no minds left inside to sustain it? Would it wink out of existence? She was tempted to hang around to see.

And then it occurred to her that it could be an hour or more before the effects of the rapture drug wore off and the people started to wake up, and in the meantime air could be seeping out of the lounge and many of them might die. The most humane thing to do, she decided, was to fly back to the auditorium as quickly as possible and get the ushers to wake everyone up early.

And so she hit the accelerator and turned her car towards Earth. She held her foot hard down, and soon the planet was growing visibly larger. Now she could make out the fuzzy shape of Europe, and then the British Isles, and then she was diving towards a huge bank of clouds hanging over southeast England.

"Central London, Trafalgar Square," she told her satnav. The steering wheel twisted and yanked beneath her grasp, and the car changed course and drove through the clouds. Half a minute later she was through the clouds and skidding to a halt in the air just a few hundred metres from Nelson's Column and not far from the conference centre. On this occasion the device had worked almost perfectly.

Transforming herself into a dragon once more, she flew through the roof of the centre and into the auditorium. The scene below was one of complete tranquillity, with everyone slumped in their seats and a few ushers lounging around at the sides. The neurospace temple that had been here before had disappeared; she had expected that, for there were no longer any spirit minds here to sustain it.

She paused for a moment, testing the atmosphere for any sense of a demonic presence. There was none, and so without more ado she flew straight down and into the head of one of the sleeping bodies. The cathedral of that individual's mind rose up around her, lit dimly by the flickering flame above the altar at the end of the nave. But it was enough to see by, and in moments she was descending onto the altar and engulfed in a sense of oneness. And then she was inhabiting a man's body, and she was feeling very drowsy.

She forced her eyes open and shook her head vigorously to clear it. The grogginess receded slightly, and she managed to push herself up from her seat. She looked around and spotted a group of ushers lounging against the wall near the front of the auditorium. "There's been a disaster," she called out to them hoarsely. "The ship's been attacked! You've got to wake everyone!"

"For God's sake, keep your voice down," one of them called back. "You'll wake everyone up."

"We've got to wake them, people are dying up there!"

"You're crazy, something's gone wrong with your trance. Now shut up!"

"People are dying, I tell you," she yelled, shaking the sleeping woman in the seat to her left. "A rocket ship is attacking us!"

The woman didn't immediately respond, and Dawn shook her more violently. Suddenly she awoke and started screaming. Dawn immediately turned to the man on her right and shook him awake too. He opened his eyes blearily, stared at her, then cried out, "They're dead! Oh God, they're all dead!"

"Wake everyone up!" Dawn yelled at him, shaking him hard. Then she turned to the screaming woman and slapped her across the face. The woman stopped screaming and stared dumbly up at her.

"Pull yourself together," Dawn hissed. "Get everyone awake. It's their only chance!"

The woman blinked, and then she seemed to come to her senses, for she turned to the woman next to her and started shaking her. The ushers had now become very agitated, and several of them were trying to wake up one of the leaders at the front. "Don't bother with them," Dawn called out. "They're all dead!"

They stared at her, aghast. But instead of rushing to help wake up the ordinary members they turned back to the leaders and tried to shake others awake. Meanwhile Dawn's small group of helpers were shaking more and more people awake, and soon there were more than 30 at work. They were in a state of shock, and some were sobbing, but they all joined in the task of trying to shake awake everyone around them.

Dawn felt someone shaking her shoulders. She turned, but to her surprise there was no one there. Mystified, she tried to push the invisible hands away, but the shaking grew stronger, and she realised that the owner of this body that she'd hijacked must be waking up too and was trying to regain control. Since there was nothing more that she could do, she didn't resist his pressure, and suddenly she found herself back in the cathedral of the man's mind, standing in front of the golden altar. Now the stained-glass window was alight, and she saw that he was looking around at the people around him desperately trying to get everyone awake.

Her mission accomplished, it was now time to leave. Closing her eyes, she dismissed the cathedral imagery from her mind and flew up through the cathedral roof into the sky above the conference centre, and moments later she was in her red Beetle and hurtling southwest over the Atlantic Ocean back towards her sleeping body. It would be bedtime back home.

She had wondered about returning to that spaceship to see what had happened to it after the last person left, but this was merely idle curiosity and in any case she would never find it again in the vastness of space. Besides, she was feeling greatly exhilarated by her great success, and she fancied a large portion of that sticky toffee pudding that she'd left in the fridge and a glass of sweet wine to celebrate. The resulting sugar rush should revive her flagging fires quite nicely, and then she would give Rick one of her red-hot goodnight kisses. It would be a fitting climax to a glorious day.

## Fourteen

"Australia, Adelaide, Royal Adelaide Hospital." Dawn spoke these instructions into the satnav on the dashboard. What dangers awaited her there, she wondered?

This mission was an indirect consequence of her epic journey to London and the spaceship called Paradise, four years earlier, and visions of that army of golden angels and silver demons sprang into her mind. This would be a piece of cake in comparison, for it was just an errand of mercy, though she had reason to believe that dark forces were behind that call for help.

Her mighty vehicle banked and roared south over the Pacific, and in less than five minutes she had crossed a thousand miles of ocean and a thousand miles of Australia and was shuddering to a halt above Adelaide. She tilted the car to check the cityscape below through the windscreen, and there was the hospital, not half a mile away. She recognised it from the aerial photograph on the internet.

She had come to visit a comatose patient, one Angela Lane. Angela had been in a coma for four years, and today her life-support system was to be turned off. Although there was almost certainly nothing that could be done to restore Angela's consciousness and so save her life, Dawn felt that she should at least try. For she had inadvertently caused Angela's condition.

She had first heard about Angela Lane two months previously, from one of Rick's cousins. Dawn had met Karen only briefly 12 years before, shortly after she and Rick had married, but out of the blue they had received an email from her to say she was visiting the Solomons for a short holiday and could she stay with them. Rick had of course agreed, and they had spent a few hectic days showing Karen the sights and trying to entertain her. It should have been easy, for Karen was 30, the same age as Dawn, but things had been quite awkward between them.

Part of the problem was the climate. Karen couldn't stand the sticky heat, preferring to spend her time in the air-conditioned house or the car rather than on one of the pretty beaches or visiting a village in the bush. Another problem was shopping, which seemed to be her favourite hobby, and Honiara wasn't a retail paradise. But the main difficulty was that she and Dawn had very little in common. Dawn was into psychology and biology and was very taken up with her dolphins, whereas Karen had zero interest in such things. She was taken up with fashion, working as she did for the marketing department of a large fashion chain.

The day after she arrived Dawn had taken her to visit the huge artificial lagoon at Crocodile Bay, a few miles along the coast from Honiara, where the GM dolphins lived. These creatures could perform the most amazing stunts, and although they couldn't talk they understood a vast range of commands, and most people found them enthralling and were more than happy to spend the best part of a day at the site, playing with them and learning about the project at the visitor centre. Karen watched them silently for a while, standing well back to avoid getting her expensive outfit splashed, and then complained of the heat and suggested they visit the air-conditioned cafeteria. By the end of the next day Dawn was wondering what on earth had brought her to this remote tropical island.

She had her first clue over dinner that evening. During a pause in the conversation Karen had casually mentioned Angela Lane.

"You might be interested in her, Dawn. She belonged to COBRA."

Dawn gave her a wary glance then carried on eating. No one knew that she had been responsible for the destruction of the Church of the Rapture – apart from Rick and Donna and Dr Song at the UN – and she wanted it to remain that way. There had been a media storm after the mysterious deaths of all the church leaders, but no one had ever been able to properly explain it, and although the ordinary church members had described an attack by a small red rocket ship spitting fire, no one had ever linked that to her.

"Angela was only 18 at the time," Karen continued. "I was eight years older, but I knew her. She went to London to attend that big COBRA meeting, the one where so many church people died, and she had been really excited about it. She must have been one of the youngest members."

"I suppose she must," Dawn murmured. "Did she die too?"

"Not exactly. Her body is alive, but she never awoke from her rapture. It seems she never left that ship."

"That's odd," Rick exclaimed. "I thought all the ordinary members returned to their bodies."

"Apparently Angela didn't. There was hardly any mention of it at the time, what with all the fuss about all the leaders dying, but her unconscious body had to be flown back to Australia, and she's been in hospital ever since. I read an article about her in the local paper. It said something about her spirit being trapped in neurospace. Apparently it's well known among shamen that people on spirit journeys can get cut off from their body, and I suppose that's what happened to Angela."

She raised her immaculate eyebrows and shot a glance at Dawn. "What do you think, Dawn? You know all about that kind of thing. I gather you've often been on spirit journeys with those dolphins of yours."

Dawn stared back at her, momentarily lost for words. She'd also read about spirits being cut off from their bodies and getting hopelessly lost in the spirit world, and her mind shot back to that moment when she'd struggled with that girl at the moment of rapture during the COBRA meeting and felt something snap. It must have been the girl's connection to her body. That girl was Angela!

Dawn pictured her trapped alone on that ship, after the last COBRA members had left. What on earth could have become of her? Perhaps she was still there, four years later. The thought filled her with dismay.

"So what do you think, Dawn? Do you think she's still trapped up there?" Karen was watching her closely, and Dawn knew then that there was more to Karen's visit than met the eye. She wasn't on holiday at all, she had come here with a hidden agenda. She – or whoever had sent her here – had somehow linked Angela's misfortune to Dawn.

They could only have done that if they had been in contact with Angela's spirit. Someone must have visited that ship after everyone else had left and had found her there. Perhaps it was one of the church leaders. There had been hundreds of them, and not all of them would have been present at that rapture meeting. It was more than likely that one or two had been unable to attend, perhaps through illness. If so, they would certainly want to visit it to find out what happened, and all they had to do was to take a glass of that communion drug. And once they found Angela and learned what had happened to her, it wouldn't take them long to realise that her captor had been Dawn. Angela had even caught a glimpse of her face.

"I suppose Angela must somehow have got cut off from her body," Dawn murmured, resuming her eating. "Though it seems amazing that she's been cut off for four years. I suppose she's still on that ship. I'm surprised no one's found her, though. A few of the COBRA members must have tried to go there afterwards. Certainly a leader must have tried. They can't all have been killed. I reckon Angela's spirit is being held captive somewhere."

It was a long shot, but Karen gasped and blinked with surprise. Dawn's deductions had been spot on. The implications were shocking. Angela was not only being held captive in neurospace, but Karen knew Angela's captor, and now she had come here to lay some devilish trap. And she was Rick's cousin!

Karen had recovered her poise and was helping herself to more vegetables. "It sounds very weird to me," she said nonchalantly. "Keeping an 18-year-old girl trapped in neurospace – what would be the point?"

"I really have no idea. They must be using her for something, though."

"Well, whatever, it's a great tragedy," Karen replied. "Angela's mother died a few years earlier in a car accident. I know her father, Mort Lane. Angela was their only child, she's all he's got."

Karen paused for effect, then added: "But now after four years he's finally given up. He's requested that the life-support system be turned off. She'll be allowed to die."

She gazed at Dawn, and her eyes didn't flicker. "It's a terrible tragedy," she repeated.

Dawn stared back, startled. She wants me to save Angela's life! That's why she's here. She knows I'll try. But it's got to be some kind of trap. Perhaps the remaining COBRA leaders have set up another evil organization, and she's part of it, and they want to get rid of me.

"I brought some newspaper cuttings along, in case you're interested," Karen continued, "and there's stuff on the internet about Angela. Not that you or anyone else can do anything to help."

"I suppose not," Dawn agreed. "But I'll read the cuttings anyway."

The newspaper articles added little of substance to what Karen had already told her. Rick read them too, but he and Dawn were careful not to discuss the matter until after Karen had departed, a couple of days later, and after Dawn had painstakingly gone over the house and their clothes and even their bodies with the bug-detection device that Dr Song had given her.

"We're clean," she announced. "I've checked everything. Karen hasn't planted anything."

"That's a relief," Rick said, grabbing her and pulling her onto his lap. "We can start misbehaving again."

"This is serious, my darling. She knows I destroyed that spaceship. And that means she knows something about my powers."

"How can you be so sure? She's friendly with Angela's father, and Angela herself was a childhood friend, so perhaps she's genuinely upset and just wanted a bit of sympathy."

"Not a bit of it," Dawn replied firmly. "She wouldn't have bothered to bring along those newspaper cuttings if all she wanted was sympathy. It's some kind of trap."

"Perhaps you should get Dr Song to check up on her. A few discreet inquiries by the Australian secret service might throw up something."

"Good idea. And in the meantime I'll try to locate that spaceship in case Angela's still on it. I suppose it's still floating somewhere above the earth."

He laughed. "Space is pretty big, you know. You'll never find it."

And so it proved. During the next few weeks Dawn flew into space on a number of occasions, circling the earth in different orbits and even travelling out as far as the moon. She came across quite a few artificial satellites gleaming hazily in the sunlight, but nothing with the sharp, clear outlines of a neurospace object, and in the end she gave up. She consoled herself with the thought that the ship had probably ceased to exist because there were no more minds on board.

And then yesterday she had heard from Karen again. It had been a phone call to say that permission to withdraw life-support from Angela's body had been granted. Karen said she would be attending a farewell ceremony on the ward today, and that when the ceremony was over a switch would be thrown and shortly after that Angela would be dead.

The news had galvanized Dawn into making one final effort. She had decided to make a trip to that ward and enter Angela's brain-dead mind, in the hope that she might be able to do something to restore its connection to Angela's spirit. What she was attempting was almost certainly impossible, and she was probably rushing headlong into some kind of trap, but she would never be able to live with herself afterwards if she didn't at least try.

And so she had called the hospital to find out the name of the ward, and a map of the hospital on the internet had allowed her to pinpoint its location. Now, as she circled slowly above the blurred outline of the hospital in her Beetle, she was able to pick it out. It lay at the north-east corner of the complex.

Closing her eyes, she dismissed the car imagery and visualized herself as a dragon instead. There was the usual brief spasm of pain, and then she was flapping her wings and diving down to the ward. Karen had told her that there would be some kind of farewell ceremony at Angela's bedside, and she quickly found a room off the main ward with around 20 people crowded around a bed. Although her perceptions of the real world were blurred, sound as well as vision, she could tell that they were singing a hymn.

At the head of the bed was a bank of medical equipment, and although Dawn was unable to discern any details she could make out the tubes linking it to the body lying on the bed. This had to be Angela, and they were probably singing a final dirge before throwing that switch. There was clearly no time to lose, and Dawn dived straight into her head.

There was a momentary feeling of swimming in black goo, and then the cathedral of Angela's mind formed around her, though it was so dark that she could barely see anything. The sound of the hymn was clear enough, however, and the words reverberated around the cathedral: the small congregation was singing _Abide with Me_.

Dawn looked around cautiously, fearing some kind of trap, but the place was deserted. All she could make out in the gloom were the dark doorways spaced out along the walls of the nave, leading to Angela's memories, and the low flight of stairs at the end leading to the grey shape of the altar. Above it was the only source of light, a faintly glowing large rectangle of pink set in the far wall. This was the stained-glass window showing the view of the world through Angela's physical eyes, and it looked like that because Angela was in a coma and those eyes were closed.

There was no flickering flame above the altar, for Angela's consciousness was elsewhere. So how to restore the connection between her body and her spirit so that the flame would flicker into life and she would wake up? Dawn stared despairingly around in the darkness, at a loss to know how to proceed.

Perhaps she should start with those black doorways spaced along the walls of the nave, leading to Angela's memories – or rather her memories up to the day of the great rapture. There would be nothing beyond that date, Dawn supposed, for her spirit had lost its connection with her brain, but there might be some clue there.

She hurried through the darkness to the nearest door, her claws clanking on the hard floor. To her surprise, the door was shut. In every mind she had invaded before the doors had been open. Was it possible to open this door, she wondered? It had a handle, and lowering her head she gripped it with her dragon teeth and tried to turn it. It didn't move. She tried harder, twisting it both ways and pushing hard against the door with her strong body, but to no avail. It was jammed firmly shut.

She trotted along to the next door, and that too was shut. Again she tried to open it, and again she failed. In the absence of Angela's spirit, her memories were inaccessible. It occurred to Dawn that if she managed to open those doors then her spirit would return, and she would revive.

She hastened from door to door, trying each one in turn, but none of them would budge. And now the singing was coming to an end, and her time was surely running out. Someone – a man – began making a speech, something about Angela's childhood. Dawn wasn't really listening, she was too taken up with those doors. She had almost reached the end of the nave, and she was wondering whether perhaps she should try burning those doors open with her dragon fire. She decided against such a drastic course, as she supposed it would inflict so much destruction that it wouldn't be worth trying to save what was left of Angela.

At last she reached the final door, just before the flight of steps leading up to the altar. It was open! She stared into the dark opening. Could this be the trap she had been expecting? Was an alien spirit hiding inside?

She let her fires spring to life in her belly, and then, very cautiously, poked her head into the opening. She couldn't sense any evil residing there, and nothing attacked her. She pushed her long neck in further, so that her head was right inside the room. Certainly there was no evil spirit in here, but there didn't seem to be any memories either. Everything was a uniform black.

She moved her head from side to side, but no memories sprang up to greet her. And then she became aware of faint splodges of light, fuzzy pinpricks, scattered across the blackness. It reminded her of how the stars looked when she travelled into space in her Beetle. She moved her head around, and other fuzzy pinpricks appeared. Then it dawned on her that these must be the memories of Angela's time in space!

She shifted her head from side to side, but everywhere in the room was the same. It was filled with endless visions of space. This could only mean that Angela's spirit was, or had been, trapped in space, and that her connection with her body had not been entirely broken. Or if it had been broken, it had somehow been partially restored. That was the implication of that open door and these visions.

Was the poor girl still out there gazing at the stars? If so, and if she was still somehow connected to her body, then what she was seeing should be passing through the visual cortex of her brain, in which case fuzzy images of the stars should show up in that stained-glass window. Dawn withdrew her head from the room and turned to gaze at the dim pink rectangle above the altar. Sure enough, and to her immense satisfaction, she could just make out faint splodges of light scattered across it.

The man had finished speaking now, and she heard the congregation begin another hymn. This would probably be the final farewell to Angela, and then her life-support would be turned off. And yet Angela's spirit was alive, there was no question about it, and she was trapped somewhere in space. Maybe she was still on that flying saucer.

The pattern of faint lights superimposed on the dim pinkness of the stained-glass window abruptly shifted. Angela's eyes must have moved, and now Dawn could see the fuzzy outline of some kind of mechanism. She stared at it, bewildered. Anything belonging to the flying saucer would be sharp and clear, whereas this was clearly not a neurospace object at all but some kind of physical device. Dawn moved closer and craned her head and peered at the hazy image, and all at once she realised what it was. It was a lens, like the lens of a telescope. Angela was looking at the stars through a telescope!

Dawn stared at the dim image, transfixed. Someone must have imprisoned Angela there, but for what reason? It could only be that they wanted her to monitor the heavens for neurospace objects, that was the only thing that made sense. She was being used as a kind of spirit detector, a souped-up version of Baby!

Dawn tried to make out the details of what she was seeing, but the image was too faint and grainy to be make out much. So far as she could tell there was some kind of gadgetry attached to the telescope, so it was quite a complex device. She supposed it would have to be, if Angela was to scan the heavens.

And now that she had made that discovery, it shouldn't be too difficult to locate the girl. Dawn thought at first that she would probably be on a space telescope, because a ground-based telescope would be in daylight for half the time, and Angela seemed to have no memory of that. But then it occurred to her that even a spirit like Angela couldn't survive without an oxygen supply, so she was more likely to be on Earth. Well, it wouldn't take long to check the space telescopes, there were only a couple of them circling the earth, and then she would check the larger Earth-based telescopes. Given enough time, she was bound to find her.

The trouble was, there wasn't any time. The final hymn was ending, and now the voice that had delivered the eulogy on Angela's life had launched into a prayer. There was only one thing to do. She would have to possess Angela's body and make everyone believe that the girl had miraculously recovered from her coma. It wouldn't be easy, as she wouldn't have access to any of Angela's memories. She wouldn't even be able to recognise her father. Well, she would have to do her best and try to fool them all.

There was no time to lose. Flapping her dragon wings madly, Dawn leapt into the air and sped towards the dark shape of the altar. She fluttered onto it, there was a moment of blackness as she descended into it, and then everything was pink and her body was stiff and uncomfortable on that hospital bed and her mouth was dry and horrible.

The prayer was just ending, and she could feel someone's warm hands resting lightly on her forehead and on her shoulder.

"Lord, we know you are the God of miracles, and the God of answered prayers," the voice intoned. "We know that even now you can restore Angela to her family. We plead with you Lord, in this final hour, to have mercy on this precious soul. We believe you can do it, Lord, for the whole world is in your hands. Nevertheless Lord, your will be done."

Dawn opened the eyes of the body she was inhabiting, and above her was the face of the man who was praying. He was wearing a black suit and a dog collar, and his eyes were closed. At the edge of her vision, standing around her bed, were the faces of the people who had come to bid Angela farewell, and their eyes were closed too. Nearby was a nurse, standing by the life-support equipment. Her eyes weren't closed in prayer, instead she was checking the equipment in preparation for shutting it down.

The minister took a deep breath. He was about to deliver the closing words of his prayer and the final Amen. Well, there was no point in bothering with that now. Dawn licked her dry lips and took a deep breath.

"Thanks a million," she croaked. "That was a great prayer. Now if you don't mind, I'd like a drink."

The minister jerked his hands away and stared down into her eyes. "Good God!" he whispered.

The nurse gaped at her, hit a red alarm button, and promptly fainted. A man standing nearby caught her and lowered her to the ground.

People all around were gasping and gaping at her, and she heard a few muttered prayers and even an oath. A woman crossed herself, and a man fell to his knees and cried out a prayer of thanks. They were all, with a single exception, astonished.

The exception was Karen. She was standing at the foot of the bed, and the expression on her face was one of relief. Dawn thought she saw a satisfied smile play across her lips, and she realised that this had not been a trap, but that Karen had genuinely wanted her to save Angela's body. Not because of any concern for Angela's welfare, but because she wanted her to continue monitoring space through that telescope.

Dawn had no idea what would happen to Angela's spirit if her physical body died, but it seemed unlikely that she would continue to exist in neurospace. Certainly she would no longer have a physical brain, so there would be no cognition in the conventional sense and no memories. Without those, it would be impossible for Karen or anybody else to tap into her perceptions.

A man who had been standing close by caught Dawn's attention. He had been staring at her in utter disbelief, but suddenly his face crumpled and tears spurted from his eyes. All at once he was cradling her face in his arms and his tears were dripping down her cheek.

This must be Angela's father, Mort Lane. He looked the right age. She tried to raise her arms to put them round him, but they were stiff and somehow it all seemed too much of an effort. In any case, she was more concerned with getting to the bottom of what Karen was up to than in trying to bond with him.

As the sobbing man continued to cradle her in his arms, Dawn desperately tried to think through all she had found out about Karen in the last couple of months. There must be some clue in the mass of information that Dr Song's people had dug up that would tell her exactly what Karen and whoever she worked for was up to. What exactly were they looking for in space?

Her brain, back in her sleeping body in Honiara, made a couple of astute connections, and she had the answer. The Watchers!

## Fifteen

Dawn was waiting for her in the privacy of her room. Donna pulled the door firmly shut and joined her on the settee.

"What's up?" she whispered. There were no hidden microphones in this 16th century world, but there were always people around and it wouldn't do for the things that she and Dawn talked about in private to be overheard.

Not that anything could be hidden from the Mind, for every inhabitant of Eden was part of it, including Donna. Like an omniscient and omnipresent god, it was aware of everything that was said in this room as well as everywhere else in the town and in the surrounding countryside. If this had been a modern culture, with computers and search engines and electronic data storage and retrieval, then anyone could key in _Dawn Goode and dragon,_ and Dawn's secret would immediately be exposed.

But Dawn had been careful to protect herself. She had imposed on the Mind the rule that it could be interrogated only through the leader of the community, who would be its high priest and representative. And that one was Donna, her dolphin soul mate.

It was through Donna that human clients accessed the Mind. They might be governments seeking advice on economic or political matters, or scientists or business leaders seeking answers to questions spanning many disciplines. One recent question, posed by the SETI organization, was: 'Based on your current knowledge, what is the probability that intelligent life has evolved on at least one other world in this galaxy?' When that had been put to her, Donna's face had gone completely blank for about a minute before she gave the answer. 99.8%, the Mind declared.

Eden was the GM dolphins' private dreamworld, and no humans apart from Dawn ever visited it. Such questions were therefore put to the Mind not by the humans themselves, but by members of the dolphin community acting on their behalf. These sessions took place in the temple, before the altar, which was the seat of consciousness of the Mind, and they were occasions of the utmost solemnity. During them Donna would be in a strange state of consciousness in which it appeared that her ordinary mind had been blanked out and she was totally under the Mind's control.

In fact she was fully aware and fully in control of her spirit body. If she so desired she could edit the answers that came to her, and she could even refuse to speak them out, saying instead that there was no answer. But only she and Dawn and the Mind itself knew that, and in practice she rarely needed to censor anything.

Everyone on the planet knew about the GM dolphin project and about the existence of a dolphin communal mind. But they didn't know about Eden, and the dolphins preferred to keep their Shakespearian paradise a secret from everyone apart from Rick and Dawn and a few other people closely involved with the project, for here they were free of human interference and control.

Apart from control by Dawn, that is. This the dolphins willingly accepted, at least for the present, for it was she who had conceived of it, and she who had trained them in the mental skills required to call it up each day. To them she was almost a god – especially when she appeared in the guise of a fire-breathing dragon, as she did on many Sunday mornings at the temple. The dolphins believed that this was mere fairytale imagery, for no one imagined that there could be real dragons.

Donna, uniquely among the GM dolphins, had been made in Dawn's dragon image. Now, sitting with Dawn in her room at the edge of the temple precinct, Donna was acutely aware that this tremendous privilege was not without its drawbacks, for she was still feeling upset by that conversation with Jonah at the riverbank a few minutes ago. She was stuck between two worlds, or so it seemed: neither fully human nor fully dolphin, she was unable to enjoy either dolphin or human love. With the onset of puberty she had become increasingly troubled by this, and now all she wanted to do was to pour her heart out to her mentor and closest friend.

When she had been younger, Dawn had cuddled her on this settee and answered all her questions and taught her how to do many wonderful human things. She had taught her how to model in clay, and helped her paint her models, and all the while they would chat about life and love and what it was to be both a woman and a dragon.

But this was not the moment for pouring out her heart, for she could tell that Dawn was deeply troubled. "What happened at the hospital?" she asked.

Dawn told her how she'd brought Angela Lane's body out of its coma. "Everyone thinks it's a miracle. They made a great fuss of me, especially Angela's father, Mort Lane. The nurses gave me some liquid food – it tasted foul – and I told them to get some physio organized 'cos my body felt really weak and flabby and I wanted to get it into shape. They looked at me really strangely, and I suppose that was an odd thing to say when you've just come out of a four-year coma."

"Four years! Angela's body must be in a terrible state."

"They'd looked after her body pretty well, actually. There was some kind of equipment for exercising her muscles, though it's not the same as proper exercise, of course. Anyway, I told everyone that I really appreciated them coming to the hospital and praying for me, but that I was feeling a bit tired and wanted to sleep. So the nurses sent everyone away and I vacated Angela's body and now it's back in its coma. I just hope they don't try to wake her up."

"And you say that Angela's spirit is attached to a telescope?"

"Someone's put her there deliberately, it can't be an accident. She's been positioned so that she's looking straight through the telescope, so that its view of the heavens appears in the window of her mind. She's being used to monitor the telescope's output."

"But that's silly. Her spirit is in neurospace, she can't see physical things like stars properly."

"She's being used as a spirit detector, I'm certain of it. The concept behind my spirit detector was published years ago, and someone has had the idea that if they linked up a spirit to a telescope instead of a camera lens, they might be able to detect neurospace objects far out in space."

"But who on earth would want to set up something crazy like that? What are they looking for?"

"It can only be because they're looking for intelligent life. Visitors from across the galaxy."

"Oh. I see. Do you think SETI is behind this?"

Donna knew quite a bit about SETI, the organization set up to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. SETI had always taken a close interest in the dolphin project, for the GM dolphins were their only example of a non-human intelligence, or rather intelligence in non-human bodies. Donna had even met a couple of SETI scientists – not here in Eden, of course, but in her dolphin body in the Solomon Islands.

Dawn shook her head. "Not SETI. They're looking for signals in the electromagnetic spectrum – radio signals, visible light, microwave signals, that kind of thing. They're a mainstream organization that's been around for the best part of a century, and I'm sure they wouldn't be involved in kidnapping spirits. It's someone else, another organization. The Watchers."

"The Watchers?" Donna stared at her blankly. "They're not a bunch of cranks like the COBRA church, are they?"

"I don't know too much about them myself," Dawn confessed, "only what I've read on the internet. They're very much taken up with ideas about neurospace, though I had thought they were harmless. However, after seeing what I saw in Angela's mind, I'm not so sure. They're obviously on to something. They might even know that I'm a dragon."

"I think I'm going to be sick." Donna stood up, holding her stomach. "No I'm not. Spirits can't be sick. Perhaps I'll make a cup of tea."

"Good idea. It'll calm us down. We've got time to drink it before everyone wakes up and this place disappears."

She watched Donna walk over to her primitive wood-burning stove. There was a blackened kettle sitting on it, with a wisp of steam issuing from its spout. The stove and the kettle, like the temple and all the other fixtures of Eden, was firmly embedded in the Mind and faithfully reproduced each morning. Donna picked up the kettle and poured the boiling water into an earthenware teapot. She used a fish tea that was available in one of the small shops in the town. All her visitors apart from Dawn adored it.

"What makes you think these Watchers are involved in all this?" Donna asked as she stirred the tea and replaced the kettle on the hob.

"You remember I told you about Rick's cousin Karen? You saw her at Crocodile Bay a few weeks ago, when she came to visit us."

"I remember. She didn't seem to like us dolphins much. I was tempted to give her a soaking."

"That would have been fun. Anyway, she knew something about me, that was obvious. She only came to visit us because she wanted me to step in and stop Angela's life-support system being turned off. She didn't say this in so many words, but that was plainly the purpose of her visit."

Donna carried the teapot and a couple of cups across to the small table. "How did she find out about you?"

"I'm sure she's acquainted with a COBRA leader, one that didn't die on that ship. It was pretty obvious that she knew what had happened to Angela, and she could only have got that from someone who had gone up to that ship after I'd disabled it."

Donna knew all about COBRA from her explorations of Dawn's memories, and the thought that one of its demon-possessed leaders might still be alive and active made her feel jittery. She carefully poured out the tea, and its fishy aroma filled the room, calming her. She took a tentative sip. It was perfect.

"There's something else, too," Dawn continued, turning up her nose slightly at the smell. "I got Dr Song onto the case, and she asked the Australian secret service to check Karen out. They discovered she belongs to the Watchers."

"So what are they? A group of scientists or something?"

"No, they're some kind of religious sect. They've only been around a few years. Apparently they lay hands on each other at their meetings and go into ecstatic states and speak in strange tongues and utter prophecies, that kind of thing. They call themselves the Watchers because they believe that their tongues and prophesies are messages from the stars, and they're watching out for the arrival of extra-terrestrials."

Donna sipped her tea while she digested the implications of Dawn's words. "And so they've imprisoned Angela's spirit at the receiving end of a telescope."

"I'm sure they want her to look for neurospace spaceships. They must have got the idea that extra-terrestrials are travelling here through neurospace, not ordinary space. It's like ET is on a mammoth spirit journey from somewhere deep in the galaxy. If the Watchers are right, these visitors must be travelling at many hundreds of times the speed of light. That must be possible in neurospace, because when I was raptured up to that flying saucer it took only a few seconds."

Donna finished her cup and poured herself out some more. "So Angela's their early-warning system. That makes sense, I suppose. A neurospace ship will look bright and solid to her, 'cos she's in neurospace too. It'll be the only distinct object in the sky."

Dawn nodded. "If it's anything like that COBRA flying saucer, which shone brightly with its own light, it will really stand out against the fuzzy dark background of space. That's why Karen was so desperate for me to keep Angela alive. What she's seeing through that telescope is passing through the visual cortex of her brain and being stored in her memories, and she'll certainly remember if a shiny neurospace object appears."

"And all the Watchers have to do is periodically invade her mind and examine her memories."

"Exactly. The door leading to that part of her brain is open, and I guess that means that someone has been visiting it regularly. Probably that ex-COBRA leader. He or she would be experienced enough in spirit journeys to undertake something like that."

Donna stared at her thoughtfully over her raised cup and savoured the fishy aroma. It helped her think straight. "If he is an ex-COBRA leader, it's odd that he should try to get you to help. You're the last person he would want meddling in his affairs."

Dawn shrugged. "It shows just how desperate the Watchers are to keep Angela's body alive. She's their window into space."

"Would it make that much difference to them if Angela died? Their meetings would carry on, they'd still go into their trances and receive those messages from the stars."

"The point is, they really believe their prophecies. They're telling them that before long the spaceships will arrive and a new age on Earth will dawn."

"They must be crazy. The whole thing's crazy. A single telescope can only monitor a tiny fraction of space. It those Watchers were serious, they would want dozens of Angelas, all located at different telescopes."

"That's true," Dawn answered thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps they do have more Angelas. Or perhaps they've programmed the telescope to do a sweep of the skies. If these aliens are coming from deep in the galaxy, they only need to search the central part of the Milky Way. Maybe their prophecies have told them where to look."

"Or maybe it's a lure, to draw you in. If those Watchers know something about your powers, they must want you on their side. After all, if extra-terrestrials really are coming here on spirit journeys, then you're the obvious person to meet them. Maybe they're hoping you'll become sympathetic to their cause. After all, you can't _not_ be interested in the possibility of alien visitors from neurospace. They might be an army of demons."

Dawn was silent for a moment, mulling over that possibility. "That's true enough. Earth itself won't be directly threatened, of course, or human civilization, because it's all happening in neurospace. But the dolphin communal mind would certainly be at risk. If extra-terrestrial demons managed to take control of that, then heaven help all of us!"

Donna gaped at her, her cup and saucer held at an awkward angle. There was a sudden crash as the cup slipped off onto the wooden floor. They both jumped, then Dawn burst out laughing.

"Don't worry," she said as Donna got up to clean up the mess. "Those Watchers are deluded. Extra-terrestrials can't be heading our way. Why would they bother to come to our tiny planet at the edge of the galaxy? What would be the point?"

Donna picked up a dustpan and brush and then grabbed a cloth that was hanging near her tiny sink. There were no paper towels in Eden. "The Watchers must think they have a reason."

"That's just as crazy as everything else. They believe there's a galactic federation out there, and that Earth is going to be invited to join it. They see themselves as a kind of welcoming committee, and they talk about rising up to meet ET in the air and then of sitting on galactic councils and reigning over entire star systems."

"Another great rapture, in other words," Donna muttered as she cleaned up the mess.

"They dress everything up as religion, with prophecies, hymns, and everything, just like the COBRA church. That's another reason why I'm certain an ex-COBRA leader is behind it."

The sound of the temple bell tolling interrupted their conversation. The Mind had sensed that the dolphins were about to emerge from their trance and that soon the dream would end and Eden and everything in it would fade away.

Donna carefully brushed up the broken shards and wiped the floor. "I'll have to clear it up," she explained, "otherwise it'll still be here when I wake up tomorrow morning, and I'll step on it in the dark."

"You haven't touched your fish tea, Dawn," she added reproachfully. "It's no good leaving _that_ till tomorrow."

"I'll give it a miss if you don't mind. There's too much to talk about. I need your help, Donna. I'm going to rescue Angela from that telescope, and that means I won't be able to occupy her body. So you're going to have to stand in for me. It'll only be for a day or two, until I find Angela and bring her back."

Donna beamed. To be a real human for a few days would be the most exciting thing ever. Especially in a hospital, with all those young doctors fussing over her. "That's no problem at all, Dawn. It'll be a pleasure."

"We'll have to put you into one of the isolation pens at the lagoon, away from the other dolphins. Do you want us to give you a trance drug, or will you put yourself under?"

Donna grinned impishly. "I'll do what you do – put myself under by imagining that Rick's making love to me."

Dawn ignored her jibe. "You'll need to come out of your trance at night, when Angela's nurses will be expecting her to be asleep. That's when you'll be able to feed and exercise your dolphin body. Come to think of it, we'd better give you the drug, or you might not be able to hold your trance for long enough."

Donna nodded in agreement. Dawn was right, and in any case she was too delighted at the prospect of being a real human for a few hours to argue the point. "I'll also need to come here each morning, to keep control of things. We don't want the Mind to be without its leader. Otherwise someone else might try to take it over."

"I can't think the Mind would allow anything like that, but it's best to play safe," Dawn agreed. "Early morning here equates to midday at Adelaide, so you'll have to tell the nurses you need a siesta. I'll check the exact times for you."

"And you mustn't forget, Dawn, that you've got to be here on Sunday. To perform your next Passion play episode."

"Thanks for reminding me! There'd be a riot if I missed that. Hopefully I'll have found Angela by then."

Donna's quarters shook slightly and the teapot rattled. "Our time's up," she exclaimed, "we've got a couple of minutes at most before Eden disappears. Have you told me everything?"

"Almost. Swim to the isolation pens as soon as you wake up. I'll arrange for Rick to give you some food and the trance drug. We'll go on a spirit journey together to the hospital ward in Adelaide and you can take over Angela's body."

"What about Karen? She thinks it's you, not me, that's taken over Angela."

"She'll pretend to know nothing about that. She's sure to come visiting, so just be careful what you say to her. I don't trust those Watchers, after what I've seen today. They've risen out of the ashes of COBRA, I'm sure of it."

"At least they can't possibly know anything about me," Donna pointed out. "I'll pretend I'm you pretending to be Angela."

Dawn smiled and took her hand. "That's my girl. I know you'll do a brilliant job."

The teapot suddenly winked out of existence, and a couple of seconds later the stove and the kettle disappeared too. At any moment this room would come apart at the seams and then the dream would end and the dolphins would start to wake up.

"One last thing," Donna asked hurriedly. "If I'm in charge of Angela's body, how will the Watchers get into her to access her memories of what she's seeing in space? And will there even be any memories of what's she seeing out there? The window of her mind will show what her physical eyes are seeing, which will be her room in the hospital. Did Karen think of that when she got you to take over Angela?"

"Karen knows I can only occupy Angela's body for a few hours each day. I need to feed and exercise my own body and keep everything else going. As you will too, of course. The rest of the time Angela will be in her coma, and then her view of space will return. And it'll be when she's in a coma that they'll invade to check her memories."

"I'll have to occupy her for more than a few hours a day," Donna murmured slyly. "Otherwise the nurses will think something's wrong. I really don't mind, I'm sure it will be interesting."

Dawn glanced at her sharply. "Not too interesting, I hope. My heart sank when I saw Angela's doctor – he's really dishy. And a couple of the ward nurses are men. You're not to get any ideas, I totally forbid it!"

Giving Donna a stern look, she added: "It's Angela's body, not yours, and in any case after four years in bed it's gross, a real turn-off. Just remember that Angela was a sweet, innocent teenager, and that's how everyone will expect you to behave!"

Donna was about to retort that although Angela might have been sweet, she certainly wasn't innocent, not if she had been a fully paid-up member of COBRA, when the world suddenly came apart and she fell headlong into nothingness. Then she was floating in the afternoon sunlight in the gentle waters of a lagoon on the other side of the world, her brain a tangle of human and dolphin perceptions.

## Sixteen

It was the middle of the afternoon when Dawn returned to her body back in her office. She shook her head a couple of times to clear it, took a drink of water from a jug on her desk, and then picked up the phone and spoke Rick's name into it. He answered almost immediately.

"Hello Angel. How's Angela?"

"Angelic. I left her in a coma." She quickly told him the bare bones of what had happened. "Donna's going to Adelaide on a spirit journey to take over Angela's body. She should be at the isolation pens now, waiting for you. You'll need to give her some food and the trance drug."

"Sure. Are you going with her to Adelaide?"

"Of course. And afterwards I'll check out those space telescopes, in case Angela's spirit is incarcerated on any of them. I'm afraid you'll have to do the dinner tonight, my darling."

"Thank goodness for that," he said with exaggerated relief. Cooking was not one of Dawn's strong points, and if they ate at home it was usually Rick who prepared the meal. Apart from Wednesdays, which was Dawn's half day, when she would cook a romantic candle-lit supper for him.

"Watch it, you horrid man!" she exclaimed. "There'll be no love-goddess kisses for you tonight!" It was an empty threat, of course, and he laughed. She always insisted on making Wednesday nights a special occasion.

After Rick got off the phone she switched on her computer. She had 20 minutes or so before Donna would be slipping into her trance, which was enough time to search the internet for information on the orbits of those telescopes.

Half-an-hour later she met up with Donna in neurospace, and the two of them squeezed into the Beetle. Donna had never been in her flying car before, and she was really impressed when Dawn put her foot down and they roared out over the sunlit waters of the Pacific, smoke and flame billowing out behind. She was even more impressed when Dawn spoke the destination address into her satnav and the car skidded to a halt at more or less the exact spot a couple of minutes later.

Dawn dismissed the car, they both transformed themselves into dragons, and shortly after that they were diving into Angela Lane's head and the dark cathedral of her mind was rising up around them.

Being dragons, they could detect emotional telepathy, and they both sensed the invader immediately. They glanced warily at each other and Dawn pointed with her head towards the gloom at the far end of the nave. She couldn't see anything, but it was a dead certainty that the spirit was inside the room housing Angela's memories of space.

The two dragons crept forward. Dawn had no fear of what awaited them there, and she hoped that Donna hadn't either. It wasn't a demon, she was sure of that, for there was no sense of evil, and even if it was it would be no match for two fire-breathing dragons. In case the invader was also telepathic, she calmed her emotional state so as not to betray her presence, and she sensed Donna do the same.

As the two dragons crept down the dark nave towards the dim rectangle of pink at the far end – Angela's version of the stained-glass window – Donna was able to make out the faint splodges of white scattered across the pink that Dawn had told her about, though there was no sign of a telescope mechanism. They neared the open doorway, and although it was too dark to see it properly the sense of a presence lurking in the blackness beyond was now very strong.

Dawn inched forward. The spirit had not detected them, for there were no feelings of alarm coming from that room, only a sense of urgency. It had a job to do, and it wanted to do it quickly and make its escape. She paused in front of the doorway, trying to detect what other emotions might be coming from within. She was expecting to sense malice or other negative emotions, but there was nothing.

But she wasn't take any chances, for it could all be a trap. Sucking in a draught of air she let the fires in her belly flare up. Then, with her jaws open and ready to deliver death, she cautiously poked her head through the doorway and peered into the blackness beyond.

Whatever was in there must have been completely absorbed in its task, for there was still no sense of alarm. Stretching out her long dragon neck, Dawn poked her head in further. Now she was bombarded by Angela's memories of space, and it was a real effort to push the fuzzy splodges and points of light out of her mind and focus on what her dragon eyes were seeing. No wonder the invader hadn't sensed her!

She needed some light, and there was only one way to get it. Quietly sucking in more air, she allowed a filament of fire to erupt up her neck and into her throat and out through her jaws. The flames licked around her dragon lips, lighting up the room, and there, in front of her, was the invader.

He froze, startled by the sudden light. The lower part of his face was covered by a mask, so that he would not be recognised, but it was obvious that he had been one of the COBRA leaders. He was golden and clothed in the same tunic that the men on their flying saucer had worn, there was a stump of a horn in the middle of his forehead, and he had shrivelled wings protruding from his shoulder blades. Here was a fallen angel, if ever she saw one, bearing the scars of his lost demonic powers. For some reason he had not gone up to that ship on that fateful day, and it occurred to her that his demon might have been one of those patrolling the entrances to the auditorium, that she had fought and destroyed.

He might have lost his demon, but his reactions were lightning fast. He spun round to face her, and she looked straight into his eyes. She was startled by what she saw, for there was something about those eyes that she recognised, but before she could think what it was he had reared up and leapt sideways, away from her. Immediately he sprang again and disappeared through the opposite wall, leaving Dawn rooted to the spot in surprise, and then all sense of his presence was gone.

Dawn cursed herself for her tardiness. If she had had her wits about her she could have leapt after him and followed him to wherever he was going, but it was too late for that now.

Donna had glimpsed the light shining from Dawn's jaws, and consumed with curiosity she pushed her head through the doorway too. It was a bit of a squeeze, and now there was nothing to see anyway. The two dragons retracted their heads, and Dawn transformed herself back into her human form, so that she could speak. Never having had to exercise her dragon vocal chords, she had yet to discover that dragons possessed such things and could talk perfectly well.

"The spirit's gone," she said. "I caught a quick glimpse of him, and he turned tail and bolted. He's more afraid of us than we are of him, that's for sure."

Donna transformed herself as well and replied: "That's a relief. What did he look like?"

"He's an ex-COBRA leader all right. He was masked, so I only saw his eyes, but I'm sure I've seen him before. I know I have."

"Did he see you? If he did, then he knows you're a dragon!"

"He saw me all right. That's why he was so scared. He must have seen my dragon fire too, though I doubt he realises its significance."

"Dawn!" Donna grabbed her arm in alarm. "He can't _not_ realise its significance! It was fire that destroyed the COBRA spaceship, he's bound to make the connection. If he didn't know much about you before, he certainly does now. You've blown your cover! Don't you see what that means? We mustn't do anything to upset those Watchers, otherwise he might retaliate. His spirit might be scared of your dragon body, but what's to stop him coming to the Solomon Islands in the flesh and attacking your physical body?"

Dawn stared at her protégé in the dim pink light of the stained-glass window. "This is turning into a disaster. I'll have to get in touch with Dr Song. I'll get her to investigate the Watchers and find out who he is. Then we can nobble him first."

Donna's eyes lit up. "Kill him you mean? Let me do it, I've never used my dragon fire. You've had all the fun, now it's my turn!"

"Don't be ridiculous. How many times have I told you we must never use our fire to satisfy our personal desires?"

"OK, I was only joking. Anyway, we can find out who he is from Karen. She must know him, and we can easily force the information out of her. Just threaten to muddy her clothes, that should do the trick."

"We'll talk about that later. You need to take over Angela's body now, before those nurses start getting worried. I'll pay a visit to those space telescopes – hopefully I'll find her spirit."

"Be careful! You don't know what's out there, Dawn. I don't want anything to happen to you."

"And you watch yourself. I don't want you having too much fun in Angela's body!"

Donna turned from her without replying and moved a few steps away before transforming herself back into a dragon. She had every intention of enjoying herself in Angela's body, whatever Dawn's views on the matter. Leaping into the air, she flapped her wings and in moments she was fluttering down onto the dark shape of the altar. There was a moment of blackness as she sank into it, and then she was lying on a hospital bed and someone was shaking her very hard. She managed to open her eyes, and stared up at a white ceiling.

A couple of female faces swam into view. They were in nurses' uniform.

"She's OK!" one of them exclaimed, visibly relieved. "I'll tell her father," the other replied, and disappeared from Donna's vision.

"You'd slipped back into your coma," the first nurse told her. "We thought we'd lost you."

Donna stared up at her without speaking. Although she'd sometimes shared Dawn's body, she'd never been totally in charge of a real human body before. Her dreamworld human body in Eden had been easy to control, but this Angela body seemed very alien. She could feel its various parts, but she wasn't sure how to move them. She wasn't even sure if she could speak. And the sheets encasing her body felt unyielding and claustrophobic, not at all like the freedom of the sea.

Dawn had tried to prepare her for experiences like this, as she had prepared her for so much else. "Don't think too hard," she'd told her. "Let the automatic responses of your new body handle everything. If you want to walk across the room, for example, just picture what you want to do in your mind and let the brain that you inhabit do the rest."

The best thing, Donna decided, was to pretend she was in Eden, in her dreamworld body. She closed her eyes and imagined that she was the high priest, and that these nurses were her congregation. Dawn had told her that there were crowds of people in here earlier, and she wondered if any of them were still around, and if they fancied some more hymn singing. She was good at leading hymn singing.

"Angela! Are you OK?" The nurse had started shaking her again.

She opened her eyes. "Of course I'm OK," she exclaimed without thinking, and then realised that she really could speak.

Encouraged by this small success she experimentally wiggled her toes and her fingers, and then twisted her head sideways to the left and then the right. Apart from the nurse and some complicated-looking equipment and a few chairs, she was alone in the room. And yet Dawn had spoken of quite a crowd of people.

"Where's everyone gone? Are they waiting outside? Tell them it's time for some more hymns."

The nurse stared down at her, her face a picture of bemusement. Hymn singing seemed not to be on her agenda. There was the sound of a door opening, and the nurse glanced up. "Here's your father," she murmured.

A man's face appeared above her. Although his hair had started to turn grey at the edges, Donna thought he was quite good looking. He looked like he had been crying.

"Hi, Dad," she said cheerily. Now that she was getting the hang of this human body of hers, she was going to make the most of it. No point pretending to be weak and sickly when she could be up and about and doing all kinds of exciting things.

He broke into a smile. "Angela! My darling! Are you all right?"

"Sure I am. When are we going home, Dad? There's so much I want to catch up on. It's been really, really boring stuck in space for so long. I want to do lots of exciting things. Like going to church."

The delight in his eyes became a little glassy. "But darling, you always hated church."

"Did I? Well, I fancy it now. And I want to go to the beach and swim in the sea. The exercise will do me good."

All the dolphins had spent some time in their mentors' minds, absorbing their knowledge, but in Donna's case this had gone to extremes. She had spent probably hundreds of hours in Dawn's mind, absorbing not just her knowledge but her life experiences, and some of her personality had rubbed off on her. Not only that, she also shared Dawn's dragon genes. It was inevitable, therefore, that as she grew older, she became more and more like Dawn, especially when she reached puberty. She was just as assertive and just as self-confident, and, although she would vigorously deny it, just as bossy. In fact, she was worse. To all intents and purposes she had been fashioned in Dawn's image.

Mort Lane was staring down at her in total bewilderment. "I can't believe you want to swim in the sea, Angela. You always hated the water. You were never keen on any kind of exercise."

"Really? How extraordinary. I guess I've been through a life-changing experience, stuck in that coma for so long. There are lots of other things I want to do as well, of course. I especially want to meet some nice men – and don't tell me I was never keen on men!"

"You'll have plenty of time for that later, my darling. First the nurses here have to make you fit and well again. They'll be making sure you get the right exercise, and they'll be weaning you onto proper food."

"Well, tell them to make sure it's fish, that's all. Proper fish." She gave the nurse a hard stare. "I've heard stories about hospital food."

Her father gave an exasperated laugh. "But you don't like fish, Angela. You've always hated it!"

"That was years ago, Dad. My tastes have changed. I want fish. Fresh fish, not those fake fish fingers."

He glanced awkwardly at the nurse. "Don't worry, Mr Lane," she murmured sympathetically. "People come out with all kinds of strange things when they've been unconscious for a long time. Angela doesn't know what she's saying."

Donna glared at her. "I know perfectly well what I'm saying. I want to go to church, I want to go swimming, I want to meet some nice men, and I want fish. In reverse order. Fish first."

"I guess you'd better humour her," Mort Lane murmured apologetically. "Fish will be good for her. Better than all that junk food she used to like. Get in special meals, if necessary. I'll pay for them, of course."

"Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it. Can I kiss you?"

"Of course, my darling." Mort leant over and gave her a quick peck on the lips.

"Dad! You'll have to do better than that! I'll give you some lessons. We'll have you married off in no time."

Another face appeared above her. A young man's face, Donna noted with pleasure. "This is Mr Jenkins," the nurse said. "He'll be organizing your physio – I mean your exercises."

"I know what _physio_ means," Donna replied caustically. "I'm not stupid."

"Right, Angela," Mr Jenkins said brightly. "We'll soon have you up and about. We'll take things steadily at first, some gentle exercises in the pool, that kind of thing. Are you OK with water?"

"Can't get enough of the stuff. When do we start?"

"Straight away, if you like. The nurses will help you into this wheelchair, and we'll take you down to it."

"Great. What's your first name, Mr Jenkins?"

"George."

"Wow, that's a really hunky name! It was Saint George who slayed the dragon and rescued the damsel in distress. Have you rescued many damsels in distress, George? I bet you're really good at it!"

##  Seventeen

Donna met up with Jonah again after the temple service the next morning. She was expecting Dawn to visit her in Eden for a debriefing, so instead of walking by the river she took him back to her room.

Donna often invited friends back to her little home. It was a convenient venue, being so close to the temple, and it was spacious enough to seat up to a dozen people in reasonable comfort. She always served fish tea, and sometimes she entertained her visitors by reading from her collection of books. Mostly these were fairy tales, culled from the brain of a dolphin whose mentor was an authority on such things and conjured up by the Mind as part of the temple library.

Donna had always enjoyed fairy tales – Dawn had sometimes read them to her when she was little – and she had appropriated these books as soon as she had discovered them in one of the temple storerooms. That had been several years ago, shortly after Eden had been founded. Dawn, who had secretly prompted the mind to produce the books as a gift to her young protégé, had pretended not to notice the large bookcase that had appeared one day in the corner of her room.

Jonah sat on the settee while Donna brewed up the tea and recounted her adventures at the hospital. She didn't tell him anything, of course, about becoming a dragon, or about that encounter with the invader in Angela's mind.

"The physio – George – is really nice. He was ever so pleased with me. I made Angela's body do all kinds of things in the water, which he thought was brilliant for someone in such poor shape. Not that I did anything much, of course. He told me I'd be walking and running about in no time at all. Anyway, I left her body about 9 o'clock last night, safely tucked up in bed. That was when my dolphin body woke up from the trance drug that Rick gave me. Then I had another dose of the drug first thing this morning and Dawn took me to her again."

"For another session with this George, I suppose."

"That's right." Donna replied, carefully carrying the teapot and cups on a small tray and placing it on the small table beside the settee.

"Are you jealous?" she asked hopefully as she sat down beside him.

"Of a human? Of course not."

"Well, you should be." She tossed her head in the way that Dawn might have done in this situation. "I told you I was more human than dolphin."

"So how long is this Angela nonsense going on for?"

"Until Dawn rescues her spirit. She told me she hadn't found her on those space telescopes, so it'll be a few days. Actually, I hope it goes on for longer than that. It's fun."

"Fun? Being cooped up in a hospital bed?"

"It's great. I really throw my weight around, I can tell you. I boss all those nurses, and the doctors as well, insisting on this and that, and I make a big fuss if anything's not right. They'll be glad to see the back of Angela Lane, I can tell you."

He gazed at her admiringly. "You boss humans around?"

"You bet I do. The miraculous recovery of Angela Lane is in all the papers, so I'm quite a celebrity. It means they can't do enough for me. Anyway, what's your news? Did you miss me last night?"

"Several females wanted to know where you were. A couple of them hung around for quite a while."

"Now you're trying to make _me_ jealous."

"You know how I feel about you, Donna. I want more than a platonic friendship. If we can't have a proper relationship, then I'm going to find another female. It's not what I want, but it's what'll happen in the end."

Donna looked at him sadly. He was right, of course. It was bound to come to that. She turned and poured out the tea, then handed him a cup.

"Will you wait awhile, until this Angela business is over? I'll resolve it one way or the other, I promise. Perhaps I'll ask Dawn if I can have therapy. It might be possible to reorient me sexually so I want to mate as a dolphin."

His face lit up. "Would you really do that for me, Donna? That would be wonderful! It almost makes me want to hug you."

"You won't get up to anything with those other females who were hanging around, will you?"

He laughed. "Of course I won't. It's you I want. Actually, they didn't hang around for long, I chased them off."

She smiled at him, and they sat silently together, sipping their tea and thinking their private thoughts.

She touched his hand. "Did you mean it when you said you almost wanted to hug me?"

"Well, if you're prepared to undergo therapy, then the least I can do is to try to hug you. But no, I can't truthfully say I _want_ to."

"Perhaps if you close your eyes and imagine I'm a big wet dolphin it might not be so bad."

He shook his head. "It won't work. You don't smell fishy. You don't even smell salty. Even worse is your skin – it's not all wet and rubbery, like it should be. Human skin's like dried-up medieval parchment, it's a real passion killer."

"Oh. Why not try hugging me anyway?"

"Well, OK, I'll do my best," he said gamely, putting his cup down. He closed his eyes, and she slid into his arms. Then she squeezed herself up against him, and started stroking his hair. She knew exactly what to do, having studied Dawn's techniques.

"It's not too horrible, is it, my darling?" she whispered in exactly the tone of voice that Dawn might have used.

"No, I guess not," he admitted reluctantly. "But please don't stroke my skin. And try not to drag things out too much."

"What about one of those kisses I told you about?"

"No, really. I couldn't face that."

"Sure?"

"Positive."

She gently released him. "You did very well, for a first attempt. Perhaps if we tried it every day, you might get used to it."

"Perhaps." He sounded a little green about the gills.

There was a knock on the door and Dawn walked in. She looked flustered, as though she had rushed to get here.

Jonah stood up politely. Considerable resources had been devoted to the education and training of the GM dolphins, and they were quite at home with the basic rules of etiquette in traditional western culture.

"Hello Jonah," Dawn said. "I'm afraid I need to talk privately to Donna."

"That's OK," Jonah replied, turning towards the door. "I was going anyway."

Dawn sat down where he had been sitting, next to Donna. "I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?" she murmured as Jonah quietly closed the door behind him.

"No, nothing at all. Unfortunately." Donna briefly explained her predicament. "I don't know what to do," she said miserably. "I'm the problem, of course. I'm wondering if it's possible to re-orient me sexually."

Dawn looked at her doubtfully. "Why not re-orient Jonah? That would be much easier."

Donna stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? Make him want to have human love. We'll have him sit in on Rick's experience of love, like you sat in on mine. You can come into me at the same time, so it'll sort of be the two of you doing it. A few sessions of that and he'll lose all interest in your dolphin quickies."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Won't Rick object? You told me you liked to do it in private."

"I'll tell him he's got to. We'll make the first session next Wednesday evening. I won't tell Rick till then – he's always much more amenable on Wednesday evenings, especially if I get in a good wine."

"But what about Jonah? He'll need some persuading."

"Tell him that if he's prepared to do that, then you'll let him mate with you in your dolphin bodies. That's fair enough, isn't it?"

"I suppose so. It's just that I would really hate it. It would be bound to show, and that would spoil it for him."

Dawn shrugged. "Close your eyes and think of England."

"How would thinking about England help? It sounds a really boring place."

Dawn sighed. "It's an expression. I'll explain what it means later – we've more important matters to discuss now. We haven't got long, there's only ten minutes before the dolphin trance ends and this place disappears. How are you getting on in that hospital?"

Donna visibly brightened. "I'm starting to get the place organized. You would be proud of me, Dawn."

Dawn couldn't help being amused as Donna recounted her story, and she started to relax. "It sounds like you're making medical history. Don't get too carried away, though. You've only got Angela's body for a day or two."

"More's the pity. What's your news? You're not overflowing with joy, so I take it you still haven't located Angela's spirit."

Dawn nodded grimly. Her spirit journeys to the larger Earth-based telescopes had been as futile as those to the space telescopes. Not that her trips to the latter had been entirely without benefit, for she had learned a little more about her dragon nature. She had established conclusively that her dragon body could live in the vacuum of space, and she had deduced from this that her dragon blood must be transporting oxygen from her physical body. This in turn had led her to realise that this magical blood, flowing through the jet engine of her Beetle and delivering energy to it, replenished the oxygen in the vehicle's cabin.

"I haven't offered you any fish tea," Donna said apologetically, lifting the lid of the teapot and checking the contents. "You will have some, won't you?"

Dawn suppressed a shudder. "There isn't time, dear. I wanted to discuss that ex-COBRA leader we encountered in Angela's brain. You remember what you said about him?"

"That I wanted to kill him, because he now knows about you, that you're a dragon and everything." There was a glint in Donna's eye as she reached to pick up her cup of tea.

"I've been thinking we should bide our time and try to find out what's going on. Perhaps those Watchers really are on to something, maybe they really have been receiving messages from the stars. After all, that's where our forebears came from."

Donna almost dropped her cup. "You think dragons might be coming here?"

"I can't tell you how much I long for that, Donna! I've wanted to meet my own kind ever since I became aware of my dragon nature. You've had me to bring you up, Donna, but I had no one. Sometimes I've felt so lonely, like I was an orphan."

"Lonely? But you've had Rick."

"I know, and I love him to bits, but I can only share the human part of my life with him. He can never know the real me. The dragon me."

"You can share your dragonness with me, Dawn. Isn't that enough?"

"You're just another me, you know nothing of our heritage. Dragons must have an incredible history and culture, and you and I are totally cut off from it. I want to be part of it, I want to discover my destiny. We're the rulers of the universe, I can feel it in my blood, and yet we're stuck on this tiny planet at the edge of nowhere. I know I'm fulfilling part of my destiny by helping you dolphins, but I can't see the bigger picture. There must be thousands of intelligent species out there, probably millions, and I imagine dragons are involved with most of them. But why? What's our history? Where have we come from? I've got so many questions."

Donna shrugged. "That's because of your human curiosity. I'm interested in those questions, of course, but they don't bother me so much. Perhaps they'll never be answered. It's pretty unlikely that those messages from space actually come from dragons. For all we know they come from demons, and thousands of them are on their way here."

"That's even more reason for us to bide our time and find out more. So we can be prepared."

"I still think you're taking a huge risk. What if that COBRA leader wants to get rid of you..."

"I've told Dr Song what's happening, and I've asked her to get the Australian secret service on the job. I hope they'll find out something about him. And I've arranged for Rick to take Baby – my spirit detector – to Angela's ward, so we'll know if any spirits come prowling. That COBRA leader is bound to return, 'cos he'll want an update on Angela's telescope sightings."

Donna nodded approvingly. Dawn seemed to have done all the right things.

The temple bell tolled, signalling that the dolphin's dream world was about to end. Dawn took Donna's hand, and spoke in the businesslike manner she adopted when she was in a hurry and in the middle of something important.

"Baby's linked by satellite communications to a receiver that I'll be carrying, so if he does appear I'll know immediately. I'll go into a trance, and I can be at the ward in less than five minutes. Hopefully I'll surprise him again, and this time I'll follow him back to his body and discover his identity."

"Sounds good to me," Donna replied, trying to sound businesslike as well, though in truth what interested her more than anything was the prospect of returning to Angela's body. "When will Rick reach the ward? I need to make sure they'll admit him, in case it's outside visiting hours."

"He's flying there now, and he should get there about five o'clock this evening, local time. He'll go straight there from the airport. He'll show you how Baby works. You'll need to set her up on your bedside table, so she can monitor Angela in bed, and make sure none of those nurses tamper with her. A red light will flash if there's a spirit around – but don't say anything about that to anybody. If someone asks, tell them that Baby is a special kind of video camera and you're using her to keep a record of your experiences."

Donna nodded. "Anything else? You're going to carry on searching for Angela's spirit, obviously."

"The Watchers have hidden her well, I'm sorry to say. She's in none of the obvious places. I reckon they're counting on me not finding her."

"But if you don't find her, they know you'll abandon Angela's body, and then she'll be back in her coma and the hospital will switch off her life-support."

"No they won't. Angela's father will hope she'll revive again, so he'll make sure she's kept alive, even if it's only for a year or two. And that'll be ample time for the Watchers, as they believe the visitors from outer space are already on their way and will soon be here. I've bought them that time, and now all they want is for me to abandon Angela."

Donna stared at her thoughtfully. "You could be right. All those bastards ever wanted was to raise Mort's hopes so that he would be conned into keeping Angela alive. The poor man. I feel really sorry for him."

"Karen's the bastard. All through this saga she's been leading him on, pretending to be his friend and pretending to care about Angela. I wish you'd given her a good soaking when you had the chance. I don't suppose she'll ever visit us again."

"I'll do more than soak her if she does," Donna muttered grimly. "I really like Mort. He's sweet. He'll be devastated if Angela's taken from him again."

"Let's just hope I do manage to find her."

The room shuddered slightly, and a couple of ornaments disappeared.

"The trance is ending," Dawn observed, then added hurriedly: "Do we need to discuss anything else before you disappear? I've organised for Rick to give you some food, same as yesterday, and the trance drug. I'll meet you in neurospace, at the isolation pens, in about half an hour and take you to the hospital."

A smile lit up Donna's face. "It was great, travelling in your jet car. I want to be able to fly like that. Will you show me how to make my own jet car? Then I'll be able to take myself to Adelaide."

"But you can't drive. You'll have to learn how to steer and change gear and use the pedals and everything."

"It's easy, I watched how you did it. Anyone can drive a car. Anyway, that satnav of yours did almost everything. And I don't want a Beetle, I want an Aston Martin, like in those old James Bond movies, with guns and secret weapons and automatic gear change and stuff like that."

Dawn sighed. That was typical of Donna. She always wanted the best. Whereas everyone else in Eden was content with the sober garments of Elizabethan England, she insisted on wearing high-heeled shoes and glamorous dresses.

But she could never deny Donna anything, and as had happened so often before she found herself giving in to her. "Very well. What if I come to the hospital this evening, about 7.30? Tell the nurses you want an early night. Rick should have installed Baby by then, and she'll start flashing a red light when I appear. Then you can leave Angela and I'll give you some driving lessons."

"Thanks, Dawn! Wow! I can't wait to get started."

But then the walls of her room started to flicker, and her furniture started to disappear, and shortly after that Donna found herself back in her dolphin body on the other side of the world. Flipping her tail, she headed towards the isolation pens where Rick would be waiting. Since Angela had come into her life, she had spent more time in neurospace than in her real dolphin body.

Mort Lane visited the hospital that afternoon, just after Donna had returned to Angela's body. He'd spoken to her on the phone earlier in the morning, to check that she was well, but he had been unable to visit then because of a business appointment. He'd told her he ran a company that was in the business of security – alarm systems, surveillance, that kind of thing. She'd said it didn't matter if he couldn't make it because she had a full programme of physio and medical tests to undergo, and she'd warned him about her midday nap and told him to come after three o'clock.

One of the nurses had told her she was to be moved from her private room into the main ward. She had kicked up a great fuss about that, telling them in no uncertain terms that she needed to be alone with her father when he visited as those times were bound to be very emotional and they had so many private matters to discuss. Her real reason was that other patients would find Angela's periods of total unconsciousness very strange and might comment on them to the nurses. As well as that, they were bound to be curious about the spirit detector and might even tamper with it when she was unconscious. Donna could be very assertive, and in the end the staff had given in to her demands.

When Mort arrived she was sitting in her bedside chair by the window reading a paper that one of the nurses had given her. It had a piece on the front page about her, though it didn't say much as reporters were being kept away from the ward and Mort had refused to speak to them.

He was looking haggard and baggy-eyed, the way humans do when they haven't slept too well. She guessed he hadn't been able to stop thinking about what had happened.

"Are you OK, Dad?" she asked, concerned.

He pulled up a chair with a disconsolate shrug. "I'm worried about you."

"Worried? I'm fine, in fact they reckon I'll be home in a few days. Everyone thinks I'm doing brilliantly."

"I'm sure they do." He sat down with a weary sigh. Yesterday's elation seemed a distant memory.

"How's Woofer?" she asked, trying to cheer things up. "I'm really looking forward to seeing him again. Is he still alive?" The newspaper report had given some background about Angela's childhood, including the fact that she'd had a puppy called Woofer. Donna very much fancied playing with a dog.

"He got run over about six months before you went into your coma. You were heartbroken."

"Oh. I'd forgotten. A lot of my memories are a bit patchy, I'm afraid."

"That's not the only thing that's wrong with you, my darling." He gazed at her sadly. "You're not the same person any more. You're not my Angela."

"I'm four years older, Dad! And I've had a life-changing experience. What do you expect?"

"You look like Angela, and you've got Angela's voice, but you're different inside. Angela would have reacted quite differently to being in hospital, and she would certainly never have said the kind of things you're coming out with. You're much more mature, as if your mind has been somewhere else while you were in a coma, learning things and changing. Completely changing."

Donna stared at him silently. It was inevitable that he would find his daughter's new personality surprising, but she hadn't anticipated quite such a strong reaction.

"Karen Holmes came to see me yesterday evening," he continued. "Do you remember Karen?"

"She was a few years older than me. Brown hair."

"That's right. I see her now and then. She came to ask how you were doing. I shared my feelings about you, and she said she believed you'd been taken by aliens to a distant star, and that you'd been returned to prepare the way for alien visitors. She said not to worry if you sank back into a coma, like you did yesterday afternoon, because you were just going back temporarily to your alien host. I'm really privileged, she told me, because you're going to be very important in the new world order."

"For heaven's sake, Dad! You don't believe all that rot, do you?"

"She always had crazy ideas about flying saucers and visitors from the stars. She belongs to the Watchers. You won't have heard of them, of course, but they're into flying saucers and little green men from Mars. I don't want to believe her, but it's the only thing that makes any sense."

Donna gazed at him thoughtfully. Karen knew perfectly well that it was Dawn who had revived Angela's body, and she believed that Dawn was possessing her now. She'd told Angela's father this ridiculous story to make him believe that it really was his daughter that was inhabiting Angela's body, and to make sure that he kept her body alive when Dawn was forced eventually to abandon it.

It would be the easiest thing in the world to go along with Karen's story, but that would be doing Mort Lane no favours at all. What if Dawn managed to rescue Angela and returned her to her body? The story would then be manifestly false. And what if Dawn failed to find Angela and returned this body to its coma? Mort would have endless more years of futile hope, never being able to lay his daughter to rest. No, she would have to tell him the truth.

"I'm not your Angela, Mr Lane," she said in a matter-of-fact voice, "you're right about that. But forget what Karen told you. It's nonsense."

Mort stood up abruptly and stood by the window, gazing out with unseeing eyes. He looked close to tears. "If you're not my Angela, then who in heavens name are you?"

"Do you believe in guardian angels, Mr Lane?"

"Guardian angels?" He turned and stared at her. "Is that what you are?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. You can think of me as Angela's guardian angel."

"You're not one Karen's extra-terrestrials?"

"I certainly am not. I come from Earth, but I have powers that come from the stars. I know that sounds like a riddle, but it's true."

He continued staring at her, as if in a dream, then he seemed to pull himself together and sat down heavily in the chair.

"That's the craziest thing I've ever heard," he muttered. "If you're Angela's guardian angel, why have you taken over her body?"

"Because you and the hospital were going to let her die. Her spirit's still alive, and I think I can rescue her. Then you'll have your daughter – your real daughter – back. It should only take a few days."

"You _think_ you can rescue her? What if you can't?"

"I'll leave this body, and it will return to its coma. Then you should let Angela die, Mr Lane. Don't believe what Karen Holmes tells you. Those Watchers have somehow imprisoned Angela's spirit on a telescope, to monitor the heavens for the aliens that they believe are coming. That's why they want her body kept alive. If it dies, then her spirit will go too."

"You sound just as crazy as Karen, but I guess you're making a kind of sense. And at least you're giving me something definite to go on – either Angela's spirit is restored, or her body reverts to its coma."

His earlier sadness had disappeared, and he seemed genuinely intrigued by what she was telling him. "What are your chances of rescuing Angela?" he asked.

"Nine to one in favour, I'd say, Mr Lane," she told him rashly. "Rescuing lost souls is what we guardian angels do best. So I suggest you stop worrying and leave everything to me."

He gazed at her with a bemused expression. "You're a pretty weird guardian angel, you know," he said after a while. "You don't talk right."

"What d'you mean, I don't talk right? How am I supposed to talk?"

"Well, in a religious kind of way. Like they talk in the Bible."

"This is the 21st century, Mr Lane. Nobody talks like that anymore. Not even guardian angels."

"Yes, but... You just don't sound like a visitor from heaven. Can't you work a miracle or something to convince me?"

"I raised your daughter's body from the dead, dammit! What more do you want?"

He couldn't help smiling at that. "I don't know. You must be able to give me some kind of proof that you're her guardian angel."

It seemed a reasonable enough request, though she really didn't know how she could actually prove something like that. Especially as she wasn't really a guardian angel at all but a disembodied dolphin.

"I can't exactly _prove_ it," she told him eventually, "but I can provide some mind-boggling evidence. I could come into your mind and possess you, though you might find that a bit scary. Or you could use a spirit detector to see me, which you would find entertaining. I'll flap my wings and fly all round the ward and do cartwheels in the air, that kind of thing. I could even make myself look like a dragon and breath out fire. How does that sound? I'll start off by possessing you, if you like. Lean back in your chair and close your eyes and relax..."

"I'll stick with the spirit detector, if you don't mind," he said hastily. "Not that I've ever heard of spirit detectors."

"They detect spirits. But don't tell anyone, especially not Karen Holmes."

"Don't worry. I don't want people thinking I'm mad." He glanced around the room. "I don't see any spirit detectors. I suppose they're invisible, like the spirits they detect."

"Don't be daft. One will appear at five o'clock. It's arriving by special delivery."

"On the wings of an angel, I suppose."

"By airplane. Someone called Rick is bringing it. He's on a flight to Adelaide. He's human, in case you were wondering."

"That's a relief. I should be interested to meet him. Is he crazy too?"

"That was uncalled for, Mr Lane. He's actually very nice. If I was human and if he wasn't married already, I wouldn't mind marrying him. It's another hour and half before he gets here, so how about giving me some exercise? You can take me outside in the wheelchair, and then you can lift me out of it and we can have a short walk. You'll have to support me, of course."

"You're really bossy, you know, ordering me about like that. That's one thing that you and Angela do have in common."

She laughed. "You've got spirit, Mr Lane, I'll give you that. For a human, that is."

## Eighteen

Dawn didn't visit Eden again until Saturday morning, two days later. By then Donna was able to report progress on all fronts. Jonah was now able to hug her without flinching, provided they were wearing plenty of clothes and their skin never actually touched. Angela's body was responding well to the physio, and the hospital hoped that she would be able to go home on Monday. And she and Mort Lane were getting on like a house on fire. They had even started playing board games together, which for some reason greatly amused the nurses.

Much to Donna's approval, it turned out that Mort was a regular churchgoer, and so it hadn't taken much to convince him that she really was Angela's guardian angel. Baby had performed faultlessly, and on her screen he had watched Donna in the form of a tiny human figure emerge from Angela's head and float around the room and through the walls and the ceiling and the furniture, while her physical body remained slumped unconscious in the chair. She hadn't turned herself into a fire-breathing dragon, though, as that might be a step too far.

He had even cancelled a couple of business appointments to spend more time with her. Donna had told him not to be so silly, because she wasn't really his daughter, but he'd insisted, saying that according to the Bible it was important to entertain angels. She suspected that the truth of the matter was that he rather enjoyed her company, and she couldn't help wondering if his real daughter, if she was found, might not prove to be a disappointment.

Dawn, however, had made no progress at all in her search for Angela's spirit. "I've searched all the major telescopes," she told Donna despondently as they sat together in her room around a pot of tea. "I'm running out of options."

"Perhaps they've hidden her on a secret military telescope?"

"Perhaps. Wherever she is, I don't think I'll ever find her. I'll have to abandon the search, and that means abandoning Angela's body."

"We can't do that to her father, we really can't. That COBRA leader knows where Angela is, he put her there. Surely we can prise the information out of him. What about invading his mind?"

"If we can discover who he is. Fortunately we've got Baby monitoring Angela's body, so if he enters her I'll know, and I might get there in time to track him back to his body. Then we'll have him. We'll wait a few more days, and hope he makes his move. He'll want to return to Angela soon, to check if any alien spaceships have appeared."

The two women sat silently for a while, pondering the matter and listening to the noises from the temple forecourt outside. Seating was being arranged for the next episode of Dawn's Passion play.

"You haven't forgotten tomorrow, have you?" Donna asked. "Everyone's getting very excited, they can't wait to find out what happens next."

"I hope they won't be disappointed. I've not developed the plot much, I've been so taken up with trying to find Angela. I guess I'll have more time now that I've given up on her."

"I guess you will," Donna agreed sadly. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," she said, brightening. "A scientist working for SETI has contacted Mort. He wants to see me – I mean Angela. On Monday evening."

"Why does he want to see Angela?"

"Because she's been marooned in space for so long. He thinks she might have picked up evidence of ET, and he wants to quiz me about that."

"So are you going to see him?"

"I thought I would. It sounds like fun. He might turn out to be young and handsome."

"But what are you going to say to him? About Angela's time in space, I mean."

"Oh, I'll think of something. The thing is, he might be able to tell us something that might help find Angela."

"I doubt it. I don't think we'll ever find her."

The two women sat disconsolately sipping their tea. The temple bell tolled, signalling that the Mind had sensed that Eden was about to end, and in an effort to revive Dawn's spirits Donna said: "I expect Rick has returned home from Adelaide."

"He got back yesterday."

"Give him a red-hot kiss from me, then. He wouldn't let me kiss him at the hospital, so I couldn't try out my love-goddess skills. I thought he was most unsporting."

Dawn groaned. "The sooner we get you out of Angela's body the better. I've told you not to mess around in it. You're terrible!"

Donna grinned. "I was trying to wind you up. You don't seriously think I'd do that, do you?"

"I certainly do! You can practise your love-goddess skills on Jonah, once we've got him re-oriented."

"It won't be the same in neurospace, I know it won't. The way Angela's body reacted to Rick, and to some of those doctors... Wow!"

"Forget it, Donna. You're a dolphin, and nothing's going to change that. You've got a few more hours of being Angela, and then that's it. So forget all about making love in a real human body, OK?"

"OK," Donna replied dejectedly. "Let's not bother trying to re-orient Jonah, it'll be a waste of time."

The room started to shake, and the pot of tea vanished. "Your trance is ending," Dawn observed, taking her hand. She was about to tell Donna not to get too upset about her love life, because things were sure to work out right in the end, but most of the furniture in the room had disappeared and then Donna herself flickered and vanished too. It was time to go.

Dawn conjured up her red Beetle, and a few moments later, when Eden had fully disappeared, she said "Honiara, Guadalcanal" into the satnav. The engine roared into life, and then she was hurtling southeast over the ghostly mountain landscape.

Early the next morning, shortly after Eden reappeared and while it was still dark, there was a great hubbub as people congregated in the temple precinct. Seating for about half the population had been set up the previous day around the perimeter of the forecourt, and Donna watched from her balcony as late-comers jostled for seats or stood at the back and everyone chatted excitedly as they waited for the next episode of Dawn's awesome Passion play.

This long-running saga, performed on the first Sunday of every month, was the result of an experiment that Dawn had conducted some years earlier. She had come to believe that her dragon fire somehow tapped into the creative force of the universe, which was why it gave rise to fertility and love on the one hand, and why it overwhelmed the destructive forces of evil on the other. Having witnessed its power in both her human body and her dragon body, it was inevitable that she should wonder what would happen if she called it up while she was controlling the dolphin communal mind.

In the early days she had often had to take control of the Mind in order to make her vision of Eden a reality. At the very beginning, when the dolphins were young, she had joined them in their trance and called into being the great altar, which to begin with was in a cathedral but which eventually took on a more oriental appearance and became a temple. The vision was quickly extended to include the forecourt and the buildings round about, and after that the remainder of the township and then the countryside round about until, after a couple of months, the whole elaborate vision of Eden was firmly impressed upon the dolphins' joint imagination. After that she was able to possess and control the Mind in the same way as she might possess any intelligent being, by alighting upon the great altar.

And so, one day, when everyone had left the temple after the morning service, she had carried out her momentous fire-breathing experiment. Transforming herself into a dragon, as she always did when she took control of the Mind, she fluttered onto the altar and was absorbed by it, so that she and the Mind became one. It was an experience that never failed to excite her, for being one with Mind made her feel like a god. It seemed to her that she held the whole of Eden in her hand, for she was aware of every cobble in the temple forecourt and every brick in the temple wall and every tile on all the roofs of the houses round about and every blade of grass in the fields beyond as well as every thought of Eden's inhabitants.

On this occasion, however, she ignored this big picture and instead narrowed her attention down to an uninhabited patch of land at the edge of Eden. Now, very cautiously, she allowed her fire to erupt.

Through invisible eyes she watched as flames burst out of thin air and danced over the ground, taking on strange shapes and colours, and suddenly they were no longer flames but a variety of bizarre creatures. Trolls and dwarves and witches and elves and flying horses and other fairy-tale creatures frolicked on the grass, seemingly as alive as anything else in Eden. It was a false life, of course, they were merely spirit puppets dreamed up by the collective imagination.

She watched in wonder as the little creatures ran around over the grass, and then her wonder turned to dismay as their frolicking became more aggressive and they started shouting abuse. Suddenly they were attacking each other with a mindless ferocity, and in moments the air was filled with blood-curdling screams, bodies were being torn limb from limb, and there was blood everywhere. It was like a vision from hell.

Aghast, Dawn cut her fire. The nightmare puppets immediately disappeared and peace returned. She stared in bewilderment at the empty ground. What was all that about? It must have come from the collective subconscious of her dolphins, she decided, and it was an expression of their aggressive instincts. Not just dolphin aggression, but human aggression too, for they had human brains. As for the fairy-tale creatures, the dolphins were probably more familiar with fairy tales than most humans, and the powerful imagery and messages of those stories had become firmly lodged in their subconscious minds. Those imaginings had never before been expressed in Eden, for they had been suppressed by the power of her own vision for the place, but now, by the creative force of her dragon fire, they had come to life.

At first Dawn had been very troubled by this. She had thought that in Eden she had created a true heaven, but it was clear that beneath its idyllic surface lay something much darker. By breathing out her fire she had, in effect, allowed the mind to dream, and so express the collective subconscious. But as she mulled over this, she told herself that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing, in fact it was probably quite healthy. Both humans and GM dolphins needed to dream, so why not the Mind?

Then it occurred to her that if she were able to control this dreaming, she might be able to use its mindless ferocity for her own purposes. If she placed those living puppets in a fairy-tale setting, and imposed on them a fairy-tale plot, then she might be able to channel their aggression into a fight against evil. And so, after a few more fire-breathing experiments, Dawn's amazing plays had been born. It was Donna who insisted on calling them _Passion_ plays, because they usually had a hidden religious message. There was in fact a Bible study group which met after the temple service on the second Sunday of the month to discuss the hidden meaning behind the previous week's episode.

Now, on this particular passion-play Sunday, the temple forecourt was unusually crowded. The long-running saga had reached a climax and no one wanted to miss the next episode. Jonah, as usual, joined Donna on her balcony, and today Donna had also invited Clara, her new assistant, to join her. Clara had never attended Dawn's Passion plays before, and the view from the balcony was excellent. The sun had not yet risen above the mountains to the east, but to the west its rays had touched the snow-tipped peaks, turning them gold. An expectant hush descended upon the congregation. All faces were upturned as the people searched the brightening sky.

Someone called out and pointed to the western peaks, and everyone looked in that direction. A speck of red was speeding across the sky. It passed over the highest peak and then dived down into the valley, disappearing behind the cluster of roofs of the township. There was a moment of silence as people waited with baited breath, the silence stretched to five or six seconds, then suddenly there was a mighty roar and a red dragon rose above the rooftops, its wings flapping noisily. The mighty creature circled the forecourt a couple of times, while the crowd clapped and cheered, and then it dived and swooped down to the entrance to the temple, disappearing into the darkness beyond.

No one had been in the least bit frightened by this impressive spectacle, for they all knew that the dragon was Dawn, and they also knew that once inside the temple she would flutter onto the golden altar and be absorbed by it, so allowing her to possess the Mind. Everyone, that is, apart from Clara, and Donna had to explain to her what was happening.

"Dawn always arrives like this on Passion-play Sundays," she whispered. "Some people think it's because she likes to show off, but that's not the reason. She does it so that people won't forget that she really is an exceptional human and there's no one more able to protect our interests."

Clara nodded but said nothing. She always kept her thoughts to herself, and Donna wondered what was going through her mind. Although Clara was a most willing and efficient helper, and brilliant at her temple chores, there was definitely something odd about her. Dawn's Passion plays had been running for almost three years now, to huge acclaim, and it seemed impossible that Clara had never managed to attend any of them.

"Dawn's enacting the story of Sleeping Beauty at the moment," Donna continued. "I expect you remember seeing the movie years ago, at the lagoon." Again Clara nodded.

"We've reached the part where the wicked witch has managed to get the beautiful princess to prick her finger, so that she's fallen asleep and everyone else in the castle has fallen asleep too. Years and years have passed, and now a great hedge of thorns has grown up around the castle and no one can reach it. Of course, Dawn changes quite a lot of the story, and the characters sometimes do unexpected things, 'cos they're alive in a weird kind of way, so no one knows exactly how it's all going to work out in the end. That's what makes her plays so exciting."

A beam of bright light, as if from a spotlight, suddenly shone out of nowhere, illuminating the central area of the forecourt, and there was a brief impression of dancing flames. The flames solidified into walls and turrets, more walls and gates and windows sprang out of nowhere, and suddenly there was a miniature fairy-tale castle, about 5 metres high by 15 metres across, surrounded by a dense thicket of thorns reaching to within a couple of metres of the innermost row of seats.

"Dawn's taken over the Mind," Donna explained, "and she's using it to create this castle. Can you see the people asleep in the grounds? They're small, so they fit the castle perfectly."

"They only look about 20 centimetres tall," Clara observed wonderingly. "When they're awake, can they think, the same as us?"

"I suppose so. They've certainly got minds of their own. Dawn has quite a job controlling them sometimes."

Dawn, at one with the Mind, was dimly aware of this conversation, as she was of everything else in Eden. She ignored it, however, for she was now the fire-breathing puppet master and her attention was focussed on the castle that the Mind had called up together with the sleeping princess and all the sleeping servants. They were doomed to sleep for all eternity unless a saviour came to wake them.

She called up an image of a handsome prince, riding on horseback. As the image solidified in the collective imagination, she allowed more fire to erupt from the depths of her being. At once a flame flickered at the edge of the forecourt, near the temple entrance, rapidly taking on the form of a miniature white horse, dressed in full regalia. She let out more fire, and now the horse had a rider, a prince in shining armour with a long sword dangling from his waist.

The horse knew what was expected of it, and it cantered around the outside of the thicket, looking for a way in. When it had circled the entire perimeter, the prince dismounted and examined the thicket closely, testing its sharp thorns with his finger. Then he took his sword and started swinging it backwards and forwards, hacking at the dense branches with huge blows. It was an arduous task, and as he slowly made inroads into the bush the thorns reached out to him in what seemed like a malicious manner, finding gaps in his armour and drawing blood, so that eventually he was forced to retreat.

Dawn was resigned to this kind of thing happening in her Passion plays. The dark underbelly of the mind had a nasty rebellious streak, and it always managed to show it in unexpected and sometimes quite vicious ways. Often one of her characters turned bad, but in this case it was the vegetation. Although she told herself that it was not a bad thing that the mind was able to work out its subconscious aggression within the controlled environment of her Passion plays, it always left her feeling distinctly uneasy.

The prince stared at the impenetrable thicket in disgust, then he thrust his sword back into its scabbard, mounted his horse, and rode back the way he had come, towards the temple entrance. He might be gallant, but he wasn't stupid. He would seek out some other damsel in distress.

The audience started murmuring, then someone booed, and at once the whole crowd was booing. But the prince, ignoring their jeers, kicked the horse's side with his heels and galloped into the temple. As he disappeared a hush descended on the forecourt, everyone wondering what would happen next. Dawn's fairy stories always had an unexpected twist.

No one saw what happened next, not even the prince, for it took place within the horse's mind. Dawn focussed her attention on it and implanted in it a powerful desire to make the ultimate sacrifice. It would give up its brief moment of existence to save the princess and her people. It could never clear the thicket, for it was too wide, but it was not terribly high, so it could leap over most of it and throw the prince across the rest.

Within the temple the horse abruptly turned to face the entrance and started pawing the ground impatiently. Dawn visited the prince's mind and told him what was about to take place. She, the god of his tiny world, was taking charge of things, and he'd better hold on tight and be ready to jump at the last moment.

Now she entered the horse's mind again, determined not to leave anything to chance. Through his eyes, she eyed up the thicket in the forecourt beyond the temple entrance. It looked a long way away, but that was because the horse was so small. She snorted a couple of times, took a deep breath, and charged.

As she emerged into the light a huge cheer went up from the crowd. She thundered over the cobbles, heading straight at the hedge of thorns. At the last moment she took a huge jump, putting all the creature's effort into it, so that she cleared the top of the hedge easily and continued some way over it. The audience went wild with excitement, but she knew she could never clear it. As she started to fall towards it, she kicked her rear legs as hard as she could, sending the prince flying upwards and forwards while she fell sprawling onto the deadly vegetation.

The horse's body writhed in agony as a hundred vicious thorns gouged its flesh and blood spurted out. Real spirits didn't have blood, of course, but this creature wasn't real, though she could feel its agony and hear its screams. She was aware, too, of the horrified gasps of the audience. The agony and the squealing lasted several seconds and then, mercifully, died away, and the horse became still. The thorns had put an end to its sham life.

Just beyond the thicket, in the castle grounds, the prince lay in a crumpled heap. If he wasn't dead, then he must certainly have suffered several broken bones from that headlong fall. A shocked hush descended over the forecourt. The horse had died the most horrible death, and now the prince was incapacitated. Never before had one of Dawn's fairy tales ended so calamitously.

Dawn focussed her attention on the unconscious body. The puppet was certainly in a bad way, with a couple of broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder and severe bruising. Only a miracle would save her Passion play now. She hated having to resort to miracles in her stories, for it always seemed like cheating, but at least the prince's body was covered in armour so the audience wouldn't see what she was up to. She breathed out more fire, so that for a brief instant it enveloped his body, and then the puppet was restored to its former self.

The prince stirred and slowly sat up. Very gingerly, he rose to his feet, and then he walked a few steps. Amazingly, nothing seemed to be broken. He jumped up and down a couple of times, and then he waved to the audience. Someone clapped, and then everyone was clapping and cheering, for it seemed as if he had been raised from the dead.

Now he ran over the grass to the tallest tower, leaping over the bodies of sleeping groundsmen. He ran through the entrance and bounded up several flights of stairs, to the room at the top where his princess was sleeping. All the windows were open, so the audience could follow his progress, and when he reached the princess's bedroom everyone cheered again. He paused by the bedside and gazed down at her beautiful face, and then he leaned over her and gave her a tender kiss.

Flames appeared out of nowhere and danced briefly over the princess's body, and she began to stir. The flames leapt through the window and onto the sleeping body of a servant, then jumped to another and another, and soon the fire had touched all the bodies in the castle. Everyone stirred and yawned as they emerged from their deathlike sleep, and in a few minutes the place was alive with activity as the people went about their tasks as if nothing had happened. It was like a resurrection from the dead.

Meanwhile, in the small bedroom at the top of the highest tower, the happy couple walked to the window hand in hand and waved to the audience, and everyone clapped. Then the dense thicket surrounding the castle grounds disappeared, and with it the dead horse, and finally the servants left off their tasks and faced the audience and bowed. The audience rose to its feet and gave them a standing ovation, and then the castle and its inhabitants vanished in a puff of smoke and the performance was over.

Shortly afterwards, as the congregation dispersed and the hubbub died down, Dawn released the Mind from her control. There was a moment of disengagement, and then she found herself in her human form sitting on top of the altar inside the temple. She clambered off it and collapsed into one of the seats nearby. Her Passion plays always left her exhausted, for they required a continuous stream of fire to sustain them. And she always found it stressful when the rebellious underside of the Mind tried to scupper things, as it had today, though even she had to admit that it made her story much more memorable. Donna's Bible study group would have a field day next Sunday, picking it to bits and reading into it all kinds of lessons and interpretations.

After a few minutes the murmur of voices outside the temple faded into the distance, and she guessed it was now safe to venture outside. The last thing she wanted at the moment was people rushing up to greet her. A quiet chat with Donna was her only desire, and even perhaps some of her pungent fish tea.

It was then that she became aware of someone shaking her physical body and calling her name. It must be Rick trying to rouse her from her trance, and he would only be doing that if something had cropped up requiring her urgent attention. Well, at least it saved her the bother of having to call up her red Beetle and fly half way across the world.

Relaxed into the seat, she let her mind drift. In moments the temple and everything in it faded from her consciousness and she was lying on her bed at home, gazing up into her husband's eyes.

"Hello, my love," she murmured groggily. "What's up?"

"That satellite receiver linking you to Baby – it's been buzzing. Angela's been visited by a spirit!"

"What?" Dawn gaped up at him, wide awake now. "Is it still buzzing?" she asked, sitting up.

"No, it stopped a few minutes ago."

"Damn! It's bound to be that COBRA leader! He's invaded Angela's mind again, and I've missed him."

"I guessed that. I didn't wake you earlier, 'cos I knew you'd be in the middle of your Passion play. I waited until I knew you would have finished."

She nodded. "The dolphins are my priority, there's no way I could cut that short. That invader sure picked the right moment."

"So what will you do?"

"There's nothing I can do now. Except to tell Donna. Baby will have recorded everything, so we should be able to get a good look at him."

"Donna will be back in Angela's body later this afternoon," Rick observed. "You can phone her at the hospital."

"No, I'd better speak to her at the lagoon, before she leaves. She needs to be on her guard when she enters Angela. I should go with her, but I'm too shattered."

Rick smiled. "She'll enjoy flying there by herself, in that fancy James Bond car she's dreamed up. She was full of it when I saw her at the hospital on Thursday night, telling me about its swish interior and swept-back wings and enormous rear engine throwing out fire and smoke. She was like an excited child with a new toy."

Dawn yawned, then slipped her legs over the side of the bed and pushed her feet into her slippers. "She's only 13. I know we've speeded up the dolphins' brain development, but they've got the hormones of adolescents."

She stood up and held out her hand to her husband. "I'm starving! I hope you've got the dinner on."

"I certainly have, your highness. And several of your favourite puddings as well."

"You're an angel. How long was Baby's radio link buzzing, by the way?"

"I think it was about 20 minutes. Enough time for Angela's spirit invader to check her latest memories of space, I suppose."

Dawn frowned and sat down again on the bed. "That COBRA leader timed his visit exactly right," she muttered. "He must have turned up at Angela's ward the moment I started my Passion play, and disappeared as soon as I finished. It's almost as if he knew."

"What? How could he know?"

"All the dolphins know when my Passion plays are to take place. Perhaps he's got an informant."

"A dolphin spy, you mean?"

"Perhaps. Though if there was a spy, the Mind would certainly be aware of it, and I had no sense of that."

"So...?"

"I don't know. But there's something very odd going on. The Mind's always been a bit rebellious during my Passion plays, making things difficult for me, but recently it's been getting worse. Things got quite gruesome today. I've always put it down to the collective subconscious of the dolphins, working out the natural adolescent rebellion and aggression of their human minds, but perhaps there's more to it than that."

"You think something evil has infiltrated the Mind?"

"If it has, then it's keeping well below the surface. I would have felt it otherwise."

"Maybe it's like the Eden of the Bible story," Rick mused. "That was a perfect place, but the serpent lived in it, and he managed, very stealthily, to ruin it."

"Rick! That would be my worst nightmare! I'm going to have to get hold of Angela's invader and squeeze every last drop of information out of him. I've got to know how he managed to time his visit so well!"

#  Part 3: Angels

## Nineteen

Dawn visited Eden again the next morning and went straight to Donna's quarters. Donna was sitting at her table cutting up a scroll of blank parchment into rectangular pieces almost ten centimetres wide. She had a quill pen and a bottle of red ink that she'd picked up in a craft shop in town, and she was writing large numbers on the pieces and placing them in neat piles. There was a pile of pieces numbered '10', another pile of 20s, and a third of 50s.

Mystified, Dawn stood watching for a few moments. "It's money," Donna explained. "I'm making money."

Dawn stared at her, totally bemused. "Money? But this is Eden. Everything's free!"

"It's not for buying things, Silly! I'm making a Monopoly set. I want to play Monopoly with Jonah. You can join us if you like."

One might have thought that Donna could have persuaded the Mind to conjure up a Monopoly set out of thin air. The Mind knew all about Monopoly, for it had access to both Donna's memory and Dawn's, and it would have had no difficulty at all in creating a quality product with tiny houses made of wood instead of cheap plastic and a golden goblet for throwing dice as well as dollar bills that were practically indistinguishable from the real thing.

Unfortunately things weren't that easy. The Mind would have needed some pretty forceful persuading to create something like that, for it knew perfectly well that Monopoly was unknown in Elizabethan England. Donna would have had to spend several hours on her knees in prayer and fasting before the altar in the temple, and even then the Mind might not have acquiesced, especially if it had doubts about the morality of the game. It had picked up from Dawn some quite rigid views on things like gambling with dice. Quite apart from that, Donna liked making things for herself.

"Monopoly? You want to play Monopoly?" Dawn was staggered that a dolphin could be interested in such a game. "But it's all about capitalism and greed and bankrupting everyone."

"That's what's so good about it! I totally wiped out Mort yesterday – I had hotels everywhere, and all the stations as well. It's ever so educational, you learn about buying houses and collecting rent and getting out of jail and managing your money..."

"I know perfectly well what it's about. Look, I'm not interested in Monopoly, I want to know what you discovered about Angela's spirit invader. Was there any sign of him when you arrived in Angela's body. Did you check what Baby recorded?"

Donna continued cutting out her banknotes. "I think I should write the numbers on the parchment _before_ I cut them out," she murmured to herself. Then she caught Dawn's eye and added hurriedly: "No, there was no sign of him, and yes, I did check Baby. Somehow he'd managed to scramble the recording."

" _Scramble_ the recording? You mean he tampered with Baby?"

"I don't know what he did. According to the time-stamp on the recording his visit lasted about 20 minutes, and all that Baby picked up during that time was a whole load of interference. It was like someone had shone a bright light into her lens, blinding her. The screen showed nothing but white noise for the whole time."

"How weird! Perhaps she's not working properly."

"I checked, and she's fine. She recorded my arrival perfectly."

Dawn was silent for a moment, digesting this information. "How on earth do you think he managed to dazzle her?"

"It probably wasn't deliberate," Donna murmured as she methodically continued working on her money. "You've kept Baby a secret, so he shouldn't know anything about her."

"Let's hope not. Look, can't you stop making banknotes for a moment and concentrate? I want to know what's been happening in Adelaide."

"I told you. I beat Mort at Monopoly."

"That was yesterday," Dawn growled. "What about today? Today's half over in Adelaide. What happened this morning?"

Donna laughed and stood up. "I'll make you some fish tea. It soothes the nerves, and fish is good for the brain too. That's why dolphins are so bright."

Dawn sighed. "You're being very difficult, Donna. I don't know what's got into you recently. Yes I do – it's being able to boss those nurses around, it's gone to your head. Now sit down and answer my question: _WHAT HAPPENED THIS MORNING?_ "

Donna sat down hastily. "Everything's great, absolutely great. I'm doing so well that the hospital told Mort I can go home. He's even taken a week off work so he can look after me. He picked me up at 10 o'clock in his car – it's really flash, almost as flash as my James Bond car – and we drove to his house. It's a great big place, much bigger than yours, with a swimming pool and everything, and I've got a huge bedroom with pink curtains. The kitchen's great too, 'cos he likes cooking, and I told him that I really, really wanted to learn to cook. He looked ever so pleased when I said that, and he promised I can start this afternoon."

"He's going to teach you how to cook?" Dawn asked faintly.

"Isn't it great? That's something I could never do as a dolphin. The only way I'd be able to could cook fish in the sea would be to dive down to those thermal vents, and they're right in the middle of the ocean and much too deep."

"I wish we'd never got caught up in this Angela business," Dawn muttered despairingly. "Things are getting impossible. We're going to have to abandon her body pretty soon and let her die. Mort will be heartbroken, and you're going to be even more difficult than you are now, but we've got no choice."

"Her spirit's out there somewhere," Donna retorted, "So we're bound to find her eventually. Perhaps next time that COBRA man invades her we'll be able to catch him, and then we'll be able to make him talk. I'll hold him down while you burn off his fingers and toes, one at time. You're good at that sort of thing."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"And then there's that guy from SETI I told you about. He's coming to see me tonight. Perhaps he'll come up with something."

Dawn looked at her thoughtfully. "I'd forgotten about him. He might well be able to help. In fact that's the first sensible thing you've said all day."

"That's not fair! I've said lots of very sensible things to Mort. If fact we talked about religion in the car, and you can't get more sensible than that. He seems to think I'm an expert on religion, what with me being a guardian angel and raising Angela from the dead and everything."

"This gets worse by the minute," Dawn muttered wearily. "I hate to think what you told him."

"I told him the truth. I said that Paradise is rubbish for playing board games and watching television, 'cos its really low-tech and there aren't any of those things, but I pointed out that it's great if you don't have any money 'cos there isn't any of that either. I said that's why rich people like him aren't always welcome and why poor people get on really well."

"Well, I guess that more or less sums up the 4,000 years of accumulated wisdom on the subject."

"The trouble is, after I said that he started talking about selling his house and giving everything away so that we can live a life of simple poverty."

"That would seem to be the logical thing to do."

"I told him not to. I said his first priority was Angela – that's me, of course – and she needs a pool 'cos she has to do lots of swimming to tone up her body. She also needs plenty of rest, so a nice bedroom with a good bed is essential."

"And then there are all those board games she has to play and television she needs to watch and cars she needs to go out in."

"That's what I told him. Angela's been cut off from the world for four years, I said, so she'll need all the help she can get."

"And help costs money, of course. Lots of it."

"Exactly. So I assured him that it would quite in order for him to hold on to his loot, provided he keeps up his church attendance and puts something in the collection box each week. I told him I definitely want to go to church on Sunday."

"At least that won't cost him anything."

"Well, that's not entirely true. Angela will need some new clothes as she's been in all the papers and loads of people will want to shake her hand and everything. She also needs some new shoes and plenty of makeup, of course. But after that initial outlay it should work out pretty cheap."

Dawn closed her eyes and contemplated the growing mess in Adelaide. It was nice that Donna and Mort Lane got on so well together, but this was getting completely out of hand. Yesterday it was board games, today it was cooking, and tomorrow no doubt would see them touring the shops and Mort buying her presents and clothes and all the while she would be giggling and making him laugh, and probably in the evening they would go to the theatre – it didn't bear thinking about. If that SETI man came up with nothing this evening she would insist that Donna abandoned Angela's body to its fate.

"I think I'll join you in Adelaide tonight, when your visitor comes. I want to talk to him myself."

"You want me to get Mort to pick you up at the airport?"

"I can't join you _physically_ , the journey takes too long. I'll come in spirit. I'll share Angela's body with you."

"Oh. I see. You won't come till this evening, will you?"

Dawn eyed her suspiciously. "Why? What's going on this afternoon?"

"Cooking, of course. You know how hopeless you are at that. You'll ruin everything."

Dawn smiled. "OK, the afternoon's yours. What time is this SETI man coming?"

"His name's Paul. Dr Paul Gibson. He lives in Adelaide, apparently. He's coming at 6.30 – Mort's invited him to dinner."

"You're going to cook dinner?"

"Mort is. He likes cooking. I'm going to watch and do some peeling, and he said I can make the sauce."

"Wow. OK, you'll feel my presence in Angela's brain around six. I promise I won't interfere with your cooking, though I might need to take control of Angela's body later, to question this Paul."

Donna nodded. "I understand. You'll want to ask him about telescopes and space and stuff like that."

"That's right. If he doesn't come up with anything..."

"I know." Donna stood up abruptly and turned away. "It's quits for Angela."

"I'm sorry, Donna, I really am. But we've got no choice."

"I'll make that tea." Donna went over to the kettle, steaming gently on the hob. "You'll have some, won't you?" she called over her shoulder.

"I'd love a cup, my darling." Dawn didn't have the heart to refuse as Donna was so clearly upset.

"By the way," she asked, changing the subject, "Who was that girl on your balcony yesterday, watching the show?"

Donna glanced back at her in surprise. "I didn't know you could see the audience during your show."

"I'm sort of aware of everything. If I'd had the time, I could have found out about her from the Mind."

"Really? She's Clara, my new assistant."

"I don't recall the name."

Donna poured the boiling water into the teapot and stirred it several times. The fishy aroma had a calming effect. "She's worked on farms and in castles up till now. She's never seen any of your shows, and she thought it was brilliant. She couldn't stop talking about it afterwards."

"That's very gratifying. I'm surprised that she's not managed to get to any of my shows, though."

"Clara's ever so shy. I don't think she's been around much. But she's great around the temple, the best helper I've had."

"Interesting. I'd like to meet her sometime. You don't know who her human mentor is, I suppose?"

"I've never asked. We don't talk much about humans here. Except about you, of course."

Donna poured out the tea and took a sip from her own cup. In spite of her sadness, she couldn't resist teasing Dawn a little. "You ought to do a show about you and Rick, you know. Everyone would attend that. You would have to include all the spicy bits, of course, like how you made love on the beach the first time and had to roll under that bush. It would go down a treat..."

Dawn let Donna prattle on, relieved that she seemed to have come to terms with the near-inevitability of having to abandon Angela. Her mind drifted to what Donna had told her about that spirit visitor interfering with Baby's vision, so that all she saw was wall-to-wall whiteness. Something very peculiar was going on, and she was tempted to share her fears that perhaps the Mind was being corrupted by some outside influence. Unfortunately the Mind was aware of everything that was said here, and even of Donna's thoughts, so she would have to keep her suspicions to herself.

Many hours later Dawn found herself hovering above Mort's house in Adelaide. It was 6 pm local time, which was when she'd said she'd arrive. She'd had no difficulty locating the house, as Donna had had the sense to memorise the address, and she'd passed this on to Dawn, and she'd also told her that Mort's car, which was large and metallic gold, would be parked in the drive. Dawn's satnav had depositing her just a few hundred metres away, and she'd quickly spotted the car.

Once inside the house, Dawn found the kitchen almost immediately, and there was Angela, helping Mort with his cooking. Without more ado she flew straight into Angela's head, and moments later she found herself in the cathedral of her mind. The last time she'd been here, when Angela's body was in a coma, it had been a dark, mournful place. Now, with Donna in charge, the stained-glass window was alight with colour as her eyes flicked this way and that, the smell of cooking was everywhere, and she could hear Mort laughing about something that Donna had just said.

Dawn ignored all these sensations. She was on a mission to try to save Angela's spirit, and she went directly to the room at the end of the cathedral nave with the open door, the one she'd visited before which held Angela's memories of space. It was a remote hope, but perhaps Angela's most recent memories might yield some clue as to her whereabouts.

Dawn wandered slowly around the darkened room, taking in the images that bombarded her mind. As before, they consisted entirely of faint splodges of light against a black background – Angela's view of the stars. There were no sharp, clearly-defined points of light which would have signalled the arrival of invaders travelling through neurospace, though Dawn had not been expecting that. What she was hoping for was another glimpse of the telescope mechanism or anything else that might help her identify Angela's hiding place.

Suddenly a blinding white light burst upon her vision. Startled, she jumped back, and blackness returned. She moved her head cautiously forward again to sample the memory, and again her vision was filled with a brilliant whiteness. Very slowly she moved her head sideways, first in one direction and then another, and as her vision adjusted to the brightness she realised that there were shapes and patches of colour mixed in with the white, and that these were moving. She continued twisting her head, very slowly, peering into the intense light in an attempt to make some sense of the imagery. There was some kind of structure or building, and people moving around it, but it was all too glaringly bright and the people were too small and distant to tell what was happening.

There was something vaguely familiar about the structure, though. She held her head steady, so that the imagery stopped moving, and tried to distinguish its white outline from the rest of the whiteness. It was like a castle, with a tall tower. Suddenly she recognised it. This was Sleeping Beauty's castle!

Unable to believe her eyes, Dawn moved her head a little this way and that. Each small movement changed the dazzling imagery, and it was difficult to make out the details, but she was certain it was all from yesterday's Passion play. Her fairy-tale enactment had somehow found its way into Angela's mind!

Her enactment must also have found its way into Baby's mind, Dawn suddenly realised. The white interference that Donna had reported was no invading spirit scrambling Baby's perceptions, instead it was an immensely powerful burst of telepathy broadcast by the Mind!

Dawn withdrew her head from the brightness and tried to think through the implications of this astonishing discovery. Her initial feeling was of relief, because her fears that the COBRA leader might have a dolphin spy or some other link to the Mind were clearly groundless. Then she wondered what had prompted the mind to broadcast her Passion play. Probably it wasn't deliberate, she decided. Something like this was bound to happen when the most awesome mental force on the planet was empowered with her almighty fire.

But how had Angela managed to pick up this telepathy? She could understand that Baby would, for that ability had been built into her, but not a human mind like Angela's. Even the inhabitants of Eden, who were dolphins in real life, hadn't detected it – or if they had, it had been completely masked by the excitement of watching the performance taking place before their eyes. It must have something to do with the fact that Angela was cut off from her body and had been marooned in neurospace for four long years. Devoid of all normal sensory input, her mind must somehow have developed this ability, just as the dolphins had.

Dawn was about to retreat from the room containing this part of Angela's memories when the full implications of what she had discovered here suddenly hit home. That intensely powerful burst of telepathy, which had practically blinded both Baby and Angela, must have travelled far out into space. There was evidence that telepathy travelled many times faster than the speed of light, possibly as much as ten thousand times faster, and the telepathy from her earliest Passion plays must by now have reached deep into the galaxy. For 20 minutes or so on the first Sunday of each month, the earth would shine like a supernova in neurospace, attracting the attention of telepathic intelligences on other worlds!

So what would those intelligences make of the imagery of her extraordinary fairy-tale Passion plays? They would probably find it incomprehensible. Certainly they would be intrigued, and maybe some of them had replied with telepathic broadcasts of their own. If so, the Watchers' claims should be taken very seriously indeed.

Dawn's mind was awhirl as she stood staring at the hazy splodges of light bombarding her in the darkness of this part of Angela's memories. Those were stars, some of which were surrounded by planets, and on a few of those planets intelligent life had evolved. And now those alien intelligences were on their way to Earth, drawn here by her Passion plays!

## Twenty

Donna and Mort were even closer than Dawn had feared. They had obviously thoroughly enjoyed acting out the roles of daughter and father in the hospital, and by unspoken agreement they were relating to each other in just the same way now that they were home. Donna was behaving like a precocious little girl, bossing him about and teasing him and making him laugh, and he responded by playing the part of the doting father, pandering to her every wish. His dreams had come true, and now there was a light in his eyes and a spring in his step that hadn't been there before. With Donna around, his empty home was suddenly full of life.

Angela's body was still very weak and flabby. Although Donna was able to make it walk around a little, she couldn't stand up for long and most of the time she was sitting on a kitchen chair chatting to Mort and watching him prepare the meal. Dawn had promised that she wouldn't interfere, and so she remained in the background, sitting on the steps below the stained-glass window in the cathedral of Angela's mind, observing everything. Donna hadn't mentioned her presence to Mort, as that would have raised all kinds of awkward questions.

It was now almost half an hour since Dawn's arrival, and Dr Paul Gibson of SETI was due to arrive at any moment. Through Angela/Donna's eyes, she watched Mort tipping a pile of pasta into a saucepan of boiling water. "Lay the table, would you, Donna? The cutlery is over here, in this drawer."

"Sure thing, boss." Donna pushed herself up from her chair, pulled out the drawer, and stared blankly at its contents. Although eating with a knife and fork hadn't proved to be a problem, for that skill was wired into Angela's brain, she'd never seen such a range of eating utensils, all neatly arranged in different sizes, and she didn't know where to begin. Her dolphin education, although very comprehensive, had failed to prepare her for this, and although she had spent a lot of time in Dawn's mind, none of it had involved preparing meals or, for that matter, eating them. All she knew was that table manners were terribly important to humans, and that it was considered bad form to gobble up everything in sight.

It dawned on her that entertaining Dr Gibson to dinner tonight was going to be quite an ordeal. She wasn't even sure if she liked pasta. It didn't smell at all fishy.

"Help me, Dawn," she whispered, hoping that the message would travel through her ears into the cathedral of her mind.

Mort glanced up from the cooker. "Pardon?"

But Donna's mind was elsewhere. Dawn had responded to her plea by taking control of Angela's body, and now Donna was just a silent observer, watching the drama unfold in that stained-glass window.

"I said 'Help me decide'," Dawn replied. "D'you want the large knives and forks and spoons? And will three serving spoons be enough?"

"That'll be fine."

Dawn extracted the cutlery and waddled out of the kitchen. Although Angela's body was able to walk, it couldn't move fast. She stood in the spacious hallway and glanced around the unfamiliar surroundings. Which way to the dining room? An image of an open door flashed across her mind – Donna understood her quandary and was projecting this imagery to give her directions. It was the first door on the left. She waddled inside, and sure enough there was a large dining table, with a table cloth and placemats already laid out. She arranged the cutlery and waddled back to the kitchen.

"What next?" she asked Mort.

"Get the wine from the fridge and those plates over there and carry them in."

"Sure thing, boss," Dawn said, repeating Donna's earlier words. She didn't want him to suspect that Donna was no longer in charge of Angela's body.

He gave her a quizzical look. "You're being very obedient for a change. What's got into you?"

"I'm softening you up for tomorrow. You haven't spent a bean on your daughter for four years, so you've a lot of catching up to do. Women are expensive, you know."

"Don't be daft. Where you come from there isn't any money. Angels aren't materialistic, you told me. I thought we might live in poverty for a while."

Dawn silently took the wine from the fridge and picked up the plates and waddled out. She wasn't sure how Donna would have responded to that remark.

"I suppose I'm a bit of a fallen angel," she told him when she got back. "Consumed by avarice, greed, the lusts of the flesh, that kind of thing."

He laughed. "I know what you mean. There's nothing like owning loads of houses and hotels and getting stinking rich at everyone else's expense!"

The doorbell rang. "That'll be Dr Gibson," she said. "Shall I let him in?"

"Please. Take him through to the lounge and chat to him for a few minutes. And try to behave."

"Behaving is what angels do best," she told him as she waddled out. She was beginning to enjoy acting the part of a teenager again. As she approached the front door she decided that she would show that precocious Donna a trick or two.

A smartly-dressed man carrying a briefcase was at the doorstep. He looked in his 30's. He had straight black hair and was wearing thick-rimmed glasses.

"Dr Gibson, I presume," she said.

He peered at her owlishly through his glasses. "You're Angela Lane?"

"P'rhaps I am and p'rhaps I ain't." She let him into the hall. "Things are a little confused at the moment."

"Well, either you are Angela Lane or you aren't. Which is it?"

"Difficult to say." She led him through to the lounge, guided by Donna's visual prompts. "Part of me is Angela and part of me isn't. Hopefully all of me will be her before long."

"It would certainly simplify things," he answered stiffly.

He sat down opposite her in the lounge and stared at her thoughtfully. "When you say that part of you isn't Angela Lane, do you mean that something ... else ... has entered you?"

"Yes. Exactly that."

"Something that contacted you during your time in space?"

"Oh no, it's not an extra-terrestrial, if that's what you mean. It's a guardian angel. At least, that's what I've told my father."

He looked startled. "A guardian angel? You think you've got a guardian angel?"

"It's more that what you're talking to _is_ Angela's guardian angel. I'm controlling her body."

He leaned back in his chair and stared at her over his glasses. "Like spirit possession, you mean?"

"Exactly."

"I see." There was a long pause. "Has your father taken you to see a psychiatrist, Angela?"

"Why? Do they need guardian angels too?"

He smiled. "I really think you should see a psychiatrist. I suspect you're suffering from delusions."

She glared at him. "Guardian angels are never deluded, Dr Gibson." She hoped that Donna, who would be listening in to everything, was impressed by her banter.

Mort walked in and introduced himself. "Call me Paul," Dr Gibson said, standing up and shaking his hand.

"I see you're getting acquainted with my daughter, Paul. She's doing well, isn't she?"

Paul hesitated. "She seems a little uncertain as to her identity. She claims to be Angela's ... guardian angel."

"Fascinating, isn't it? Come through to the dining room. Everything's ready. I'm sure she'll have a lot to say over dinner. As a matter of fact, I've never met anyone with such a lot to say. She's not at all like Angela in that respect. In fact, she's not at all like Angela in _any_ respect."

Paul stared at him in his owlish way, but said nothing.

A few minutes later, when the meal was underway, Paul broached the subject again. "I imagine it's very reassuring to be a guardian angel," he said to her. "You must know pretty much everything there is to know about everything." He was being sarcastic, of course.

"I'm not omniscient, unfortunately," Dawn replied equably. "I'm quite shaky on quantum mechanics, for instance, and as for the human genome, well, you need to be a supercomputer to get to grips with that. But on the whole I'm quite knowledgeable. Why?"

"I was wondering how you were able to square your evident belief in your angelic nature with the facts of the situation. You don't see any inconsistencies?"

She stared at him blankly. "No. None at all."

"Don't you think it a little odd that you allowed Angela to remain in a coma for four years – that's a big chunk out of her life – before deciding to do something about it?"

"I can't just drop everything, Dr Gibson. I've got more important things than this to attend to. It's pretty busy up in heaven, what with so many people dying all the time. I just wish you humans would do something to control your population. Things are getting quite out of hand up there."

"And when you do get round to saving Angela, you don't do the job properly," Paul persisted, ignoring her attempts to change the subject. "She's not back in her body, you say?"

"She certainly isn't. As a matter of fact, I'm hoping you'll be able to help me find her. Your expert knowledge might give me some clues about her location."

He smiled superciliously. "You can't be much of a guardian angel if you need help from a mere mortal to perform your duties."

She glowered at him across the table. "I told you, Dr Gibson, I'm not omniscient. That's a Latin word, and since you obviously don't know much Latin, I'll put it in simple English: _I don't know everything!_ Look, I know this is difficult for you to accept, but at least try to be open-minded about things. Let's pretend for a moment that I'm not some half-baked dim-witted girl with a mind that's been addled because she's been in a coma for four years. Adopt the scientific approach: make my claims your working hypothesis and see where they lead you!"

"I agree with her, Paul," Mort said quietly. "This is Angela's body, but Angela couldn't possibly be talking like this. At least answer her questions."

Paul shrugged. "OK. I think you're both mad, but since I'm here anyway and you're giving me dinner the least I can do is answer a few questions."

"Thank you," Dawn said. "Now perhaps we can get down to business. First of all, I need to explain what's happened to Angela. Have you heard of the Watchers?"

"I know about them, yes."

"You're not involved with them, I hope?"

"Certainly not. Do you think I'm mad too?"

"Just checking. Anyway, they believe that extra-terrestrials are on a spirit journey to Earth."

"I know what they believe."

"Well, Angela's their early-warning system. They've attached her to a telescope, to monitor the stars. I thought it might be a space telescope, but I've checked those. In case you're wondering, angels are able to fly in space."

"What makes you think she's on a space telescope?" he asked, ignoring her last comment.

"I've seen into her mind. She's looking through a telescope, I can tell that, and she's seeing nothing but black space with faint stars. If it was an earth-based telescope there would be periods of daylight."

He looked at her curiously, clearly intrigued. "At SETI's Australian site there's a pair of telescopes that work in tandem. They're about a kilometre apart, but they're linked by an underground tunnel, and the light from them travels through this tunnel to some optics in the middle where it's combined to form a single image. The reason for two telescopes is to increase the effective resolution – in other words to allow you to see distant objects more clearly. The thing is, that tunnel is in darkness, both day and night."

"What?" Dawn dropped her knife and fork with a clatter on her plate and gaped at him. Mort had obviously realised the implications of his words, for he was gaping at him too. "Where is this telescope?"

"In the Mount Lofty hills, not far from here, about a 40-minute drive." He paused, his eyes searching her face, and it occurred to Dawn that he might be wondering if she actually was an angel.

"Actually, it's not really SETI's telescope, though we manage the site. It belongs to the University of Adelaide. Not that that's important. What's curious – very curious in view of what you've been telling me – is that these Watchers that you're so worried about are now financing it."

"What? That's it! That must be where they've put Angela!" She gave him a huge smile. "Paul, you're wonderful! In fact you're absolutely marvellous."

He nodded thoughtfully. "There's more. The Watchers got interested in that telescope several years ago. They said they wanted to use it to scan the skies for ET, though they didn't say anything about planting a captive spirit in it. No one would have paid any attention if they did, of course. Anyway, they poured millions of dollars into the university's coffers, and in return the university agreed that the telescope could be used to sweep the skies in the way the Watchers wanted – covering the Milky Way, especially the central regions, 'cos ET's likely to come from there – and they're paying SETI to man it. SETI had no objection, of course, because such a search is entirely consistent with its own objectives."

"This is amazing, Paul! Everything fits. Angela's _bound_ to be at that telescope. When I file my report in the great Office in the Sky, I'll certainly put in a good word for you. And remind me to give you a great big kiss before you leave."

He laughed for the first time. "Since you're not really Angela, you won't be offended if I refuse that offer, will you?"

"I understand. She's not a beauty queen. But a few weeks of exercise and some decent food and a bit of makeup, and she'll be a real scorcher. Won't she, Mort?"

"I'm sure she will, Donna."

"Donna?" Paul glanced at him in surprise.

"That's her real name. The name of the angel inside her, that is."

"Funny name for an angel," Paul snorted. "Angela's much more appropriate."

"That's really hurtful," Dawn protested. "It's _not_ a funny name."

She glared at him and tried to imagine what Donna would have said in response to that. "Angels have all kinds of names," she continued. "Gabriel, for instance. Imagine having a name like Gabriel! Donna's a nice name. Very feminine. Why did you have to say something horrid, just when we were getting on so well?"

"OK, OK," Paul muttered. He glanced at Mort, and there was something approaching sympathy in his eyes. "Is she always like this?"

"She never stops. I get the impression that social interactions are rather limited where she comes from. There's a lot of hymn singing and that kind of thing, but little else in the way of recreational facilities. So she's making the most of her time down below." Dawn could tell from the hint of suppressed amusement in his eye that he was trying to wind Donna up.

"Stop talking about me as though I wasn't here!" she exploded, pretending to be wound up. "Don't you realise I'm one of the most powerful beings in the universe? Now let's quit fooling around and concentrate on saving Angela. You say this telescope is only a short drive from Adelaide, Paul?"

"You want me to take you there?"

"I certainly do, and as soon as possible. Tonight, even."

He looked at her uncertainly. "We could go tonight. The trouble is, it's quite awkward to get into that tunnel. There are a fair number of steps down to it, and then there's quite a walk to the combining optics."

"I don't think you should chance that in your condition," Mort said to her. "You might damage your heart. Angela's heart, I mean."

"I wasn't thinking of going there in this body. I would use Paul's body."

"You mean you'd take him over, like you've taken over Angela?"

"You'd be honoured to lend me your body, wouldn't you Paul?"

There was a long silence as, very slowly and deliberately, Paul put down his knife and fork on his plate and glowered at her. "You're going to _possess_ me, is that what you're saying? I don't know what you take me for, but I'm not a complete idiot. Do you seriously expect me to believe that sort of nonsense?"

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me what you believe, I'll still do it."

He gave a dismissive laugh. "OK, Donna, or whatever it is you like to be called, I'll let you try. At least it'll prove once and for all what utter crap you're talking. And it'll prove to your father that you ought to get your head examined!"

"That's the spirit. I'll enter you now, while we're in the mood. It'll only take a moment. You might find it easier if you lean back in your chair and close your eyes and relax, and when you feel my presence don't try to resist me."

Her intention was to jump across from Angela's brain to his, leaving Donna in charge of Angela, and then arouse him with some erotic imagery so that she could take over his mind. This wasn't so that she could control his body – that wouldn't be necessary for this trip to the telescope – but so that she would have full access to all his memories. She wanted to find out all he knew about the Watchers and their Mount Lofty project.

Paul gave her a withering look. "And then you're going to hypnotise me. I wasn't born yesterday – this is the usual party trick. You'll use suggestion to make me go to that telescope and believe that there's some invisible presence inside me."

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course I need to travel in you, I've got to rescue Angela. Look, we'll make it really easy. All you have to do is kiss me, just once, on the lips. A quick kiss will be enough, no more than a couple of seconds."

"Oh come on! What do you take me for?"

"Go on, a quick kiss. It's worth putting up with that to prove me wrong, isn't it? Mort won't mind."

"Do as she says," Mort advised him. "After all, it's your chance to settle the matter."

"All right, I will." Giving her another of those looks, Paul pushed his chair back and strode round the table.

She stood up as well. "I suggest you stand by the settee," she told him. "In case the experience is too much for you. I wouldn't like you to hurt yourself."

"How thoughtful of you," he muttered sarcastically. "Kissing you is like being struck by a bolt of lightning, I suppose."

"It's exactly like that, actually." She took a deep breath and tried to imagine that it was Rick, not Paul, who was standing before her. She pictured his hands around her waist, drawing her to him.

Heat erupted in her belly, and she sensed the chemicals of love surging through her real body, asleep on her bed in Honiara, making her heart race and her breathing quicken.

"Now close your eyes, Paul," she murmured. In her imagination Rick's lips were on her throat and his hands were sliding down her back.

Paul shrugged and closed his eyes. She put her hands on his shoulders, visualising them as Rick's shoulders. Fire was now roaring through her body, and it seemed to her that it was not Paul's lips but Rick's that hovered over hers. Their lips touched, the fire exploded up her throat and played around her lips, and then it engulfed Paul. It raced through his veins, igniting his passions.

Dawn felt his startlement as the pleasure centres of his brain went into overdrive and the chemicals of love flooded through him. She felt his legs go weak as all his resistance collapsed, and she knew that the moment to possess him had come. She withdrew her control of Angela and returned to the cathedral of Angela's mind, to find herself standing before the altar. Donna was standing there too, in her dragon form, and Dawn watched as she instantly leapt onto the altar and was absorbed by it.

Paul collapsed onto the settee, gasping. Angela's body, momentarily unconscious, collapsed on top of him, sending his glasses flying. A moment later Donna, back in control of Angela, was struggling to push herself off Paul, but he had his arms round her and was grasping her to him and forcing his lips to hers. Donna yielded to his passion for a few moments, just enough to allow Dawn sufficient time to invade the cathedral of his mind and to leap upon the altar, and then she managed to pull her face away.

"Just a quick kiss, I said! Stop right now!"

But her struggles only inflamed him further, and his hands were all over her and he was hungrily kissing her throat. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mort rising to his feet. What was Dawn waiting for? By now she must have entered his mind and able to stop him. Unless she did something fast she would have a full-scale fight on her hands.

Suddenly Paul did stop. His face contorted in horror and his body convulsed, and he pushed himself from her with such force that she was almost thrown to the floor. Mort reacted quickly, grabbing her and holding her upright, while Paul blinked up at her in confusion from the settee.

"God, that was horrible," he gasped. "Not you. That dead rat. You were an enormous dead rat, crawling with maggots and everything. God!" He looked sick, and he was brushing at himself with shaking hands as if trying to rid himself of something disgusting.

"Sorry about that. I had to do something to stop you." Donna adjusted her top and resumed her seat at the table, and Mort sat down too. Dawn was obviously inside Paul and sharing his mind, though she wasn't actually controlling him. But she had total control over him, and could at any moment take charge of his body.

"Finish your dinner, Paul," Donna commanded. "Then you can go to that telescope." She grabbed the salt cellar and sprinkled some on the remnants of her meal. Humans never added enough salt. "By the way, what's it like having me inside you?"

He rose from the settee and glared at her sourly across the table. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Why? I told you I was going to come into you."

"Kissing me like that, I mean."

"It's your own fault. You mocked when I suggested relaxation as a way to allow me in. The only other way is by kissing."

He retrieved his glasses and resumed his seat at the table, glowering at her all the while. "What on earth has kissing got to do with you possessing me?"

"It's to do with shared neural pathways in the brain," she explained. "It's a bit complicated, but it's something that guardian angels know all about."

"Guardian angels!" he scoffed, spearing a roast potato angrily. "You're no more a guardian angel than I am." He glanced at Mort, and there was a crafty look in his eye. Donna had the nasty feeling that he was about to get his revenge for the indignities he'd suffered.

"How come you can feel my presence with you, then, inhabiting your mind?" she persisted. "Though it's not actually _my_ presence, I have to admit. Guardian angels can't be in two places at once. It's a colleague, another guardian angel. She's here helping me."

He managed a supercilious smile. "Whether it's one or two of you is immaterial. You are _not_ a guardian angel."

"What am I then?"

"Either you're from another world–"

"And I've assured you I'm not–"

"Or you're one of those genetically-modified dolphins!"

Donna blinked. "What on earth makes you think that?" she quavered, trying to hide her dismay. She was yet to achieve perfect control over Angela's body, and found it difficult to mask her emotions.

He detected her hesitation, and his eyes gleamed in triumph. "It's well known that those dolphins have psychic powers. You're a GM dolphin, and right now you're in some kind of trance state. That's how you've taken over Angela's body, and how you – or your so-called colleague – have got into me."

He folded his arms at her in satisfaction. "That's all you are, a GM dolphin. Or rather, _two_ GM dolphins."

"If that's all we are, how come I was able to give you that miraculous kiss?" she continued doggedly. "No dolphin could do that. And how come I ate all this human food and behaved with impeccable human manners and all the rest of it? No dolphin could do that either. All the evidence points to us being divine beings."

"Well, I don't believe it. No guardian angel would talk like you. Or behave like you, for that matter."

"How do you know? You've never met one."

"Look," he said in exasperation, "the whole idea is ridiculous. So cut the crap and admit you're a dolphin. You've been sent here by one of your human masters to sort out this Angela problem."

"I won't admit to anything of the sort. Anyway, it doesn't matter what you believe, we're going to rescue Angela's spirit. Then my colleague will vacate you and I'll vacate Angela's body."

"I've no problem with that. Then perhaps Angela's father will have a daughter who isn't a demented dolphin and I'll be able to get some sense out of her."

"I suggest you watch your tongue, Dr Gibson," Donna muttered frostily, "just in case I really am a guardian angel. And even if I'm not, I and my colleague have complete power over you. That dead rat was pretty mild, as horrors go. On a scale of one to ten, I'd give it a two. My colleague is quite capable of taking full control of your body and making you do the most awful things to yourself."

He scowled at her, but said nothing.

"Now, before my colleague accompanies you to that telescope, I'd like a word with her."

He shrugged and carried on eating.

"Dawn, I think it would be a good idea if you went through Paul's mind and checked his memories, just in case he's hiding something from us. It occurs to me that he might have some connection with those Watchers."

That was exactly what Dawn had intended to do, of course. Observing everything from deep within Paul's mind, she couldn't help but marvel, as she had so often marvelled before, at how alike she and Donna were. Not physically, of course, but in their personalities and thought processes. Their shared dragon genes and the many hundreds of hours Donna had spent in her mind had brought that about. Apart from the age difference, they could almost be twins. Mort wouldn't have had a clue that it was anyone other than Donna who had been inhabiting his daughter's body for most of the evening.

Paul was glaring at Angela. "Are you seriously suggesting I'm connected to the Watchers? I've got nothing to do with those people. I'm a reputable scientist. And well-respected in my field. Very well-respected, in fact."

"It also occurs to me that a small demonstration of our power wouldn't go amiss," Donna continued, ignoring the interruption. "It might have a salutary effect. Fire away, Dawn."

She sat back and watched Paul's face, curious to see how he would react to an invading spirit rummaging through his memories. Perhaps he would see his life flashing before his eyes. Something like that must be happening, judging by the alarm that had crept into his eyes.

"Relax, Paul," she murmured, "it won't take long. My colleague's scanning your subconscious for links to the Watchers."

"I've told you, I don't have any links to those people." He was staring vacantly at her, scarcely seeing her.

"Let's hope not. For your sake."

"She's found something!" he gasped. "It's Clare. She's put Clare's face into my mind."

"Who's Clare?"

"She works for SETI. She joined the Australian department a couple of months ago. It's because of her that I contacted Angela Lane. She'd read the news reports, and she wanted to find out more."

"What? That sounds suspicious. She doesn't belong to the Watchers, does she?"

"Of course not. But she's doing some research on them."

"Research on the Watchers? What kind of research?"

"Analyzing their prophecies. There's some kind of pattern to them, she says."

"Hmm. She's obviously in contact with them. You should have told us about Clare, Paul, you really should. You're close to her, are you?"

"I'm not dating her, if that's what you mean." He was gripping the sides of his chair now, and Donna noticed he had started to sweat. Mort was watching silently from across the table, and she wondered what was passing through his mind.

"But Clare's obviously important to you," she continued.

"I guess I like her. Quite a lot. I've asked her out for a meal tomorrow, if you must know. OK, she has met some of these Watchers, and she's gone to some of their meetings, but she doesn't _belong_ to them. Like I said, she's researching them."

"What else can you tell me about her?"

"Look, if you tell this Dawn of yours to let go of my mind, I'll get out my screen and show you a picture of her. And you can read all about her – I've got her CV."

"Did you hear him, Dawn?"

Dawn obviously had, for he gasped with relief, and his eyes focussed. "You people are a menace," he muttered.

"The picture, Paul."

He glared at her, then retrieved his briefcase from the chair where he'd left it and pulled from it his rolled-up screen. Returning to his place at the table, he pushed his dinner plate aside and unfurled it. It came alight immediately.

"Clare O'Connor, image," he said to the device, then pushed it over to her.

Donna froze. The girl on the screen was the spitting image of Clara, her mysterious new temple assistant. Clara, the girl who kept herself to herself and had never visited the town before, the girl who had never seen any of Dawn's Passion plays, the girl who was unusually adept with her hands.

This agent, this researcher or whatever she was, had invaded the Mind!

## Twenty One

"I'm afraid we're going to have to investigate your Clare," Donna told Paul. They had finished the main course, and Mort was clearing away the plates.

"If you mean you want to invade her mind..."

"That's exactly what I do mean."

"Well, don't expect me to cooperate."

"Oh, I think you should. For your own sake as much as ours. You wouldn't want to get romantically involved with an undercover agent for the Watchers, would you?"

"Don't be so bloody stupid," he snapped. "She's a researcher, not a secret agent."

"I'm not so sure about that," Donna muttered grimly. "But if she isn't one of them, no harm will come to her. And it'll do you a great deal of good."

"Do me a great deal of good? Ruin my chances with her, more likely! She won't want anything to do with me if she thinks I'm responsible for letting you worm your way into her."

Donna laughed. "Don't worry about that. She won't be able to get enough of you by the time we've finished with her. You see, to take possession of her mind we'll need you to kiss her – the same way I kissed you a few minutes ago. We'll be empowering your kiss, of course, to make sure it sets her on fire. Just imagine it, Paul. She'll never have experienced a kiss like that before. She'll be so consumed by passion for you that she'll hardly notice that anything untoward is going on behind the scenes. Quite a start to your relationship, don't you think?"

Mort was leaving the dining room with his pile of plates. He was clearly amused, and at the door he paused and gave Donna a wink. Paul for his part was staring right through her. He was obviously picturing the steamy scene. "I would really get to kiss her like that?"

"You certainly would, for as long as one of us is possessing you."

"But I wouldn't be able to kiss like that for ever and ever."

"I'm afraid not. But just one of those kisses would make her yours – assuming she's attracted to you in the first place, of course. All those hormones pouring through her body would act like a love potion. They would make her addicted to you."

"Addicted to me?" He still had that glazed look.

"Of course. You know how these hormones work. Attachment is one of their outcomes. You won't be able to keep her off you."

She paused for a moment, letting her words sink in. "Now, can we count on your cooperation, Paul?"

He swallowed, and his gaze focussed on her at last. "Yes. You can."

"Good. Now, what time are you picking her up for this meal tomorrow?"

"We arranged to meet at seven."

"We'll need to come into you before you leave home, otherwise we won't be able to find you. Will 6.30 be OK?"

"Make it 6.20."

"Fine. We won't actually possess you then, we'll just hang around inside your skull. You'll feel our presence, but it won't be anything more than that. However, to deliver that kiss, one of us will have to completely possess you, and that of course means you'll have to be sexually aroused in some way."

He looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, Clare's extremely attractive, so I don't think that should be a problem. Especially if she wears something nice and puts on that perfume of hers."

"Let's hope she does. If all else fails, Dawn will put some erotic imagery into your mind. She's good at that."

"Some guardian angel!" he muttered darkly. "Bloody dolphins!"

"Dr Gibson! Do you seriously imagine a dolphin would be able to conjure up erotic imagery? Please remember that whatever Dawn and I are or are not, we're all in this together and we all want the same things. We all want to save Angela, we all want Clare to fall for you, and we all want to get the better of the Watchers. So let's be nice and friendly, OK?

"OK, OK."

Just then Mort returned, wheeling a small trolley with desserts. "Dawn and I will be accompanying Paul and Clare on their evening out tomorrow," she told him.

Mort grinned. "I hope you've chosen a nice romantic restaurant, Paul. A place where you can steal a kiss."

Paul groaned. "Yes, and I've booked a secluded table, so your Donna and her friend Dawn can have a field day."

"You're a hero," Donna told him brightly. "Now, I just need your address and postcode so we can locate you tomorrow evening."

He pulled a card from his briefcase and passed it over to her. "I'm surprised angels need postcodes," he muttered sarcastically.

"We need it for our satnavs," she replied absently, studying the address and trying to memorise it. Paul gave a despairing skywards glance, while Mort looked like he would burst with suppressed laughter.

"Make sure you leave your car in the driveway," Donna added, oblivious to their glances, "It'll help us locate the house. And whatever you do, don't tell Clare anything about Dawn and me, and don't mention anything about rescuing Angela. Just tell her that she seems to be doing well at home, but she didn't have anything to report that might help SETI."

Paul was obviously partial to puddings, and as the dessert course progressed his mood visibly lightened. And when Mort told him that Donna had helped to prepare it he gave a sly grin and said that this explained why it tasted so heavenly.

"Have you got any questions about tomorrow?" Donna asked him when they'd finished. "Or about your mission to rescue Angela tonight?"

"About tonight – I'll go to that telescope, and then what?"

"You won't be able to tell if Angela's there or not, of course. But since Dawn's a spirit, she will be able to see her, and she'll leave you, release Angela, and bring her back here to her body. You won't see anything, of course, but after Dawn leaves you your body's your own. Until tomorrow evening, that is."

"I'd like to drive back here, if that's OK. Just to check what's happened." He glanced at Mort.

"Of course you can," Mort told him. "If you do manage to rescue Angela, we'll open a bottle of champagne together."

A little later, after Paul had departed and Donna was helping Mort clear away the dishes, Mort asked her the question she knew he must have been itching to put to her.

"Paul was right, wasn't he? You are one of those genetically-modified dolphins."

Donna gazed at him sadly. She'd really enjoyed pretending to be an angel, and now it was all over. Everything was over, if they found Angela at that telescope. "What makes you think I'm a dolphin?"

"It makes sense of everything. It certainly explains why all you want to eat is fish."

"Jesus ate a lot of fish, everyone knows that, so why shouldn't angels?"

"It's not just your dietary preferences. You adore being in water, in fact you can't get enough of it."

"Jesus was always messing about in boats, he even walked on water. Anyway, what about all those board games we play. I'm brilliant at those. What's that got to do with being a dolphin?"

He smiled. "But you are a dolphin, aren't you."

She nodded, and the overwhelming sadness that she felt brought dampness to Angela's eyes. "I've got a near-human brain, though. And Dawn, my human mentor, has brought me up to think like a human. Being here with you, in Angela's body, has been great. These have been the happiest days of my life, Mort."

He took her hand. "It's been great for me, too, Donna. I've really enjoyed having you – even though you slaughtered me at Monopoly. I'm sure you cheated, by the way. You did something to those dice so I kept landing on your houses."

"I didn't! Spirits can't move physical objects, it's impossible. Anyway, I'll really miss those board games. It's hopeless trying to play them in the sea. The waves mess up everything."

He smiled. "I can imagine." They finished clearing away, then they went into the lounge and sat down on one of the settees.

"You could visit me in the Solomon Islands," Donna murmured. "I'll take you for a ride on my back."

"No, I don't think I will," Mort replied. "It would spoil my memories of you. I'd like to remember you as my angel. You make a very good angel, you know."

Donna nodded miserably, and they lapsed into silence.

"Perhaps you could visit me sometimes," Mort suggested after a while. "Take over Angela's body for an evening, and we'll play a game or go for a walk. I was thinking of getting a dog for Angela. You'd really enjoy playing with a dog."

"Thanks, Mort, but I think it's best if I didn't. We've got on really well together, but now it's over. I've got to accept that I'm a dolphin, and you've got to accept that Angela is your daughter. With her around you'll soon forget all about me."

"I'll never forget you, Donna."

She nodded miserably again, and they drifted into their own thoughts once more.

"I'm surprised you're not seeing any one," Donna ventured a little later. "Romantically, I mean."

"It's only two years since Sally died. I'm only just getting over it."

"So d'you think you will? Start seeing someone?"

"I don't know. Karen is quite pretty, though she's a bit young for me. She's visited me several times since Sally died."

"You know why, don't you? She wanted to keep an eye on you. To make sure you weren't giving up on Angela. When you did finally decide to give up, she hotfooted it to Dawn in the Solomon Islands, to get her to intervene. The rest you know."

"I guess I've got Karen to thank for everything."

"In a way. But don't say anything to her about Dawn or me or anything that's happened tonight. She's not to be trusted. She knew all along where Angela was hidden. All she wanted was for Angela's body to be kept alive, she cared nothing for your feelings."

"I understand that now. By the way, she phoned me up mid-day, while you were sleeping–"

"While I was elsewhere, having left Angela's body in a coma."

"Whatever. She asked about Angela, and I told her how brilliantly you were doing. She didn't seem surprised. Then she asked to visit us. I suggested Thursday evening, to give you a chance to settle in."

"She wants to check up on Angela, to make sure everything is going to plan. To the Watchers' plan, that is. She wants to reassure herself that Dawn is controlling Angela's body."

Mort glanced at her in surprise. "Dawn?"

"It was Dawn who came into Angela when she emerged from her coma, and Karen assumes that it's still Dawn controlling her now. Karen knows nothing about me. Make sure you keep it that way, Mort."

"Don't worry, I won't tell her anything. But what do you think she'll do when she discovers that Angela's back in her body – assuming Dawn rescues her tonight?"

"I don't know. Perhaps Dawn ought to take over Angela when Karen visits, just to keep up the deception. The trouble is, those Watchers are bound to find out sooner or later. One of them will try to invade Angela's body, to check her latest memories of space, and then the truth will be out."

"So what will they do then? Do you think they'll try to abduct her spirit again?"

"I don't know. I'll discuss it with Dawn. But make sure that spirit detector remains switched on. I left it in Angela's bedroom, pointing at the bed. If a spirit tries to invade her, an alarm will sound in Dawn's house, and she can be here in seconds. The detector's got enough oxygen and nutrient to keep going for several weeks, but after that Dawn will probably want it back. It's experimental, real cutting-edge stuff."

He nodded, and silence returned again.

A little later, Donna said: "If you do find someone you really like, and you want any help with kissing – like we're going to help Paul tomorrow – just phone up Dawn. I'm sure she'd be happy to oblige. Her kisses are real scorchers. I can kiss like that too, you know. Well, in theory I can kiss like that. The trouble with being a dolphin is that I don't get to kiss at all. It's very frustrating."

He laughed. "I'll struggle along with my own kissing, thanks. Anything else would be cheating."

"I guess you're right. But I'll give you Dawn's phone number anyway. Just in case."

He got up and found a pad of paper and pen, and she wrote down the details.

"You've got Angela's handwriting," he observed.

"I utilize the automatic functions of her brain. I wouldn't be able to control this body otherwise. It's a bit like when you run an application like word processing on a computer. Angela's body is equivalent to the computer hardware, the automatic functions of her brain are like the systems software, and I'm like the word processing program, able to make use of the systems software so that the hardware does what I want. If Dawn takes over Angela, then she'll be a different application program, but she'll be using the same systems software. That means she'll also have Angela's voice and Angela's handwriting."

"Remarkable," he murmured. "And even more remarkable that a dolphin is able to come up with such an extraordinary analogy."

"Like I said, we've got human brains. And our education has been as good as it gets. We know all about computers. We've even got terminals that respond to dolphin whistles. We browse the internet and everything."

"Amazing."

A picture suddenly flashed into Donna's mind. It was of Dawn, holding Angela's hand.

"Dawn's here," she exclaimed. "With Angela! She's got Angela!"

Mort jumped to his feet. "Really? What do we do?"

"Hold me, Mort! I'm going to have to leave now, and Angela will take over. Her body will go unconscious for a moment or two."

He sat down beside her and put his arms round her. "I'll miss you, Donna," he whispered.

She didn't dare look at him, and instead nestled her head against his chest. She felt close to tears. "I'll miss you too, Mort."

Then she was in the cathedral of Angela's mind, and Dawn was standing beside her and Angela's spirit was disappearing into the altar. Immediately after that she was outside Angela's body, with Dawn beside her, sharp and clear, with everything else in the room including Mort and Angela vague and fuzzy.

She could tell that Mort was still cuddling Angela, and although she couldn't make out the expression on his face or any other details, she had the distinct impression that he was crying.

## Twenty Two

"Still at it?" Dawn asked as she walked into Donna's quarters in Eden the next morning.

Donna shrugged disconsolately. "It's something to do." She was seated at her table, working on the banknotes for her Monopoly set.

Dawn sat down beside her. "It was bound to happen, Donna. You couldn't occupy Angela's body forever."

"I know. It's just that I really enjoyed it. And I got on so well with Mort, playing games and chatting to him and everything. He's so sweet."

"You've got Jonah. You really like him, and he likes you."

Donna sighed and wrote '500' in red ink on another blank note. "He likes me as a dolphin, not as a human. Anyway, I don't want to talk about that. Tell me what happened at that telescope? You found Angela there, obviously."

"It was really weird. She was strapped down to a couch – a neurospace couch, of course, exactly like the ones I saw on that flying saucer – with her head immediately below the telescope optics that Paul told us about."

"Inside that underground tunnel."

"That's right. Somehow our COBRA leader must have moved both her and the couch from the burnt-out flying saucer in space to the SETI site in Australia, but I've no idea how he would be able to do such a thing."

"Well, if we're able to conjure up flying cars to get around, maybe he can conjure up a removal van."

"But we're dragons, humans wouldn't be able to do anything like that. I'm wondering if demons are involved. They certainly had a role in that flying saucer."

Donna shivered. "Demons? I hope not!"

"I hope not too. But it makes sense that they would be involved. After all, they would certainly want to know if visitors were coming here from across the galaxy. Especially if those visitors were dragons."

"They might be more demons."

"That's the worry. We all want to know what might be heading our way."

"And by saving Angela we've knocked out their early-warning system. Anyway, having found her I suppose it was easy enough to release her?"

"I cut through her straps with my claws, then I conjured up my Beetle and took her to Mort's house. She was in a bit of a daze, but apart from that she seemed OK. I think she'd fallen into a kind of semi-conscious dream state. I'll have to phone up Mort to check how she's doing, but it looks like we've solved the Angela problem."

"Which just leaves the Clare O'Connor problem. I took a close look at Clara during the temple service this morning. Clare and Clara are identical. She's the same person."

"I checked the dolphin project database before coming here," Dawn told her, "and there's nothing at all on Clare. She isn't one of our mentors, and that means she's a complete outsider. Somehow she's managed to invade the Mind."

Dawn wondered whether to tell Donna that she'd been worried for some time that something pernicious might have wormed its way into the dolphin communal mind, but she decided against it. Anything shared with Donna was automatically shared with the Mind.

"I bet Clare's one of those Watchers," Donna muttered darkly. "There might even be more of them here. Maybe we're infested with them."

"We'll find out tonight," Dawn told her. "We'll also find out _why_ they're invading us. It could be something to do with my Passion plays."

"Your Passion plays? What on earth have they got to do with it?"

"I forgot to tell you. That white noise telepathy that bombarded Baby on Sunday, well, Angela was bombarded with that as well. It was the Mind, broadcasting my Passion play."

"Good grief! Why would the Mind do that?"

"It's not intentional, at least I don't think it is. But it was a really powerful signal, and I reckon the earliest episodes will be halfway across the galaxy by now."

Donna groaned. "I know what's coming next. Extra-terrestrials have picked up those transmissions, so they're coming to Earth. Which means we ought to put Baby where Angela was, beneath that telescope to watch out for them."

Dawn glanced at her in surprise. "I hadn't thought of that. That's a pretty smart idea!"

"I told you, fish is good for the brain. Any neurospace ship heading for Earth will set off Baby's alarm, instantly alerting the SETI staff. They'll be able to see the ship for themselves on her screen."

"Brilliant! It might be worth telling Karen we're planning something like that."

"Good idea. It'll stop the Watchers trying to hijack Angela's spirit again. We'll tell her we'll share any sightings with them."

"I agree. First, though, we need to investigate Clare. If we find those Watchers really have wormed their way into the Mind–"

"We'll slaughter the lot of them." Donna licked her lips in anticipation, and Dawn guessed that some kind of dolphin attack was going through her mind.

"We will _not_ slaughter the lot of them," she told her. "Just the ones who have actually invaded us. Like Clara."

Donna's face fell. "Oh. I suppose we will have to get rid of Clara. I'll miss her though. She's really good."

"Well, let's see what we dig out of Clare's mind tonight. This is my plan..."

The first part of the plan went like clockwork. They flew to within striking distance of Paul's house in Donna's James Bond car – she wanted to show it off – and it didn't take Dawn long to spot his car in the driveway. It was then simply a matter of locating him inside his house and slipping into the cathedral of his mind. To make sure he was aware of their presence, Dawn formed a picture of two angels with feathered wings and projected it onto the stained-glass window. Paul immediately pushed it aside and replaced it with the image of a couple of dolphins.

"At least he's got a sense of humour," Dawn remarked to Donna as they settled down on the steps below the altar. They were both in their human forms, so, unlike dragons, they could sit quite comfortably, though they had to twist their heads to watch what was happening in that stained-glass window above the altar.

Paul then left the house and drove across Adelaide with his two spirit observers. Donna found the journey very slow and frustrating, not nearly as exciting as zooming through neurospace at a thousand miles a minute, and she was relieved when they finally pulled up outside Clare's apartment. It was 6.57 according to his car clock, so she supposed they'd made good time.

Clare must have seen him arrive, for she opened her door before he reached it. Donna knew from the CV she'd seen on Paul's screen that Claire was 32, a couple of years older than Dawn. As she walked down the steps towards him Donna couldn't help admiring her, for she was attractive and nicely turned out, and she had a radiant smile. It was difficult to believe that she could be some shadowy agent of an obscure religious sect. Paul certainly seemed to like what he saw, for the altar below the stained-glass window had taken on a reddish glow, and the flame above it was blazing brightly.

Clare's perfume wafted into the cathedral of Paul's mind. It reminded Donna of the perfume Dawn wore when she made love to Rick, and she realised that this must be an olfactory signal used by human females to indicate their readiness to mate. Tonight, it seemed, would be a pushover.

Paul was obviously completely besotted with Clare, for all that appeared in the stained-glass window of his mind were different views of her as they walked to his car, and even as he drove back into town he kept glancing her way. Donna listened as they chatted about work and their various colleagues, all pretty innocuous stuff, with no mention of Clare's research on the Watchers. Donna had the impression that Paul was avoiding the subject.

Clare asked him how he had got on last night with Angela, and he said simply that she seemed very bright, considering what she'd been through, but that she seemed to have picked up no hint of ET during her years in space. Just lots of faint stars, he said, which seemed to satisfy her. After about ten minutes they reached the restaurant and he pulled into its car park.

Donna had never been to a restaurant before, though she'd seen them in movies, and her first impression of this establishment was that it was too dimly lit. She understood the reason, that humans were averse to mating in public and so low lighting was conducive to romantic meetings. On the other hand, humans regarded eating as a social activity, and since body language was an important part of human social interactions, restaurants should be brightly lit. It occurred to her that the solution was for the lights to start out bright and then to gradually dim as the evening wore on. That would certainly be how she would organize things if she were in charge.

The restaurant was about a quarter full. The waiter showed them to a small table in the corner of the room, well separated from the other customers. There was a small vase of flowers on the table and a candle as well, and these, together with the dim lighting, reminded Donna of her temple services. The proprietor was obviously aware that religious feelings and romantic love were closely linked in the human brain. The only disappointment was the music wafting through the room: it wasn't a hymn or even remotely religious.

Paul and Clare sat down on opposite sides of the small table and nothing much happened for a while. Donna was expecting Paul to produce playing cards or some other game so that they could entertain themselves during the non-eating part of the evening, but he seemed to have prepared nothing. She felt sure that Mort would have brought along his pocket Scrabble or a pack of cards. However, Paul and Clare seemed quite happy to chat about nothing in particular, and all the while the flame above the altar in the cathedral of his mind was blazing away merrily.

At last the waiter produced the menu. This contained an inordinately large number of choices, mostly, so far as Donna could tell, messed-up food given fancy names. Certainly there was nothing approaching a plain slab of fish. That was another change she would make.

After much discussion Paul and Clare made their choices and the waiter took their order. Then there was another great discussion over the wine list, Paul being apparently something of a connoisseur and the waiter rambling on about one wine having a full body and another having a piquant bouquet as though that actually meant something, but finally everything was settled. Donna was amazed at how long it all took. If Paul and Clare had been dolphins they would by now have gobbled up their fish, mated, and be somersaulting in the sea with their friends. She could hardly expect humans to somersault in the sea, of course, but there were plenty of other options. They could go to church together, for instance, and sing some hymns.

The waiter had finally left, and Donna watched as Clare's features now filled the stained-glass window and the flame above the altar blazed higher.

"They're alone at last," Dawn murmured, rising to her feet. "Time to go."

Dawn's body flickered and twisted and grew longer, and suddenly she was a fearsome red dragon, about twice as high as Donna and with an enormous tail. Donna hurriedly backed away up the nave, and Dawn unfurled her wings, leapt into the air, and flapped her way noisily onto the altar. Glowing brightly, the altar seemed to open up her, and then she was gone..

The image in the stained-glass window of Paul's mind wavered, went black, and a moment later reappeared, and at the same moment the flame above the altar died down to just a flicker. Dawn had pushed his consciousness aside and taken charge of his body.

Clare looked most concerned. "Are you OK, Paul? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I've just seen a vision. Of you, Clare. It was amazing." This was Dawn speaking, using Paul's vocal chords. "You looked like an angel, the most beautiful angel. It must be because you look so lovely in that dress and everything. It's blown my mind."

Clare's face relaxed into a smile. "Oh Paul, that's so romantic. I think it's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."

"You don't mind me feeling like this, then? All gooey inside, and tingling all over? Like my heart has gone haywire?"

Clare leaned forward and reached out a hand to touch Paul's arm. "Of course I don't mind. I'm feeling romantic too. It's the atmosphere of the place."

"No, it's more than that," Dawn murmured. "I've never felt like this before. It's like you've cast a spell on me, Clare. I don't think I've ever met anyone as beautiful as you. It makes me want to write poetry, or paint a picture of a glorious sunset, or perform some mighty deed."

She laughed. "Wow! You are a dark horse! I admired you for your intellect, I had no idea you could be so romantic."

Dawn was obviously setting the scene for her killer kiss, so it was time for Donna to make her move. By now Clare would be all of a flutter, so she wouldn't notice an alien presence slipping into her brain. Donna transformed herself into a dragon, then flew out of Paul's brain and into Clare's. The cathedral of Clare's mind coalesced around her, and to Donna's satisfaction the flame above her altar was burning brightly. Dawn's claim to be a love goddess was obviously well founded.

Fascinated, she watched as the scene in the stained-glass window of Clare's mind played itself out. Paul reached over and clasped her outstretched hand. "You've unlocked something in me, Clare," Dawn said, speaking through him. "I guess it's been repressed for years. All I've been interested in is my work and finding ET, but now all that seems so trivial. You're like a warm spring breeze blowing through my soul, dispelling the cobwebs and filling me with the scent of your body... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that." He looked down, feigning embarrassment, and pulled his hand away from hers.

Donna thought it was all a bit soppy, but Clare evidently appreciated it, for she reached out and grabbed Paul's hand again. "It's wonderful what you're saying, Paul. You're a sensitive, caring person, exactly the kind of man I've always longed for.

"Oh. Does that mean ... you'd like to see more of me?"

"Yes, Paul. It does."

Paul glanced around. Dawn was obviously checking if any waiters were watching. None were. "Would you mind if I ... kissed you? To signal the end of my cobwebby past and the dawn of my perfumed future?"

"You're so quaint, Paul! Yes, I'd like that very much."

Donna saw Paul take a deep breath, raise himself from his seat, and lean towards her. She knew exactly what was coming. Dawn would be fantasizing about making love to Rick, and back in Honiara the fires in the belly of her sleeping body would be bursting into life.

The image in the stained-glass window abruptly winked out. Clare must have closed her eyes. There was a sudden roar as the flame in front of it erupted and leapt up so high that it licked the cathedral roof. Without more ado, Donna sprang into the air and hurled herself onto the altar. There was a moment of blackness and feeling of oneness with the whole of creation, and then she was swept up in what for Clare was the most intoxicating and rapturous experience of her life. It was like her spirit was mingled with Clare's spirit, for they now they were joint owners of her mind. Had she wished, she could have pushed Clare's spirit and taken complete control of her body, but that wasn't why she was here.

"Wow! That was amazing!" Clare sank back in her chair, quite overwhelmed. She blinked at him a few times. "I think you've cast a spell on me." She giggled, slightly embarrassed. "There's a warm breeze blowing through _my_ mind now."

"Like another presence inside you?"

"Yes. Exactly like that. It feels really strange. What on earth have you done to me, Paul?"

The waiter approached the table with their starters, and Clare hastily sat up and tried to recover her composure. She'd ordered the salmon, Donna noted with approval.

Dawn, in control of Paul's body, leaned back in his chair and surveyed Clare coolly. "This will be hard for you to understand," she said when the waiter had left. "I'm Dawn Goode of the GM dolphin project, and I've temporarily borrowed Paul's body. The presence inside you is Donna, one of our dolphins. We've been forced to do this by your own actions, Clare. You've invaded the dolphin communal mind and you've got links to the Watchers, and now we need to interrogate you."

Donna felt Clare's elation evaporate, to be replaced by cold anger. "Damn you!" she hissed. "Did you have to do it this way? There was no need to drag Paul into it."

"We had to. It was the only way to get into you, to check what you're up to. Paul has genuine feelings for you, that's why he agreed to this. We persuaded him that it was in his best interests to have you checked out before embarking on a relationship."

"Fat chance of that now! You've really messed up our chances of romance with your female slushy talk. God, you're a bitch!"

Dawn shrugged. "There's no point ranting about it. Your chances for anything at all are rapidly running out if you're what we think you are. An agent of the Watchers infiltrating the mind."

"Of course I'm not that!" Clare snapped.

"No? What are you then? Donna can interrogate your mind and find out, but it'll be easier all round if you tell us. I should warn you that she'll know immediately if you're lying."

"I know, I know. Don't worry, I'll tell you everything. You need to know anyway, the way things are turning out. I'm on your side, idiot!"

"On my side?" Dawn faltered, suddenly on the defensive. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the waiter hovering. She picked up her fork. "We'd better start on our food," she muttered in a desperate attempt to reassert herself, "or we'll invite comment from the serving staff."

"'Invite comment from the serving staff'!" Clare sneered. "God, what crap you Brits talk. I don't know why we're bothering to search space for aliens from another planet. They're right here among us."

"OK, you've made your point," Dawn growled angrily. "You hate me." Far from being cowed by Donna's presence, Clare was dominating proceedings. Somehow she had to be brought into line. "It was inevitable that you would hate me, and I don't care, so stop wasting my time and tell me what you're up to!"

"Temper, temper," Clare murmured. "All you need do is say please. Don't they teach you Brits any manners?"

Dawn glared at her. There was nothing for it but to admit defeat. "Please."

"That's better." Clare picked up her fork and started eating. "Now, let's get one thing straight. I don't hate you. You're too big for your boots, that's all. You act like you're God's gift to this planet, answerable to no one but yourself. That's why we invaded the Mind. And a good thing we did."

"We?"

"Dr Song's department at the UN."

Dawn gaped at her. "Dr Song's department? You're an agent of Dr Song?"

"Of course, you imbecile! Who do you think dug up all that information about the Watchers that Dr Song passed on to you? I'd guessed it was you who had taken over Angela's body, that's why I persuaded Paul to pay her a visit. He knew nothing about my suspicions, of course."

"But ... but why have you invaded the Mind?"

"Didn't it occur to you that we might want to check up on it? The most powerful intellect on the planet? With that as your plaything you could take over the world!"

"I've never wanted that. Have I ever taken advantage of my power?"

Clare shrugged. "Power corrupts, as they say. Anyway, it's not you we're worried about. It's other people, trying to take over the Mind."

"What other people?"

"You're so naïve! That's why we need a presence there, someone with a bit of savvy and a watchful eye."

"Clara."

"Yes, Clara. You probably think she's me. Well, she's not. She's a GM dolphin. Our agent at GeneSys Honiara smuggled her out, when she was very young. I'm her mentor. She's been brought up in the same way as your other dolphins. We even feed her psychoactive fish. That's how she's able to participate in the Mind. She reports directly to her handler – the equivalent of your Rick."

"Is everything to your liking, sir?" It was the waiter, bringing the wine.

"Fine, thanks," Dawn said. "Don't hover around, though. We want to talk privately."

"Of course." He poured some wine, and Dawn tried it.

"That's fine too," she said. "Everything's splendid."

"Very good, sir," the waiter said, and then proceeded to pour out a glass for Clare and one for Dawn.

Clare had accused Dawn of talking crap, but Donna, observing these rituals through Clare's eyes, thought the entire restaurant experience was crap. The simple process of consuming some prepared food prior to more romantic activities had been transformed into the most elaborate waste of time.

"You were telling me about Clara," Dawn murmured when the waiter had left.

"She's worked all over Eden, watching people, looking out for anything suspicious. She's checking for intruders, of course." Clare threw Dawn a contemptuous glance and added: "Something _you_ have signally failed to do."

Dawn was careful to keep her cool. So long as Clare continued spilling out information, that was all that mattered. "So what has Clara unearthed?" she asked calmly.

"Nothing at all in the countryside. Everyone she's encountered there appears to be a bone fide GeneSys dolphin. So we've moved her to the focus of the invasion. The temple."

Dawn stared at her in alarm. "Focus of what invasion?"

"Didn't it ever strike you as odd that the centre of worship in a community based on the traditions of Protestant England should be a temple? Something from an eastern culture? It should have been a Christian cathedral!"

"It was a cathedral originally. Over the years its details have evolved so that now it looks more like an eastern temple. It never occurred to me that there could be anything sinister about that."

"You hadn't notice any similarities between your temple in Eden and the temples you encountered when you visited the COBRA flying saucer?

"Well, it's got a similar shape, but lots of temples look like that. And it's gold."

"It's pentagonal! You don't find that odd? Most of the details of Eden have come from the mind of Dr Anderson, an expert on English social history. He's the mentor of one of your dolphins."

"So what's so sinister about that?"

"For your information, Dr Anderson heads up the Watchers." Clare paused for effect, and Donna, observing everything through her eyes, saw Paul's eyes widen. "He's covered his tracks well," Clare added, "but we've recently discovered that he used to be one of the COBRA leaders."

Dawn gasped, and her mind shot back to that moment when she'd surprised that masked spirit intruder checking Angela's memories of space. There had been something familiar about his eyes, and now she realised what it was. They had the same piercing look that had so unnerved her when she'd first met John Anderson all those years ago, the man who had discovered so much about her when she first went to GeneSys, and who subsequently became Jonah's mentor.

"Your temple in Eden has come from Anderson's mind, and he based the design on the COBRA temples," Clare told her smugly.

Dawn stared at her, aghast. "So what does this mean?" she whispered.

"We don't know for sure. But in your report on the COBRA spaceship you stated that you thought those temples were portals connecting widely separated points in space."

Dawn nodded. "The COBRA congregation was transferred almost instantaneously from that hall in London to the spaceship. A portal seemed the only explanation."

"You also stated that the COBRA leaders entered the ship through their temple, which you presumed was also a portal."

Dawn suddenly caught the drift of Clare's argument. "The conclusion being that by modelling the temple in Eden upon the COBRA temples, John Anderson was attempting to construct a portal."

"Exactly. A portal allowing him and the Watchers to invade the Mind. Though we've no proof that he intended this, and there's certainly no record of any attempt to use your temple as a portal."

"If there had been any attempt to invade Eden and the Mind through the temple, I'm sure Donna would have heard about it. But what's so special about these temples that allows them to be used as portals? It doesn't make any sense."

Clare shrugged. "You're the neurospace expert, not me. I suspect it's to do with their pentagonal shape. Pentagons have always been thought to have mystical properties. But as for a rational, scientific explanation, I don't suppose there is one." She looked thoughtfully at Dawn. "In the case of your temple, of course, there's the altar."

"The seat of consciousness of the Mind. Any attempt to take control of the Mind has to be via the altar."

Clare nodded. "It's the focus of everything. It's from there that the Mind broadcasts its telepathic messages into space. You know about those, I take it?"

"Of course. They occur during my monthly Passion plays." Dawn was careful not to give any hint that she'd only just found out about that.

Clare grunted. "At least you know something. The Mind is actually broadcasting telepathy all the time it's in existence, that is for about two hours each day. But those are only low-level transmissions, so I don't suppose they would reach the stars."

Dawn stared at her wonderingly. "How on earth did you find that out, that the Mind is broadcasting all the time?"

"In the early days we ran some checks on the Mind. We sent a reconnaissance aircraft over the area where Eden is located with Clara on board. We'd not sent her into a trance that day. She detected the telepathy, and we located its source to the temple."

"I don't suppose any of this telepathy's deliberate. It's probably a side-effect of the Mind's enormous power."

"Probably. The important thing is, Dr Anderson and the Watchers are aware that the Mind is broadcasting your Passion plays. That's one thing they've gleaned from Angela Lane. That's why they're so confident that extra-terrestrials are on their way to Earth – they're coming in response to your plays."

They were interrupted again by the waiter, bringing the main course. Clare had ordered a vegetarian option, Donna noted with disgust.

"I'd figured that out for myself," Dawn told her when the waiter had left. "I've been broadcasting to the stars."

"The ultimate celebrity evangelist!" Clare scoffed, starting on her food. "You'll be interested to learn that I've been analyzing the prophecies that these Watchers have been spouting. They follow a monthly cycle. First one kind of prophecy, then a couple of days another, and so on, repeating every four weeks or so."

"Matching the monthly cycle of my plays!"

"Exactly. Once a month the mind broadcasts a Passion play episode, and it seems that some time later various species, at different distances from Earth, respond to those broadcasts, each species responding in its own unique way. The Watchers have recorded everything, and one of our agents has managed to hack into their computer system and steal the recordings. Interestingly, some of these messages from the stars manifest themselves as speaking in tongues, and we've been able to identify a number of distinct language groups, based on the patterns of speech."

"You've actually managed to isolate different language groups? That's amazing! I wish you'd got in touch with me earlier, Clare."

"I've only recently got hold of these recordings, and my results are quite tentative. The trouble is, everything is filtered through the human brains of the Watchers, and it's difficult to separate the genuine ET from the human."

"But you think there's enough genuine ET to identify a number of distinct groups of alien languages?"

"That's my opinion."

"So how many different groups are there?"

"It's difficult to say, but I reckon there could be a dozen or more different alien species out there beaming telepathy back to us."

Dawn, through Paul's eyes, stared at her thoughtfully. "And how have these different species responded to my plays?"

"Like I said, everything is filtered through the minds of these Watchers, so it's coloured by their cultural assumptions. Many of the Watchers have a Christian background, which means they use Christian metaphors – they talk about establishing a kingdom of righteousness on Earth, stuff like that. What I'm trying to do is compare the prophecies coming from those Watchers with Christian backgrounds with those from other backgrounds, to see if I can separate out the genuine ET. I haven't got very far with that, I'm afraid."

"It seems to me you're doing brilliantly," Dawn told her with grudging admiration. "From what you've found out so far it appears that these aliens, if they really are on their way here, want to set up some kind of kingdom."

"Something like that. The Watchers talk in terms of Earth joining a huge galactic empire, but they've probably been watching too many science fiction movies. All I'm sure of is that if aliens are coming to Earth, then they'll head for the temple, as that's the source of the telepathy."

"The Watchers know that, so they'll want to assemble there too," Dawn added. "To form a welcome committee and present themselves as the representatives of humanity. That way they get to be the leaders in the new world order."

"You're getting the picture. And to assemble at the temple the Watchers have to invade the Mind, and that's why Anderson changed the cathedral in Eden to a temple. At least, we _think_ that's why he changed the cathedral to a temple, to provide him with a portal."

Dawn was silent for a moment. And then she said: "The dolphin that Anderson is mentoring is called Jonah. The temple details must have come from his brain. Do you think Anderson's planted anything else in him? Something that might allow him to take control of the Mind, for instance."

"I know about Jonah. Clara says he's your Donna's squeeze. Has Donna noticed anything suspicious about him?"

"Certainly not. Jonah seems entirely innocent."

"I think it's unlikely that Anderson would give Jonah any hint of his ulterior motives, or put anything in him that might arouse your suspicions. He wouldn't risk that. He's only planted legitimate information in his brain."

Dawn studied her thoughtfully. "Why don't we eliminate John Anderson? That would solve everything."

"Dear me, we are being ruthless, aren't we?" Clare chided her mildly. "I think we need to keep things in perspective. Anderson and his Watchers aren't actually threatening anyone. They're not even threatening your dolphins. All they're doing is preparing for the arrival of ET, because to them everything else is trivial in comparison. If ET is going to head for your temple, then that's where they want to be. You can hardly blame them for that. They've treated Angela Lane and her father abominably, of course, but apart from that they seem pretty harmless."

"Well, Angela's problems are history now. She's back in her body."

It was Clare's turn to look startled. "You've found her? Where?"

"At the optical telescope – the double telescope – at SETI's Mount Lofty site. She was located at the point where the two beams are combined, in the tunnel. Paul gave me the clue last night, and he took me there."

Clare nodded slowly. "I wondered if Angela might have been put there."

"But you made no attempt to save her!"

"The fate of Earth is at stake. Angela was the Watchers' eyes." Clare continued eating silently for a moment, digesting Dawn's news. "So what are we going to do now?" she said at last. "The Watchers are convinced that ET's arrival is imminent, and they could be right, but now they've lost their early-warning system."

"I've developed a device that'll be far more effective than Angela for monitoring neurospace. A spirit detector."

Clare studied Paul's face closely, and Donna sensed her doubts. Could there be such a device? A smile flitted across Paul's face: Dawn was scoring at last. "Don't tell me your agents missed my spirit detector!" she murmured.

"Our agent in Honiara is monitoring the dolphin project, not you," Clare shot back defensively. "We knew you were researching something along those lines, but it didn't seem to have any relevance to the dolphins."

"It doesn't. At least not directly." Dawn told her about Baby. "I was thinking it might be installed at that telescope, assuming SETI and the University of Adelaide agrees. As a replacement for Angela."

"That's not a bad idea," Clare admitted. "The University won't object, they've relinquished all control over the telescope. It's the Watchers you'll have to talk to. They're financing it."

"We'll have to involve them anyway – if only to persuade them not to abduct Angela again. I thought I might get a message to them through Karen Holmes. You know of her, I take it?" Dawn had taken control of the conversation at last, and she intended to keep it that way.

"I'm Dr Song's agent here, remember? Of course I know about Karen. She's a key player in the Watchers. She's close to Dr Anderson."

"That fits. Anyway, she's coming to see Angela and her father on Thursday, and I'm planning to fly to Adelaide to be there too. Karen doesn't know I've rescued Angela, she thinks I'm still controlling her body, so she'll have a nasty shock when she sees me. It'll convince her that Angela's no further use to the Watchers, and that they'll have to cooperate with me and with SETI if they want to continue monitoring neurospace."

"I'd like to attend that meeting. We'll tell her I'm representing SETI."

"Good idea. I suggest you arrive at least half an hour before Karen's due, so we can discuss tactics. You'll need to phone Angela's father to check the time." Dawn smiled at her. Now that she'd got the information she wanted she would act magnanimously. "Bring Paul along too, if you like. As a second SETI representative."

"How generous!" Clare muttered sarcastically. "I don't suppose we'll be on speaking terms, thanks to you."

"Don't be so negative. Point out to him that this little setback is my fault. I'll be your common enemy."

"You're that all right! You've spoilt everything."

"Look, Clare, I may not be much good at espionage, but I'm a champion lover. Why not make use of my skills? You have to admit I almost seduced you earlier. You were positively gasping."

"Oh good grief!" Clare snarled, flinging her fork down on her plate. "Do you seriously imagine I'd let you kiss me again?"

"That's not at all what I had in mind," Dawn replied calmly. "I'll remove myself from Paul, and then _you'll_ deliver that kiss. You'll have to be empowered, of course, but Donna can do that. I've mentored her _very_ thoroughly."

"You think being kissed by your dolphin protégé is going to pour oil on troubled waters, do you? What do you think Paul and I are – Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty? Saved by a magical kiss and all that crap?"

"You know what that kiss did to you," Dawn persisted. "It won't just pour on oil, it'll set it ablaze. Passions will explode everywhere. They'll probably have to call out the local fire brigade!"

"Very funny." She gazed at Paul's face for a moment, then shrugged. "I've got nothing to lose, I suppose, so I may as well take up your offer. However, before you ignite this blazing inferno of yours, I need to check a few details with you. Is Paul aware of everything we've said? About Karen, I mean."

"He is. So you needn't bother to update him. I'll be contacting Angela's father to let him know what we've planned. I won't be contacting Karen, so unless you get in touch with her she won't be expecting us to be present."

"Better to keep it that way. Otherwise she might not come, or else she'll turn up with a coachload of Watchers."

There was a pause. "No other questions?" Dawn asked amiably. "I'll see you and Paul on Thursday, then. And I do hope you and Paul enjoy the rest of your evening."

"Some hopes!"

"I'm sure you will, I have every confidence in Donna. Now, lean back in your chair and relax. She's going to take control of your body, and then you can leave everything to her. You'll feel really hot inside, like there's a volcanic eruption inside you, but don't worry about that. I'll quit Paul the moment she delivers her red-hot kiss."

"Spare me the sordid details. Just tell Donna to get on with it."

Donna immediately pushed Clare aside and took control of her body. Having never before delivered one of those love-goddess kisses, she was determined to make the most of this unexpected opportunity. She licked her lips – Clare's lips – in eager anticipation. This would be the kiss to end all kisses, the ultimate superheated X-rated steamy kiss. It would make Dawn's efforts seem like innocent sisterly pecks.

First, she had to ignite her dragon fire, and she knew from her visits to Dawn's mind exactly how to do that. Immediately, as she began fantasizing about Rick making love to her, fire erupted in her belly. At the same moment she felt her hand being stroked by Paul, and she knew that Dawn was doing her bit to help things along.

Her fantasy grew more erotic, the fire became hotter, and now something like boiling lava was inching up her throat. Suddenly the imagery flickered and changed, and it was no longer Rick who was making love to her. The changed vision solidified, and as she stared into the face of her new lover her borrowed body was flooded with such a rush of hormones that she felt like she was being hurled headlong on some emotional rollercoaster. She hadn't consciously willed this vision, it had come from her subconscious. Her lover was Mort!

Donna had no time to wonder what on earth her subconscious was thinking about, for the volcano inside exploded with such violence that the earth didn't just move, it leapt clean out of its orbit and threw itself into the sun. At least that's what it felt like, for her body became so hot that it seemed it would burst into flames. Consumed with an overwhelming passion, she staggered to her feet, grabbed Paul's shoulders, and pressed her burning lips to his.

The air around them sizzled with suppressed energy as the fire arced across to Paul's lips and surged through his body. It must have released a deluge of testosterone and heaven knows what else besides, for suddenly his hands were everywhere and he was pushing her down with an urgent passion. It was time to hand over to Clare, and with some reluctance she relinquished her hold on her borrowed body and separated herself from its ecstatic writhing. Moments later she found herself floating above Clare's fuzzy head.

Before flying back to Honiara, Donna paused to watch the drama unfold. Unfortunately the light was low and everything was a ghostly blur, but she could make out a writhing tangle of arms and legs on the floor as Clare and Paul grappled with each other in a fit of uncontrolled frenzy. She saw the waiter approach, leading a group of people to a nearby table, and it seemed to her that the evening was about to reach the most satisfactory conclusion.

For there would be no stopping Clare and Paul now. And even if their red-hot passion failed to set off the fire alarms in this stupid restaurant, it would at least give that stuffy waiter and his customers something more interesting than wine lists to talk about.

## Twenty Three

"Aren't you seeing Jonah anymore?" Dawn asked. Her visits to Eden had become an almost daily feature since the start of her mission to save Angela a week ago.

Donna was sitting at her table, laboriously producing more of those Monopoly banknotes, though with markedly less enthusiasm than before. "There's no time to see him. I'm too busy seeing you."

Dawn touched her arm. "I'm so sorry, Donna. I didn't realise."

Donna meticulously wrote '500' on another of the small pieces of parchment. "That's not the real reason," she admitted. "Jonah's been put off by my efforts to get him to cuddle me. And now Clara's started chatting him up."

"Clara?" Dawn stared at her thoughtfully. "Well, we know why _she's_ interested in him. She's wants information. He's her prime target. He'll soon lose interest in her when he discovers her dolphin body is nowhere to be found in the Crocodile Bay."

"I know. I'm not that bothered, actually. I've rather lost interest since being in Angela's body. Mort was such _fun_. All those games we played." She found it difficult to admit to herself, let alone to Dawn, that she'd fallen in love with him, but that was the truth of the matter.

"That's over now, Donna, you know it is. If I'd have anticipated that things would turn out like this I would never have attempted to rescue Angela. It's been a total disaster."

"No it hasn't. It's been a great success." Donna brightened and warmed to her theme. "If aliens really are coming to Earth, then it's a good job you did rescue her. We've found out that poor Jonah has been an unwitting accomplice of the Watchers, you're going to install Baby as Earth's early-warning system, and you've made contact with Clare. And tomorrow night there's this meeting with Karen. I think it's really exciting. Better than Monopoly, even."

She jumped up and went to her hob to make them some fish tea. "I've had this great idea, Dawn. I thought I would make a board game based on what Clare told us last night. The temple with the altar would be in the middle of the board, and the players would be aliens. The winner is the one who gets to the altar first. Now, to reach the altar, they have to get past two dragons, just as the real aliens will have to get past us. Those dragons do the usual kinds of things – chop off their limbs, burn them to cinders, that kind of thing – and to defend themselves the aliens have to accumulate fire-power of their own. They do that by landing on spaces with chance cards as well as stealing fire-power from other aliens–"

"Why don't you use your Monopoly banknotes as fire-power cards? That way you're halfway towards making your new game." Dawn was pleased that Donna had found this new interest. It might take her mind off Mort.

"Good idea. Then all I need to do is draw up the board and work out the rules, and then we can test it out."

"I can't wait. However, we've got more urgent matters to discuss. What about tomorrow evening? Do you want to come to that meeting with Karen? You could sit in my mind and watch everything."

Donna poured out the tea, keeping her eyes fixed on the task. She didn't want Dawn to notice the delicious sense of anticipation that was sweeping through her.

"I wouldn't miss the meeting for anything," she said, carefully carrying the cups over to the small table. "But if I'm just an observer in your mind I won't be able to take part in the discussion. It would be much better if I take control of Angela."

Dawn pursed her lips. "It's not a good idea for you to go back into her. It doesn't seem right."

"Please, Dawn. It'll be much better if we both participate. You know what a handful Clare is, and Karen will need some careful handling as well. It needs the two of us."

Dawn gave in with a sigh, as Donna knew she would. "I suppose you're right. OK, you go into a trance at 6 pm. That's about the time I'll arrive at Mort's house. I've spoken to him on the phone, he told me Karen is due to arrive at seven. Clare's arranged to arrive with Paul about 6.30."

Donna burst out laughing, and not just because she was going to be with Mort again. "They'll be pretty red-faced, those two! You must be really proud of me, delivering that scorcher! The best kiss ever, I reckon. Wasn't it hilarious? They collapsed on the floor, all over each other and snogging like mad, just as that stuffy waiter turned up with all those people!"

"The trouble is, Clare will be really mad at us for that. She'll want to get her own back. I guarantee she'll do everything she can to take control of that meeting tomorrow."

"She's a very forceful person," Donna admitted ruefully. An awful thought had struck her. Clare must have seen that vision of Mort making love to her. She probably had no idea the man in the vision was Mort, but the moment she set eyes on him tomorrow...

"This is our show, and we're going to run it," Dawn declared, interrupting these awful imaginings. "It's not Clare's show, and it's certainly not Karen's. If aliens really are on their way here, then we hold all the trump cards. We control the mind, we've got Baby, and we've got the power to confront these invaders from the stars."

"None of that's going to stop Clare. She's sussed out everything, and she's made it pretty plain that she doesn't think much of us. She'll never let you take charge."

Dawn didn't immediately reply. Glancing at her, Donna guessed from her abstracted expression that she was formulating a plan. A gleam came into her eye.

"Clare _will_ let me take charge, you'll see. It's just a matter of applying elementary psychology and a bit of deception. This is how we'll play it..."

And so it was that, at the appointed hour the next evening in Adelaide, the shrill sound of an alarm rang out in Mort Lane's house. He rushed out of the kitchen to the lounge, where his daughter was resting. The red light on top of the spirit detector was flashing, but it stopped just as he reached the room, and the alarm went silent too.

"Angela! Are you OK?"

His daughter gazed up at him dreamily. "I think that angel you told me about has just come into me," she murmured. "I was half-asleep, and then there was that alarm, and now I can feel her inside me."

Mort knelt down in front of her and took her hands and peered anxiously into her eyes. "It might be something evil, my darling. Those Watchers..."

"She doesn't feel evil. Wait a minute, I can see some words!" Angela frowned. " _Hi ... Mort ... it's ... me_. That's a funny thing for an angel to say."

Dawn had reset the device so that it set off the alarm when any kind of spirit appeared, whether malign or benign, and Mort's face broke into a relieved grin. "She's a funny angel, my darling. Hi Donna!"

"More words, Dad! _Can ... I ... possess ... Angela?_ What does that mean?"

"She's asking if she can take control of your body for a little while. To talk to me."

"Don't let her, Dad! She'll send me back!"

"Of course she won't. It'll only be for a little while, and you'll be quite safe. You won't leave your body, you'll just be sharing it with her for a while."

"If you're sure it's OK..."

"It's OK. Now I think what she wants you to do is to relax. Where's that magazine you were looking at earlier, with those pictures of pop stars? What's the name of the one you fancied?"

"Captain Bogey."

"That's the one. Gaze at a picture of him. It'll put you in the right frame of mind."

Angela giggled. "This Donna must be really cool if that's what she wants me to do. I thought angels liked Bach and Botticelli and boring stuff like that."

"She's very unusual. Now, you sit back and daydream about Captain Bogey, and I'll get back to my cooking."

A few minutes later Angela's body waddled into the kitchen. "Anything I can do, boss?"

"You can peel and chop those carrots if you like," Mort replied nonchalantly, without so much as a glance. Angels evidently dropped in on him all the time.

She crept up behind him and jabbed him in the ribs. "You're still sulking 'cos I beat you at Monopoly!"

He laughed, then threw his arms round her, much to her delight. "It's great to have you back, Donna! Dawn told me to expect her and Paul and Clare. She never mentioned you."

"I expect she had her reasons." Donna was desperately trying to calm her pounding heart. The last thing she wanted was for Angela to get wind of her feelings towards him. "She probably didn't want you to get too excited. Old people need to take things easy."

"I think she thought my phone might be bugged. She didn't say very much at all, apart from telling me she wanted to talk to Karen." He glanced at the kitchen clock. "Karen will be here in less than an hour."

"I'd better get on with those carrots, then. Our other visitors will be arriving soon."

"Dawn phoned. Her plane arrived on time but she's been held up in traffic."

"The usual story. You land mammals are hopeless at moving around." But Donna knew that this delay wasn't caused by traffic, it was part of Dawn's plan.

"Talking about moving around," she continued, "it really hurts to walk. Angela's muscles are aching all over. What's she been up to?"

"She must be overdoing those exercises. I'll tell her to ease up. Look, you're holding that scraper wrong. Here, let me show you."

Donna watched him closely. She had enjoyed the small amount of cooking she'd done here with Mort, and she was toying with the idea of starting cookery classes in Eden. No one there cooked anything, partly because by the time you'd prepared the food and cooked the meal the trance would be over, and partly because it was a waste of time anyway as spirits don't need food. Like the fish tea, it would just be comfort eating.

"Angela's not been traumatized by her experience, then?" Donna asked.

"Thankfully not. In fact she remembers hardly anything about it. It seems like a dream, she says. She couldn't believe it when I told her she'd been imprisoned at that telescope for four years."

"We've found out who imprisoned her, you'll be pleased to hear. Dr John Anderson, the leader of the Watchers. But don't tell Karen we know."

"I've never heard of him. Anyway, Angela seems fine. I've arranged for her to have some private tutoring, starting Monday. She's got an awful lot of catching up to do."

"She _will_ be busy," Donna murmured absently. She was concentrating on trying to use the scraper properly. "I hope she doesn't give up on her exercises."

"She won't give that up. She's 22 years old, and I've told her that if she wants a boyfriend she'd better trim up."

"You'd better get yourself a girlfriend, then. Otherwise you'll be lonely." Donna paused in her scraping and threw a glance in his direction. She hated the thought that he might one day find someone and forget about her, but she had to be realistic. Besides, Angela would be listening in to this conversation, and telling him to get a girlfriend would allay any suspicions she might have about her. The last thing she wanted was for Angela to realise she had fallen in love.

"I'll think about girlfriends one day," Mort promised. "When Angela's sorted out."

"Well, let me know if you want any help, girlfriend-wise," she said, trying to strike a flippant note. "I offer a comprehensive dating package. It includes a full check of their memories, guaranteed to uncover all those guilty secrets, as well as my miracle kissing service, guaranteed to sweep them off their feet. You'll have them queuing down the street by the time I've finished."

The doorbell rang. "What did I tell you? There's one of them now."

Mort laughed. "That'll be your better half: Dawn."

"Worse half, you mean! You certainly don't want her as a girlfriend, Mort. She's OK in bed, but she's hopeless in the kitchen. And at your age, it's the kitchen that counts."

He smiled. "Let her in, will you?"

Donna waddled out and across the spacious hallway to the front door and opened it. As she expected, it was not Dawn who was standing there but Paul and Clare. They were holding hands, she noted with satisfaction. Her love-goddess skills had evidently worked a treat.

"Hi," she said.

"This is Angela," Paul told Clare.

"That's only half right," Angela's body replied. "You're actually talking to Donna. Your fairy godmother."

"God, not you again," Clare growled. "You're bloody everywhere!"

"Now, now," Donna rebuked her mildly. "You've got me to thank for your blossoming relationship. What a kiss that was! The earth moved so much I'm surprised the restaurant didn't collapse in on you."

"I wish it had!" Paul snapped. "It was extremely embarrassing. We were kicked out."

"Kicked out? I would have thought they would have been grateful for the entertainment. And you hadn't even finished your meal. I hope they didn't make you pay."

"They certainly didn't. They couldn't get rid of us fast enough."

"There you are then. I did you a favour. You had a free meal, and then you went back to Clare's place for some more fun and games."

"Look, are you going to let us in? Clare and I have got more important things to do than stand here chatting to a damn dolphin!"

Donna glowered at him. "If that's your attitude to other intelligent species – _highly_ intelligent species – then I suggest you quit your job at SETI. I should hate to think what any extra-terrestrials would do to Earth if you're their contact. Blast it out of existence, I should think."

"OK, I'm sorry. It's just that you and that Dawn have got up our noses. Messing around in our brains like you're the lords of the universe."

She led them into the hallway. "I'm sorry about that. We had no choice. I'm hoping we can put that little unpleasantness behind us now."

"I hope so," he muttered. "Except you're now messing around in Angela's mind."

"With her full permission. _And_ her father's permission."

She led them into the lounge. Following Dawn's instructions, she sat them down on the settee.

Mort emerged from the kitchen and greeted his visitors. Donna's heart sank when she saw a look of surprise come into Clare's eyes followed by a small smirk. She had recognised him as the man in Donna's erotic fantasy.

"It's great you could join us, Clare," Mort said jovially. "Has Donna introduced herself? She's full of mischief, I'm afraid, but great fun."

"Hey you!" Donna protested, desperate to interject something before Clare had a chance to make some devastating remark. "Don't talk about me like I'm your pet dog or something! I'm really important, you know. In fact I'm probably the second most important creature on this planet!"

Mort laughed. "Be a good girl and lay the table." She sniffed, tossed her head in an exaggerated attempt to register her disgust, and stomped off to the kitchen to collect the cutlery.

"Can I offer you some champagne?" Mort asked his visitors. "I thought we might toast Angela's safe return. It's partly thanks to you two that I've got her back."

The doorbell rang. "I'll get it," Angela called out from the hallway. "It'll be the most important person on the planet."

Dawn always managed to turn heads, but tonight she looked stunning. Her makeup and her hair were immaculate, and she was wearing a smart black outfit. Donna knew the reason: she intended to dominate the evening. Donna also knew that she had been waiting a little way along the street in the car that had brought her from the airport. That was because she wanted to arrive exactly two minutes after Clare and Paul.

"This is Dawn, everybody," Donna announced to the lounge. Mort and Paul, who had no idea what Dawn looked like and probably imagined she was a bit of a witch, rose to their feet, visibly impressed. Mort shook her hand and stuttered something about how wonderful it was to meet her. Paul also shook her hand and said something inaudible. Clare remained seated with her arms folded, looking daggers.

"Hello, Clare," Dawn said pleasantly. "It's so nice to meet you properly."

Before Clare had a chance to reply, Dawn had pulled what looked like a phone from her handbag. "Just a precaution," she explained. "To check we're not bugged."

While everyone watched in bemusement, and Mort handed round glasses of champagne, she quickly passed the device over each of them. "We're clean," she announced when she'd finished. Then she sat down on the dining chair that Donna had carried into the room for her. Dawn had given her strict instructions about that. It was higher than the other chairs and allowed her to dominate the room. Mort and Paul sat down opposite her.

Having established herself as the centre of attention, Dawn immediately got down to business. "We haven't got much time before Karen arrives," she told them, "and we need to discuss how we're going to handle her. As I see it, we have two objectives. The first is to impress on her that it's to the Watchers' advantage to cooperate with us, because with the spirit detector we can offer them a great way to monitor neurospace. The second is to prise as much information out of her as we can about what the Watchers intend to do if alien ships are sighted. In particular, we want to know how they will make use of the dolphin communal mind. Assuming they do intend that."

"They'll use it," Clare muttered. "It's the Mind that's been broadcasting into space, so it's the Mind the aliens will head for."

Dawn turned to Mort. "She means they'll land in Eden," she explained, "That's the neurospace structure the communal mind generates each day. Has Donna told you about that?" she asked him.

"She's told me a little."

"Unknown to us, the communal mind has been broadcasting immensely powerful telepathic messages into space. These messages travel at perhaps ten thousand times faster than the speed of light, so they've reached deep into the galaxy. The Watchers have been picking up what seem to be replies to those messages, and those replies are telling them that aliens are heading our way."

"I've told Mort that John Anderson is the leader of the Watchers," Donna said, "And that he was responsible for imprisoning Angela at that telescope."

"He's also the mentor of one of our dolphins," Dawn added. "And that's allowed him to have a significant input into Eden. We think it's to allow him to invade us when the aliens arrive. That's why we need to find out as much as we can about the Watchers' intentions."

"We've all got different agendas," she continued swiftly, cutting off any chance of an interruption. "Mort's main concern is for Angela's safety – he doesn't want the Watchers interfering with her; my main concern is to maintain the integrity of the communal mind; Paul is primarily interested in SETI's objectives, which is to contact extra-terrestrials; and Clare's main concern is the security of Earth. Placing my spirit detector at that telescope to monitor neurospace satisfies all those agendas, and we all want it. We've got a common purpose, so we can present a united front to Karen. We need to emphasize the fact that we're doing the Watchers a great favour by letting them share in our project, and that we expect something from them in return. We want full information on all their activities."

"That's all pretty obvious," Clare muttered. "Let's get down to specifics. What, exactly, are you suggesting we say to Karen? And how are you proposing to check the genuineness of the information you're hoping to prise out of her?"

"This is what I propose..."

## Twenty Four

When the doorbell rang about fifteen minutes later it was Angela who went to answer it. The others remained out of sight in the lounge, sipping their champagne.

Karen walked into the hallway, smiling brightly. "How are you, dear?"

"I'm fine thanks. Getting used to being back home with Dad."

"I'm so pleased you're back. It must have been awful being stuck in space all that time."

"Don't remember much about it, actually."

"Ah."

"The nice lady who rescued me has come to see us."

Karen froze. "What nice lady, dear?"

"She's called Dawn. She's waiting in the lounge. She's brought a couple of friends along."

Donna was watching Karen closely as she said this. She always found it a little difficult to read human body language, but the signs were unmistakable. The sharp intake of breath, the widening of the eyes, the sudden freezing of the smile. But by the time they reached the lounge Karen had completely recovered her composure.

Mort stood up to greet her, then he introduced Clare and Paul, pointed her to a seat, and handed her a glass of champagne. "We're celebrating Angela's return," he explained. Then he took Angela's hand and led her to the door. "Come along, dear," he said, "We need to get the meal on the table."

"Isn't it wonderful?" Karen exclaimed valiantly as Mort and Angela left the room. "Angela tells me it was you, Dawn, who managed to rescue her. I have to confess I came to visit you in Honiara because I hoped you might be able to help."

Dawn smiled at her. "You made that pretty obvious."

"So where did you find her?"

"She was stuck down a tunnel, at one of SETI's telescopes. It was Paul who gave me the clue. He's a SETI scientist. Apparently the Watchers are financing the operation of that telescope. So we checked, and there she was! We think they planted Angela there to monitor neurospace for signs of extra-terrestrials."

Karen managed to look unruffled. "Really? What a strange thing to do."

"Yes. I can understand them wanting to monitor neurospace, seeing as how they really believe that aliens are coming here on spirit journeys, but to do it like that was really stupid. They'd have to keep entering Angela's mind to check her memories, and that would be incredibly time-consuming. It would also have meant they'd have to go on a spirit journey themselves to do it. It must have been a real chore."

"I suppose it must."

"They obviously haven't got much of a clue about these things. I'm surprised they didn't get some advice. Well, it's all over at last, and Angela's come back to life – thanks largely to Paul. We've all played our part in saving Angela – not least you, of course, by drawing my attention to her plight – and Mort thought we would make tonight a bit of celebration. He wants to thank us all."

"Oh. How nice."

Mort appeared in the doorway. "Come on through. Dinner's on the table."

Dawn led the way, playing the part of de facto host. "I was telling Karen about how the Watchers used Angela," she told Mort as they took their places around the table.

"Terrible, isn't it?" he said to Karen as he pulled out a chair for her, opposite Dawn. "And Dawn tells me it was all quite unnecessary. Such a shame. Now help yourselves, everyone. Angela, sort out the wine, there's a good girl."

Karen was obviously itching to find out how the Watchers could more effectively monitor neurospace, but she waited until the meal was underway before raising the subject. "About those Watchers," she said. "I don't understand much about these things, but how else could they monitor neurospace?"

Dawn shrugged in an offhand kind of way. "They could use a spirit detector."

"Oh?" Karen's face was impassive. "And what's a spirit detector?"

"Exactly what it says on the box. I've brought one here, to check that none of these Watchers try to invade Angela. It'll set alarms ringing all over the house."

"Really? That's amazing."

"Isn't it? I'll show it to you when we've finished the meal."

"Thank you." Karen continued eating impassively. "So what are you suggesting?" she asked after a while. "That the Watchers locate one of these devices at that telescope?"

"Yes, something along those lines."

Karen concentrated on her food, though it was obvious that her mind was on other things. "It's odd that the Watchers have never heard of spirit detectors, don't you think?" she said after a while.

"It's not surprising. They've only just been developed."

"Ah. But now that they have been developed, they could get hold of one? To replace Angela?"

"They could borrow the one I've got here. Except I don't trust them. I suspect they plan to take over the dolphin communal mind."

"Whatever makes you think that? What would be the point?"

"It's telepathy from the Mind that's attracting extra-terrestrials to Earth. The Watchers know that, and they know that if they are to meet ET then it's got to be through the Mind. We know that the Watchers have tampered with it. Dr John Anderson, one of their leaders, is also one of our dolphins' mentors."

For the first time Karen let her mask slip, and she gave an audible gasp. She was clearly alarmed at the extent of Dawn's knowledge.

"What a coincidence!" she exclaimed, recovering her poise. "I know Dr Anderson! At least, I suppose it's the same Dr Anderson. The expert in English history?"

"That _is_ a coincidence. That's our man."

"Would you mind if I told him about your spirit detector?"

"Feel free. I couldn't possibly let him have it, of course. We need it to guard Angela."

"Well, if it was placed beneath that telescope, and the Watchers had access to it, then they would no longer have any need of Angela."

"I suppose not. I still don't trust them, though."

"I'm sure they have no plans take over the Mind. They probably just want to be present when ET finally arrives and makes contact with it."

"Only Dr Anderson could tell us that."

"Well, I could ask him. I could even phone him tonight."

Dawn looked at her doubtfully. "He would have to make a pretty convincing case for me to let him use that spirit detector."

"Well, there's no harm trying. I should like to see your detector first, of course. Just to reassure him that such a device actually exists."

"Certainly. I'm afraid you won't see any spirits, unless one comes visiting, but I can show you some past visitations. Everything's stored in its memory."

"Remarkable. So how does it work?"

"It's got living brain tissue inside it. The organ in the brain that's sensitive to telepathy..."

Later, when the meal was over, Karen joined the others in the lounge. She had been on the phone to John Anderson for about a quarter of an hour, and was looking very pleased with herself.

"Dr Anderson was most interested in your spirit detector," she purred as she sat down. "He assured me that the Watchers have no plans whatsoever to take over the Mind. It's just as I said, they simply want to be present in 'Eden' – whatever that means – when ET arrives. He told me that some of the Watchers are being trained in trance-induction techniques and spirit journeys to prepare them for that. He even went so far as to suggest that I could join them in their training programme, as your representative, so to speak. Then I could report back on exactly what they're up to. That sounds really exciting, doesn't it?"

"It sounds like you've hit the jackpot," Dawn agreed. "You wouldn't need to report back, though, Karen. I'm quite capable of going on spirit journeys myself, so I could come into your mind, and go with you. Then I would see everything for myself. That's the way to play it, I think."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Yes, I suppose you could do that." Karen tried not to look dismayed at the prospect of Dawn invading her mind. "I wouldn't want you delving around in my memories, though. There's a lot of stuff in there that's ... private."

"Don't worry, I won't intrude. I'll just check on what those Watchers are up to."

"Well ... I guess that's OK." She sounded like it was far from OK.

"Well, that all sounds excellent," Mort said heartedly. "Cause for another glass of champagne, I'd say." He stood up and went to the drinks cabinet. "Dawn agrees to let her spirit detector be used at that telescope, and in return the Watchers get to see its output and Karen agrees to let Dawn go into her mind to monitor what those Watchers are up to."

Karen was looking increasingly uncomfortable. "You might as well know now," she muttered at last, "it'll save a lot of embarrassment later. I actually belong to the Watchers, and I'm already participating in their spirit journey training programme. I couldn't tell you before, because ... well, it would antagonize you, and you'd know I could have done something to save Angela. I'm sorry about that, Mort, but I thought that the fate of the Earth was more important than her. At least you've got her back now, and it seems like she's OK. In fact she seems to be getting on remarkably well."

"Well, thanks for being straight with us, Karen," Dawn answered quickly, before Mort could say anything. The last thing she wanted was for him or anyone else to let slip that they'd been somewhat deceitful too, and that at this moment Donna was controlling Angela and this whole performance had been a stitch-up designed to make her agree to almost anything.

"Tell you what," Dawn continued, "since you've been so honest with us, why don't the four of us – you, me, Paul, and Clare – pop over to that telescope now, and fix Baby in place? I call the spirit detector that, by the way. I think of her as my baby. It's because she's got a clone of part of my brain inside her."

Karen cheered up a little at that. "John would be delighted. The Watchers really don't intend to take over the dolphin communal mind, you know. They just want to _be_ there when it all happens."

"Well, let's get going, then," Dawn said cheerily. "On the way, we'll arrange for my first trip into your mind. It's nothing to worry about, I'll explain exactly what you need to do to let me in. Paul and Clare have both experienced the treatment, and everything worked out splendidly for them. Didn't it Clare?"

"Wouldn't have missed it for anything," Clare muttered bleakly.

A little later, when the others had departed, Mort and Donna returned to the dining room to clear the dishes. "Your better half is quite a girl," Mort remarked.

" _I'm_ the better half," Donna retorted as she gathered up the glasses. "Better in the kitchen, better at Monopoly, better at swimming, better at everything that counts."

"Since you're so incredibly wonderful, you might be able to explain something that's been puzzling me."

"Depends what it is. Even I have my limitations."

"It's about that spirit detector. The images of spirits on its screen are really bright and clear, but everything else looks faint and ghostly."

"True. That's why it won't have any difficulty picking out a neurospace flying saucer among all those stars."

"I understand that. What I don't understand is why, with a detector like that, the telescope can't operate during the day as well as at night. The stars will be completely masked by the blueness of the sky, but surely something as bright as a neurospace object would stand out. Wouldn't it seem like a brilliant point of light to your spirit detector?"

There was a long silence while Donna digested his words. "You know what, Mort?" she said at last. "You're pretty smart to think of that. In fact you're almost as smart as your average dolphin. Phone Dawn on her mobile and tell her to ask Paul to keep that telescope running day and night. He should be delighted – it'll double our chances of finding ET!"

"And afterwards," she added, as he went to the phone, "we'll play Monopoly. Provided Angela doesn't mind me borrowing her body for a bit longer, of course."

"I'm not sure how she feels, now that she knows you're a dolphin. Your average dolphin might be smart, but it's also wet and slimy, and it really stinks of fish..."

Dawn's next visit to Eden was three days later, on the Sunday morning. Donna wasn't expecting her before then, for she had spent most of Friday travelling back to the Solomons from Adelaide, and Saturday was her day off. Donna had in any case seen her later on at Mort's house on Thursday night, when she returned with Karen and the others after installing the spirit detector at the telescope. Apparently everything had worked perfectly, with a fuzzy view of the stars showing on Baby's screen, and Karen had pronounced herself well satisfied.

Karen had also seemed a little more sanguine about the prospect of Dawn making trips into her mind in order to investigate the Watchers. Donna asked Dawn about that when they reached the privacy of her quarters after the temple service.

"She was more alarmed at the prospect of me prying into her sex life than any worries about the Watchers," Dawn told her.

"Huh! You humans are all the same. Why can't you be open about it like every other species on this planet?"

"Well, that's the way we are. We have a very complex culture."

"A very crap culture, if you ask me," Donna muttered morosely as she went over to her stove to make the tea. She'd been feeling down in the dumps ever since she'd said her final farewells to Mort on Thursday evening, for she supposed that she would never see him again.

" _Crap_ is not a very nice word, dear," Dawn told her primly. "Clare has had a most unfortunate influence on you."

"She's a bit earthy, that's all – like all you humans. Anyway, what do you make of Karen's account of the Watchers? Are they really harmless?"

"Karen certainly believes they are, or she would never have agreed to let me invade her mind. In fact she was surprisingly open about their activities. She let me find out about their spirit-journey training programme – they use hallucinogens to induce their trances, and they go into trances together, just like you dolphins."

"Next you'll be telling me they can create their own communal mind and their own Eden."

"Of course they can't do that. They're not telepathic like you, and they don't have the spare neural capacity that your brains have. However, they have managed to conjure up a temple in neurospace where they can worship, and so far as I can tell from Karen's description it's a bit like your temple in Eden."

"What?" Donna almost dropped the teapot. "Don't you realise what that means? It's a portal! They can use it to transport themselves directly to our temple!"

"Assuming our temple really is a portal. Just because John Anderson made it look like the COBRA temples doesn't mean it performs the same function. Those temples weren't devised by human minds. And there's no record of any one using our temple as a portal. We've never been invaded."

"Doesn't mean to say we _won't_ be."

"Look, the Watchers are only interested in making contact with extra-terrestrials, they have no wish to harm the Mind. Clare's sure of that, and Karen certainly believes that to be the case."

"We can't be sure," Donna persisted. "We don't know what else that Dr Anderson planted in Jonah's brain besides the temple design. There could be all kinds of things going on that we know nothing about. Like those telepathic broadcasts to outer space – maybe they're the result of something that Anderson planted in Jonah. I think we should do what you suggested to Clare the other evening: wipe Anderson out!"

"Clare would be really mad at us if we did. If you're really worried about him, there's a much better solution. We simply exclude Jonah from the Mind. We stop feeding him the psychoactive fish, so he won't be able to participate in the dolphin trance. Whatever John Anderson has put in his brain can't affect us then."

Donna nodded slowly as she poured the hot water into the teapot and stirred the brew. "Let's do it – though poor Jonah will be really gutted. He'll be a complete outcast, and the others will probably start bullying him. You know what dolphins are like."

"OK, we'll isolate him, and you can tell the others he's sick. In fact I think I'll move him to the GeneSys dolphinarium, well out of the way."

"Are you sure that's wise? He'll be really lonely, all by himself."

Dawn regarded Donna thoughtfully. "How do you feel about it, Donna? I imagine you'll really miss him..."

"Sure I'll miss him. But I won't be heartbroken, if that's what you're thinking."

Dawn groaned inwardly. She'd hoped that Donna might have got over her feelings for Mort and set her affections on Jonah again, but this was evidently not the case. Still, it meant that she wouldn't be too upset by the next bit of news.

"Clare phoned me yesterday, to say that Clara has asked to be transferred to Honiara. Clare says that since we now know all about her, there's little point her being separated from the rest of the GM dolphins. She wants to join you all at Crocodile Bay. I told her we'd have to quarantine her first, in the dolphinarium. So you needn't worry about Jonah being lonely."

"Ha! It's Jonah that little tart's after!" Donna exclaimed vehemently, almost spilling the tea as she set down the teapot and cups on the small table by her settee. "I saw them wandering off together down to the river after the temple service. That was half-an-hour ago. I hate to think what they're up to now."

"Nothing much, from what you told me. Didn't you say Jonah thinks human flesh is like medieval parchment?"

"Except that I was trying to wean him off that idea, and now she's benefitting from my efforts. The bitch!" Although Donna had cooled towards Jonah, she couldn't help feeling jealous. She poured out the tea and took a sip. The fishy aroma soothed her ruffled feelings.

"I'm sure it's for the best," she added stoically. "I'm never going to be able to love a dolphin. I'm too human."

"You're much more than human," Dawn pointed out, trying to cheer her up. "You're a fire-breathing dragon like me..."

"So what?" Donna muttered glumly. "I'm never going to get to kiss like you. Not in my dolphin body, that is." Then an idea hit her, and she brightened. "Though maybe those extra-terrestrials will turn out to be dragons – in which case one of them might fall for me!" She gazed into her tea, trying to imagine what dragon courtship would be like. It was bound to be pretty hot.

Dawn didn't reply. This wasn't the moment to remind Donna that she had only one dragon parent, not two, which meant that dragons reproduced asexually. Romance with one was definitely not a possibility.

#  Part 4: Aliens

## Twenty Five

The loudspeakers blared out across the lagoon. "Donna! Donna report to Pier One! Donna to Pier One!"

Donna swung round in surprise. It was less than ten minutes since she had awoken from her trance, and she was wondering how to break the news to Jonah that he was to be excluded from the dolphin community and transferred to the dolphinarium at the main GeneSys site. She was expecting Dawn to visit that afternoon to make all the arrangements, but whoever was at Pier One was unlikely to be her as she also could only just have awoken.

With a few flicks of her tail she surged through the water in the direction of the pier. A lone figure was standing at the end of it, obviously waiting for her, and obviously not Dawn. As she drew closer she saw that it was Rick, and she leapt into the air to greet him, performing a spectacular somersault.

Rick had always made a great fuss of Donna. Although he was responsible for all the dolphins and was reluctant to show any favouritism, she was their leader and so he could legitimately give her a little more attention. Like Dawn, he had sometimes read her fairy stories when she was little and played with her, and the fact that he was male and she female had created a special bond between them.

Now, though, he seemed too agitated even to stroke her snout. Kneeling beside her, he almost stumbled into the water in his hurry to get the words out. "The radio link to the spirit detector – it's been buzzing! Baby must have spotted something in neurospace!"

Donna stared up at him with her big eyes. This could mean only one thing: the Watchers were correct: extra-terrestrials really were on their way here. She waggled her flippers excitedly.

"I woke Dawn from her trance to tell her," Rick continued. "She's having something to eat, then she's going into a trance again. She'll meet you here, in her spirit body, and then you'll go together to Adelaide. Paul and Clare will be expecting you – Dawn's phoned them. You'll be occupying Angela's body, of course."

Donna's heart leapt. She was going to see Mort again! She felt like throwing herself into the air and splashing water everywhere, but she managed to restrain herself and merely waggled her flippers once more.

"I've brought you some food," Rick told her, indicating the bucket at his side. "It's drugged, so when you've eaten it go straight to the isolation pens. It's an extra dose, so you'll stay in the trance for about four hours."

Donna shook her head at him, then hit her beak on the water eight times.

"What? You want enough for eight hours. You want to spend eight hours in Angela's body?"

Donna nodded her beak up and down enthusiastically. Dawn would certainly disapprove, but she was going to make the most of this opportunity. Eight hours with Mort! That was enough time to do all kinds of exciting things with him, including another game of Monopoly. The last time they played – on Thursday evening after that meeting with Karen – he had wiped her out. Well, she would get her own back tonight.

Rick gazed at her doubtfully, then shrugged. "OK, if that's what you want. I'll have to inject you with a top-up drug half-way through your trance. And you'd better eat every scrap of food I've brought you."

Donna wolfed the fish down, but she was too excited to appreciate what she was eating. Then she swam into one of the isolation pens where she wouldn't be disturbed, and a few minutes after that she drifted into the trance. Dawn must have entered her own trance a little earlier, for the first thing Donna saw when her spirit left her body was Dawn's flying VW Beetle. She climbed in beside Dawn, and moments later they were racing south above the ghostly Pacific Ocean towards Australia.

Dawn had been unable to tell Mort and Angela about Baby's discovery, for it was Sunday and they were attending Mort's church in Adelaide, and Mort had turned off his phone. There had been a marked increase in attendance at the church since Angela's dramatic recovery a week and a half ago, which had been widely hailed as a miracle. It was Angela's first time there, and although she hadn't been too keen on going, her father had insisted.

She was very glad now that she had gone, for somewhat to her surprise there were several pretty yummy young men at the service, and the minister and the church elders had all made a big fuss of her, praying over her and everything, and the minister had even mentioned her during his sermon. As well as that, several people from the congregation had invited her and her father to meals at their homes. Life had suddenly become quite a party.

When the service ended, lots of people came up to her, wanting to shake her hand, and the minister himself brought over a tray of coffee and biscuits. She resisted the biscuits – the presence of all those young guys made her even more determined to get her figure back – but she took the coffee.

"You're a miracle of grace," the minister gushed, helping himself to a biscuit. The Reverend Green was a large man, about the same age as her father. "The trouble is" – he laughed – "I've had so many people wanting prayer for healing since your recovery. I've never been so busy."

Angela frowned. "I really don't think I'm a miracle of grace," she told him. "But I've got a guardian angel. She's the one who saved me."

The Reverend Green smiled indulgently. "I'm sure we all have guardian angels, Angela."

"Really? I find that hard to believe. Anyway, my angel is really cool. She likes Captain Bogey, and she's really good at kissing. At least, that's what she told my dad." She gazed longingly at a passing youth. "I'm hoping to make use of her services..."

The minister's smile had become a little forced. "She saved you, Angela, that's the main thing, and we're all grateful to her for that."

"You must meet her. Perhaps you would like to visit us next time she calls."

"Thank you, Angela. I'm sure it would be most enlightening."

"Enlightening? I shouldn't think so. All she wants to do is chat up my dad and play Monopoly. Wait a minute ... I can feel her now! You're in luck, I think you're about to meet her! Let me sit down, I need to relax. You don't have a picture of Captain Bogey lying around anywhere, I suppose? It doesn't matter, I'll close my eyes and imagine him..."

The Reverend Green stared at her in alarm. "Are you all right, Angela? Mr Lane, is your daughter all right? She says her guardian angel has come upon her."

"What? That's wonderful! Don't disturb her, she needs to relax completely for a few moments. Her name's Donna, by the way – the guardian angel, that is. She's great fun, I'm sure you'll like her."

Angela's eyes suddenly opened. "Hi Mort. How are you doing?" She looked around. "You've come to church, I see. That's good. I approve of church. It took us a while to find you, though. You should have left a note in very large letters in the kitchen. Fortunately I spotted your flash car in the car park."

"This is the minister, Donna. The Reverend Green."

"Hi Rev, nice to meet you. Are you the guy who prayed for Angela, when she came out of her coma?"

The Reverend Green nodded dumbly. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"Good man." She stood up. "I'm sorry to have to leave you so quickly, but something's come up and we're running late. You must come to visit us some time. I'll cook dinner for you." She took Mort's arm. "Come on, Mort, we've got to save the planet. And afterwards I'm going to slaughter you at Monopoly!"

It took them about three-quarters of an hour to reach the SETI facility in the Mount Lofty range to the east of Adelaide. It was a beautiful spring day, though Donna hardly noticed, she was too busy chatting to Mort and telling him everything that had happened to her since they last met three days ago. She also told him that he had to be on his best behaviour, because Dawn was accompanying her and was observing everything from inside Angela's brain.

Mort greeted his unseen visitor, and asked her whether Donna ever stopped talking. To which Donna replied that he obviously didn't appreciate how privileged he was to be in her company, and that he should be hanging on to her every word. "That was Dawn telling you that, not me," she added, which was of course a barefaced lie. He merely smiled, happy to let her prattle on.

When they reached the site Donna saw that it was as large as the dolphin lagoon at Crocodile Bay. Its most prominent features were several large radio telescope dishes and two large domed observatories housing the linked optical telescopes. There was a high wire fence around the site and a guard at the gate.

"We're expecting you, Mr Lane," the guard said after checking Mort's identity card. "Park outside that large red building over there. I'll tell them you're here."

The red building was located midway between the two domes. Mort parked near its entrance, and because it was such a lovely day they got out of the car. Several birds of a kind that Donna didn't recognize were singing their hearts out in a nearby flowering tree.

"Nice place, Australia," she observed. "You must show me round next time I visit."

"Glad to. How long could you stay?"

"A good eight hours. That'll give us bags of time."

He laughed. "Eight hours? To see Australia?"

"What's the problem? It's only a two-dimensional place. Not like the ocean, which is up and down as well as backwards and forwards and side to side."

A nearby door opened. It was Clare, and she was out of breath. "It's quite a climb," she explained. "Hello, Mort," she added belatedly, then glowered suspiciously at his daughter.

"Which one do you think I am?" Donna asked her affably. "I'll give you three guesses."

"God, it gets worse every time I see you. We're three in one today, are we? That's not very original, you know. Come on, Trinity, let's go."

She led them inside the building, and then through an inner metal door. They were at the top of a spiral staircase that descended into the bowels of the earth. Dim lighting set into the wall illuminated the metal steps.

"Take it steadily," Mort advised Donna. "Hold onto the handrail. I'll go first."

"Isn't this exciting?" she whispered. "I can't wait to see what Baby's discovered."

"Is the spirit detector able to detect our space invaders in daylight?" Mort asked Clare, who was just below him.

"I gather it was your idea to try that, Mr Lane. You were right, it seems."

"Can we still see the object?"

"No, it's passed below the horizon. But everything's recorded."

"That's good. What does it look like?"

"It's a single bright point of light, which means it's a long way away."

"Do you know how far?"

"We can't tell. We might have a better idea tomorrow, when the object comes back into view. We'll know how far the earth's travelled in its orbit since the first observation, we'll know the angle of the telescope, and simple trigonometry will tell us the distance."

"Except that it will have moved much closer to us by then, which will throw your calculations," Mort pointed out.

"True, we'll only get an approximate answer. But if it's in the same spot in the sky relative to the surrounding stars at least we'll know it's travelling towards us, and then we can adjust for its speed, which I understand could be around ten thousand times the speed of light."

She glanced up at them. "We're almost at the bottom now. Are you OK, Mr Lane? Good. And how are the various inhabitants of Angela's body doing?"

"We're OK too."

"Pity."

A few minutes later they reached the metal framework housing the optics that combined the beams from the two telescopes. In the semi darkness it looked like a scene from a science fiction movie. Dawn's spirit detector had been attached to the framework and was pointed towards the mirror that was throwing the output of the telescopes into her lens, and Paul and another man were standing on a low platform peering into her small screen.

Paul cast an enquiring glance in the direction of Mort's daughter. "Best not to ask," Clare told him. "There are three of them in there now."

"Christ!" he muttered.

Donna clambered onto the platform and poked him in the ribs. "You must feel very honoured to have us all here." He grimaced but said nothing. "So what have you got to show us?" she asked.

"Your instructions for using this spirit detector of yours leave a lot to be desired," he told her. "So I'd better let you handle it. I managed to track back to the thing your spirit detector saw, but it was a bit hit and miss, and now I've lost it again."

"You're talking to the wrong person, I'm afraid," Donna said. "I'll let Dawn take over, she'll know what to do." She turned to Mort. "Hold on to me for a moment while we swap ourselves around." She leant against him, and he put his arms around her, which made her feel quite hot and bothered. She hoped Dawn wouldn't notice.

"Swap around?" the man standing beside Paul asked. "What on earth's she talking about?"

"Like Clare said, it's best not to ask," Paul told him. "Just humour her. She's got a split personality."

Dawn freed herself from Mort's grip and scowled at Paul. "Don't talk about me as though I'm not there! I've warned you about that before. I don't have a split personality, and my instructions for using the spirit detector are perfectly clear."

She jabbed a finger at the sheet of paper she'd stuck on the top of Baby. "Look, Thicko, it tells you exactly what to do. Press this button once for the menu, then select Show Timer. There it is, at the bottom of the screen. Now select Go Back, then either select Amount Back or Rewind. OK, let's choose Rewind. There you are, the timer's running backwards. You can speed it up with the Advance button or slow it down with the Back button, or simply hold down the Back button to freeze it. Couldn't be easier."

They stared intently at the screen as a succession of faint splodges of light appeared to one side, rushed across it, and then disappeared off the other side. Suddenly a bright, clear point of light appeared and moved across the screen. Dawn held down the Back button, and the image froze.

"There's our alien invader!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "It's a neurospace entity that Baby's seeing by telepathy. That's why it's so bright."

Then, remembering the gleaming COBRA flying saucer, she added: "It's shining with its own light, not reflected starlight."

They peered at the tiny bright star. The rest of Baby's screen was uniformly black apart from some scattered splodges of grey.

"Those are ordinary stars, I presume," Dawn said, pointing a finger at them.

"Of course they are," Paul muttered irritably.

"What do you mean, 'of course'?" Dawn flared. She was still cross with Paul for implying she was a nut case. "It's not at all obvious that they're stars. Nothing that we're seeing is obvious. It was daytime when this recording was made, so why isn't the sky blue? You grumble about my instructions, which were perfectly clear, but you're making no attempt to explain this."

"OK, OK, keep your hair on. I'm sorry. We're filtering out the blue light. That allows us to see at least something of the heavens."

"That's better. And what other important bits of information have you omitted to tell us?"

"God, she's a sarcastic bitch," Clare growled.

"I haven't omitted anything important," Paul said.

"Really?" Dawn said with heavy emphasis. "Have you nothing to tell us about our alien invader, Paul? For instance, does that bright point of light appear on an ordinary photograph?"

"No, it doesn't."

"Ah. That's incredibly important, I'd say. It means there's no _physical_ light coming from it – which proves it's a neurospace object."

"It's obviously that," he sneered. "Your spirit detector made that plain – the alarms sounded all over the site. I would certainly have informed you if there was anything to suggest that it wasn't from neurospace – like if it _had_ appeared on an ordinary photograph."

"And what other obvious things should you be telling us about?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said resignedly. "I suppose I should say that that object could have been visible for weeks, but we've never spotted it because this telescope's doing a sweep of the entire central region of the Milky Way and it takes ages to cover everything."

"That's certainly important. Bearing in mind that it could be travelling at ten thousand times the speed of light, that thing could have come an awful long way in that time."

"And the other thing I should mention is that if that thing is really travelling towards us at that speed, which I gather is the speed of telepathy and ESP, then presumably it'll arrive at more or less the same moment that your spirit detector spots it. In other words, it could be here already."

There was complete silence for a few seconds as the others digested his words.

"Oh," Dawn said. "I hadn't thought of that. Like if an ordinary object was travelling towards us at the speed of light, we wouldn't see it until it arrived."

"Precisely. That's assuming of course that relativity applies in neurospace, with telepathy and other forms of ESP taking the place of light. But maybe we shouldn't assume that. Maybe if that object is travelling towards us at ten thousand times the speed of light, then information from it is travelling towards us at twice that speed."

"Or perhaps it's only travelling towards at one thousand times the speed of light," Dawn suggested. "In which case the spirit detector will sense it long before it reaches us."

Paul looked at her doubtfully. "Long before? If it's travelling a thousand times the speed of light, it could be here tomorrow. Or by tea time."

Dawn shivered and glanced round into the surrounding darkness. "This is getting scary."

"It certainly is," Clare agreed sombrely. "You'd better be on your guard when the communal mind comes to life tomorrow morning. ET might drop in on you."

"Don't worry, I'll go to Eden as soon as it materialises, and I'll stay there until it disappears. And I'll make sure Jonah _isn't_ there, just in case that Dr Anderson gets any ideas. I'll phone Rick to make arrangements immediately to isolate him."

"But you're not even sure if that object _is_ heading our way," Mort interjected. "It could be light years from Earth, and completely unaware of our existence. There's no need to panic yet."

"That's true enough," Paul agreed. "We'll have a much better idea when it appears above the horizon tomorrow."

"It might be too late then," Dawn pointed out. "It could already be here."

"Can you zoom the image?" Clare asked. "If increasing the magnification makes it look bigger, then we'll know it's close to Earth. If that's the case, we know we need to start worrying."

Dawn pressed a button. "There's a Zoom option on the menu," she explained, selecting it. She held down the Advance button, and the areas of grey shot off the sides of the screen and some even fainter patches appeared. But the bright star remained in the centre of the screen as a point of light, finally breaking up into a cluster of pixels. Dawn held down the Back button until the point of light reformed.

"It's too far away to enlarge," she told them.

"So we're safe for the moment," Paul murmured.

"Until tea time, at any rate," Clare added.

"Talking about tea time, I'm starving," Dawn announced. "Angela hasn't had any lunch."

"I'm pleased to hear it," Clare muttered. "It's about time you did some suffering. It restores my faith in the essential justice of the universe."

Dawn didn't bother to reply. Instead she nudged Mort in the ribs and whispered to him that it was time to go. He led the way back along the dim passageway to the spiral staircase leading up to ground level.

"We'd better tell Karen and the Watchers about this sighting," she announced breathlessly as she struggled up the stairs in Angela's unfit body. "We promised."

"God, those people will be swarming all over this place," Clare grumbled below her. "They're almost as bad as you."

"You should be counting your blessings," Dawn retorted. "Wait till the extra-terrestrials arrive!"

"Count my blessings, crap! Bug-eyed monsters will be a joy and delight compared to you."

"They might be humanoid in appearance," Mort observed.

"Whatever they look like, you won't be able to see them," Dawn told him. "'Cos they'll be spirits. It's a neurospace ship that's heading our way, not a physical vessel. That's why they can travel at perhaps ten thousand times the speed of light. Maybe more. We haven't been able to measure the speed of telepathy accurately."

"So what happens when they get here?" Mort asked. "How will they communicate with us?"

"They'll snatch people's bodies, that's what they'll do," Clare snorted. "Like your daughter's so-called guardian angels!"

"We're benign," Dawn observed mildly. "Who knows what these extra-terrestrial spirits will be like."

Clare didn't respond, and the party climbed the remaining stairs in silence, emerging shortly afterwards into the bright sunlight.

"I take it you haven't told Karen we've found ET?" Dawn asked Paul. He shook his head. "We thought you should check our findings first. I guess I should tell her now."

He pulled his phone from his pocket and moved a little away from the others to make the call. They wandered over to Mort's car and waited.

"Karen's over the moon," Paul told them when he rejoined them a couple of minutes later. "She can't wait to get here. I told her there's no point coming before early tomorrow, as the object will be below the horizon until then. But she wants to come now, to see the recording. She's bringing Dr Anderson."

"In which case I'm staying," Clare announced. "What about you, Dawn?"

"Not in Angela's body. And I can't possibly get my real body here by then."

"I'll phone if there's anything to report," Clare promised. "Like if ET is about to arrive."

"Phone anyway – I'll be back in Honiara. Try to find out what Anderson's planning. I want to know if he intends to use the temple in Eden as a portal. And if you get wind of anything else that Karen and John Anderson might be up to, tell me. If it's anything big, I can get here in minutes on a spirit journey and invade Karen's mind."

Clare nodded. "I approve of you invading _her_. Be sure to warn me, though, so I can do the necessary."

"What do you mean?"

"Get her sexed up, of course. That's what you need to invade her, isn't it?"

"Well, yes. But how will you do that?"

"I'll make a few passes at her. She's a lesbian. Couldn't you tell, the way she kept glancing at me on Thursday?"

"Oh. I see."

A few minutes later Dawn had departed and Donna was back in control of Angela's body. Mort glanced at his watch – it was almost 3 o'clock – and asked her what she wanted to do. "We don't have enough time to tour Australia," he told her with a grin.

"We'll do that another day. We've got far more important things to attend to now. Angela's body is really really hungry, and I've got to slaughter you at Monopoly."

"So I'm to be today's sacrificial offering, is that it?"

She laughed. "Goddesses are very high maintenance. Surely you knew that?"

## Twenty Six

Donna watched the dice roll, her heart in her mouth. Eleven! She breathed a sigh of relief and moved her piece – the whale – safely past Mort's houses. Now she would clobber him. She would have to mortgage a couple of properties to raise the necessary money, but he was coming up to some of her houses and if she could increase the number on each site to three then the rent would shoot up enormously and that would be the end of him.

The doorbell rang. "I'll get it," Mort muttered.

"It'll be Shock and Awe when you return, I promise. Shock and Awe."

A few moments later she heard Clare and Paul's voices in the hall. "Donna's still here," Mort told them as they entered the room.

Clare eyed her sourly. "Dawn will be along shortly."

Donna stared up at her in surprise. "She's flying here from Honiara?"

"Of course not. She's coming on a spirit journey. She'll be taking Angela's body over."

"Not until Mort and I have finished our game, she's not! I've almost won! Come on Mort, throw!"

Clare and Paul stared at the homely scene in astonishment. "You're playing Monopoly!" Paul exclaimed.

"Is that a problem? It's much more fun than watching humans doing stupid things on television."

"But you're a dolphin!"

"So? Is there a ban on dolphins playing Monopoly?"

"But it's all about money and owning property and things like that." He sounded exasperated.

"And dolphins are too stupid to understand such things, I suppose. Well, if you must know, Dr Gibson, I intend to get into real estate when all this nonsense with extra-terrestrials is over. I'm going to be Mort's financial advisor, and we're going to make loads of money."

Donna was suddenly aware of Dawn's presence. In a few moments she would be clamouring to take over this body.

"Come on, Mort!" she urged. "Throw the dice, put an end to your agony."

He threw.

"Gotcha! That'll be 3,000 dollars." She rubbed her hands in glee. "Come on, you measly human, pay up!"

"Ye gods!" Clare muttered. "To think we were worried about extra-terrestrials taking over the planet!"

Donna scooped up all of Mort's money and most of his properties. The thrill of winning was tempered by the knowledge that Dawn was now present in the background of her mind, observing everything and itching to take Angela over.

Mort laughed and ruffled her hair, then he stood up and opened the tin of biscuits on the coffee table. "Help yourselves," he said to other two, motioning them to a nearby settee. He placed a couple of bottles of soft drink and some glasses on the table as well.

"Thanks, Mort," Clare murmured sitting down with Paul. Mort resumed his seat alongside Donna.

"Any news of ET?" Donna asked the visitors.

"Not yet," Clare replied. "We won't know any more till tomorrow morning, when the neurospace object appears above the horizon."

"And what about Karen and John Anderson? I take it they turned up to see the recording?"

"They certainly did, and they were ecstatic about it. They even told us what they were planning."

"They confided in you? How did you manage that?"

"I told them they had to, if they wanted us to give them the results of our calculations. Like when the spaceship – if that's what that object is – is due to get here."

"And you think they told you the truth?"

"I reminded Karen that Dawn would be invading her to check up on everything, and that if it turned out she'd been lying there'd be hell to pay. Paul told her about what had happened to him when Dawn invaded – the thought of that enormous dead rat crawling with maggots and oozing its guts out seemed to concentrate her mind very effectively."

Donna grinned. "So what are they planning?"

Clare glanced at her watch. "Dawn should be here at any moment, so I'll go over everything then. That's the purpose of this little get-together – to discuss their plans and decide our response." She leant towards the coffee table and helped herself to a biscuit. "Come on, Dawn," she muttered. "You're late."

"No, she isn't, she's already here. She didn't like to interrupt, that's all." Donna turned to Mort. "Thanks for the nice day, Mort, I really enjoyed it. I hope you don't mind being wiped out at Monopoly."

He smiled and squeezed her hand, and that was so exciting that her heart raced and the cheeks of Angela's borrowed body went pink. Donna felt guilty about that, and she hoped that Dawn's watching presence wouldn't be aware of these physiological changes. It was totally absurd that she should be reacting in this way, for she and Mort belonged to different species, and as well as that he was old enough to be her father and this body that she was in belonged to his daughter. It was as if some mischievous fairy with a warped sense of humour had cast a magic spell on her. Dawn was right, it would be best if she never saw Mort again, for any attempt to take things further could only end in tears.

Then the room flickered as Dawn took advantage of Donna's aroused state to take over Angela's body, and before she could even say goodbye to Mort she was pushed aside by Dawn's powerful presence. Then she found herself sitting in the cathedral of Angela's mind and gazing out at the world through the stained-glass window.

Dawn withdrew Angela's hand from Mort's and pointedly turned Angela's body away from him. "Right everyone, let's get down to business," she said brusquely . She had been all too aware of the strength of Donna's feelings towards Mort, and it irked her greatly. It struck her that Mort was as much to blame as Donna for the emotional mess that she, Dawn, would one day have to clear up.

"Clare, perhaps you can kick off by telling everyone what John Anderson and Karen are planning."

Clare glared at her. "Like I've told you before, the occasional _please_ and _thank you_ wouldn't come amiss. We know you're the Lord of the Universe, but try not to get up our noses too much. It's very counterproductive, you know."

"I'm sorry. _Please_ tell us what they're planning."

"That's better. What Dr Anderson said was a bit disorganized, but we finally got the gist of what he was on about, so here's an edited account. And I promise I'm not leaving anything important out. Not knowingly, that is." She stared coldly at Dawn, whose sarcasm at Paul's omissions at the telescope earlier in the day evidently still rankled.

"Anderson is confident that the extra-terrestrials are coming to Earth, and that they're heading for your Eden," Clare continued. "I asked him how he could be so sure. Was it because ET had visited the COBRA spaceship in the past? That threw him, I can tell you."

She smiled sardonically at the memory. "He didn't know that we were aware of his COBRA past, let alone that we suspected that COBRA had made contact with extra-terrestrials. And if we knew all that, what else might we know about him? It put quite a damper on his high spirits. And Karen wasn't much of an encouragement for him, she was too worried by the prospect of your imminent invasion of her mind. Hah!"

"So was I right?" Dawn asked eagerly. "Did COBRA get their spaceship and their portals from ET?"

Clare nodded. "In the end he admitted that they did. He said it all started with an alien abduction experience that the founder of COBRA had almost a decade ago, before COBRA started. It seems that this guy had been experimenting with trance drugs, and in one of his trances he met a couple of aliens who took him up to their spaceship. It was the same spaceship that you eventually destroyed, and they used the same portal."

"And did these aliens look like wasps? That was how they were depicted on the walls of the portal on the ship."

Again Claire nodded. "Anderson was told that they walked on their hind legs, and that they were taller than a man. Apparently they had humanoid faces with huge multi-faceted eyes. They sound pretty ghastly, but it seems they were quite friendly, and they gave this guy a tour of their ship. They told him that they were about to return to their own world via the portal, and that they were leaving the ship and its portal as a gift to Earth. To make use of the portal, all that was needed was to call up a similar neurospace structure on Earth."

Dawn nodded in satisfaction. This confirmed her own suspicions. "That's why the COBRA congregation surrounded itself with a golden five-sided temple when they entered their trance."

"Exactly. The wasps told him that they wanted him to bring together people from all over the world to form a new religious movement based upon out-of-body abductions to the ship. And that was how COBRA got started."

"Everything fits," Dawn observed. "Anderson is telling the truth. Did you ask him why the wasps wanted to start this religion?"

"I did. He thought it was to prepare Earth for eventual membership of a galactic federation. He said that was why he established the Watchers after COBRA was destroyed. He has no idea who or what destroyed them, by the way. He thinks it wasn't human but some kind of angel."

"Really? Well, that's a relief. It's a good job I did destroy COBRA, by the sounds of it. If I hadn't, it would have become the most powerful organization on the planet. Its leaders were top people in governments, in the military, in businesses, all over the place. To take over the earth, all those wasps needed to do was to set up COBRA, allow it to develop and grow, and then return to the earth and take over the COBRA leaders."

"Take them over?" Paul asked, frowning. "Like you've taken over Angela, you mean?"

"Exactly. From what you've told me it seems quite likely that the neurospace object that Baby's spotted is a ship carrying hundreds of giant wasps, coming here to take over COBRA. In which case their journey here has got nothing to do with my Passion plays."

"We'll find out soon enough," he said. "If that ship is travelling as fast as you say it can, it could arrive at any moment. And if it's bringing giant wasps planning to take over the planet, we're totally unprepared."

"I know," Dawn muttered grimly. It had occurred to her that there might be something worse even than wasps on that ship. "What about the demons? Did Anderson say anything about their involvement in COBRA?"

"We asked him about that," Clare replied. "To begin with he flatly denied that there was anything demonic about COBRA. But when I told him that we knew that all the leaders had been demon possessed, and that they had demonic horns protruding from their foreheads when they were on the ship, and that demons had been seen emerging from them on the day that the ship was destroyed, he got really rattled and eventually he caved in."

Dawn gave a tight smile. "You've done a good job, Clare. It sounds like he was putty in your hands."

"I was only using the information you provided," Clare replied with uncharacteristic grace. "The good news is, if that neurospace object is a shipload of wasps, there won't be any demons on board. Anderson told us that there were no demons originally, but that a group of Satanists joined COBRA, and they brought them along. He said that it was the Satanists who introduced the sexual practices into COBRA, and he thinks it was because of this that COBRA was eventually destroyed. By that angel."

Dawn looked at her with relief. "Well, well. From what you've told us it seems he's got quite a high opinion of these wasps."

"He certainly believes they're benign."

"And what about the temple in Eden? Did you find out if he intends to use that as a portal?"

"I deliberately didn't mention your temple. I was afraid he might suspect that you were the source of my information about COBRA and its portals, in which case he might put two and two together and suspect that you were also responsible for COBRA's destruction. If it is a portal, then he seems to have no plans to use it."

"Not even if ET makes landfall there?"

"Not even then. The Watchers are going to travel there by more conventional means apparently. If you can call it 'conventional' – they've been training for spirit journeys."

"I see. Did he tell you what else he was planning?"

"He was quite open about his plans. Obviously he knows no more than we do about the neurospace object that we've spotted, and even if it is heading our way there's no way of knowing if it's carrying the wasps that set up COBRA. Our visitors might be a completely different species, from a different part of the galaxy. Karen can't wait to meet them, wherever they come from, but Anderson's much more cautious. He doesn't want to put himself or too many of his Watchers at risk, so he's decided that just 40 of them should come to Eden, to welcome ET. He'll be there too, but not in a trance state."

"He's coming in his physical body, you mean? But he won't be able to see ET or the temple or anything else in Eden."

"He's hoping you'll let him to use your spirit detector to watch what's going on. The thing is, he's worried that ET might turn out to be hostile, in which case he'll need to pull his Watchers out of their trance quickly. I've told him that I'm also going along in my physical body, to keep an eye on things, and he seemed quite happy with that."

"Well, I don't know if I'm happy. I don't mind him borrowing my spirit detector, but as for allowing his people into Eden and the temple..."

"Why not? If those aliens are hostile, let the Watchers face them. Why risk your dolphins? Or your own life, for that matter."

Dawn studied her thoughtfully, weighing up the options. "I guess you're right. OK, I'll go along with it – provided you're there to keep an eye on him."

"Don't worry," Clare said with a satisfied smile. "I'll be carrying a gun – and I know how to use it."

"I bet you do. Now, what about Dr Song and the UN? Do they know what's going on? Are they going to tell the planet we're about to be invaded? Mankind has the right to know, and the dolphins have as well."

"We'll keep it to ourselves, until we know for certain that the neurospace object is heading our way," Clare replied firmly. "As soon as we know that, I'll inform Dr Song. She'll tell the Secretary General of the UN and it's up to him what he does with that information. The planet's not in any physical danger, because everything's happening in neurospace and it's not a physical invasion."

"But the dolphins and their communal mind are definitely in danger, from the Watchers as well from extra-terrestrial invaders. I need to make arrangements to protect it."

Clare grunted. "What have you in mind?"

Dawn hesitated, uncertain how to answer. Several half-formed ideas had been floating around in her mind, but she'd been too taken up with Clare's news to formulate a sensible strategy. But as she fished around in her mind for ideas, she became aware of Donna's presence, clamouring urgently at her. "Hang on a minute," she said to the others, "I think Donna wants a word."

With some relief she closed her eyes and relaxed her grip on Angela's body. The others, watching curiously, saw a slight shudder pass through Angela, and then her eyes opened again. She glanced around the room.

"Hi everyone, it's your favourite dolphin again," she announced chirpily. "I've got this awesome plan."

"Heaven help us," Clare muttered under her breath, but Donna was too pleased with herself for having thought up such a brilliant ruse to care what Clare thought. She surreptitiously twisted her body towards Mort and their legs touched.

"This is what I propose," she said importantly.

## Twenty Seven

Much later that night Donna lay in the quiet moonlit waters of Crocodile Bay, near the artificial reef, gazing up at the stars. In a few hours that mysterious neurospace object would appear above the horizon, though she wouldn't be able to see it with her physical eyes. Dawn's spirit detector would see it, two thousand miles away in that gloomy tunnel beneath the twin telescope outside Adelaide, and then the alarms would sound. Paul and the rest of the SETI team would make some frantic measurements, and then they would know how far away the object was, whether it was heading for Earth, and if so when it would arrive.

We are not alone! Only a handful of people on the planet were aware of this amazing discovery, and there was no reason why any others should ever know, for no extra-terrestrials were arriving in any physical sense. What Baby had seen was no more than a spirit presence, a ghostly ship carrying disembodied creatures that lived so far away that any physical contact between them and the inhabitants of Earth would forever be impossible.

She should be feeling hugely excited, more excited than Karen and John Anderson even, for she was at the heart of these momentous events. These alien spirits, if they were heading for Earth, would arrive at the temple in Eden, and she was its high priest and, assuming nothing went wrong with her plan, Earth's representative. But instead of feeling excited at the prospect, she was consumed by an aching loneliness. The galaxy might be teeming with life, but she had never felt so alone.

Her only companions for the night were the tiny wavelets lapping against her sleek body. Although there were hundreds of other dolphins sharing these quiet waters, the one who was closest to her, Jonah, had been removed and was now several miles from here in the GeneSys dolphinarium.

Her best friends were in fact humans. In Eden, Dawn had always treated her as an only child, and here at the lagoon Rick had taken on the role of playful father. And now, of course, there was Mort. She had spent most of the day with him, and it had been the happiest of her life. Her feelings for him had grown each time they met, but it hadn't struck her until today quite how strong they had become. Her mind went back to that moment in the tunnel beneath the telescope, when he had held her close while Dawn took over Angela's body and her pulse had raced, and again to that moment last night when he had smiled fondly at her and squeezed her hand, and later when they said their final farewells. Dawn was right: it would be best if they never saw each other again, for their relationship was doomed. He was human and she was dolphin, and nothing could ever change that.

If extra-terrestrials were on their way here, then at least it would take her mind off this sad, unalterable fact. With the dolphin equivalent of a sigh she pushed all thoughts of Mort from her mind, concentrating instead on trying to imagine what that ghostly spaceship might be like. Would it be a flying saucer like the one Dawn had destroyed? More importantly, what would the aliens travelling in it be like? Would they be those wasp-like creatures? Her near-human brain found the thought repellent, and she shuddered. She hoped they would be dragons, for then she and Dawn would at last be able to mingle with their own kind and, perhaps, discover their true destiny.

How long had the aliens' voyage lasted, she wondered? If they had journeyed half-way across the galaxy, then even travelling at ten thousand times the speed of light it could take them several years to get here. And if they could cross the galaxy, would she be able to do the same? Perhaps one day she would be Earth's ambassador to the Galactic Federation, and a celebrity on a thousand worlds.

As she floated in the warm, dark water, fantasising about the space adventures that awaited her, her thoughts became incoherent and she drifted into unconsciousness.

"Donna! Donna report to Pier One! Donna to Pier One!" The command from the loudspeaker roused her abruptly from her slumber. It was early morning, and the sky was barely light. She twisted round in the water and with a few powerful strokes of her tail surged towards the pier. This rude awakening could mean only one thing: the SETI people in Adelaide had made their measurements on that neurospace object and the results had sent everyone into a panic.

Sure enough, Dawn was standing at the end of the pier, waiting for her. She knelt down as the dolphin drew up alongside her. "They're coming, Donna," she whispered, keeping her voice down so that the other inhabitants of the lagoon wouldn't hear. "The aliens are heading for Earth!"

Donna couldn't respond in any human manner. She wanted to know exactly what the SETI people had seen, how fast the aliens were travelling, how soon they would be here, but all she could do was to express her excitement by waggling her fins.

But Dawn could guess what was going through her mind. "Two days, Donna. Paul thinks ET will arrive in two days. On Wednesday. But don't tell anyone!"

Donna nodded her beak vigorously to show she understood.

"Clare's been in touch with Dr Song at the UN, and Dr Song has contacted me," Dawn continued. "She wants me to fly to New York to address a UN committee. It'll be a secret session, because they don't want to cause a panic. I've got to leave now. A special plane is taking me there, and it'll bring me back tonight. So I'll see you in Eden tomorrow morning. We'll firm up our plans for Wednesday then."

This is so unsatisfactory, Donna thought. There was so much she wanted to ask Dawn, but the dolphin language of whistles was too limited to express her worries, and in any case Dawn wouldn't understand it. She wanted to ask her what she thought of the plan she'd outlined to the others yesterday evening, and to say how staggering this contact with an alien civilisation would be. At the very least their own lives would be in danger if the aliens turned out to be hostile, and probably the lives of many others as well.

But her worries were trivial compared to those facing Dawn. Addressing the UN would be the least of them, for the welfare of the entire planet was at stake. Donna nodded her beak again, to assure Dawn that she understood everything and that she hoped all would go well for her in New York.

Still kneeling, Dawn leaned over and stroked her head. "I love you, Donna," she murmured. "I know you're sad about losing both Jonah and Mort, but I'm sure things will work out in the end." Then she stood up and walked briskly away.

The next 30 hours were the longest in Donna's life, but eventually Tuesday morning in Eden arrived and the temple service was coming to an end and soon Dawn would be joining her in her room. Donna had never before minded conducting the temple service, but today it seemed nothing more than an irksome ritual and she couldn't get it over with quickly enough.

She had paid hardly any attention to the hymns, or indeed to the congregation, for she had been taken up with glancing around at the murals on the temple walls and the images in the stained-glass windows, as well as at the carvings on the pillars and the arches. Partly this was because she was too agitated to concentrate on her religious duties, and partly because she was wondering if any details were missing, for Jonah was now excluded from Eden, and most of the temple design had been drawn from the information deposited by John Anderson in his brain. In fact there was nothing missing, which was just as Dawn had predicted. Dawn had always insisted that the temple details would by now be firmly entrenched in the minds of the other dolphins, especially in Donna's mind. The corollary of that was that if John Anderson had designed this temple so that it served as a portal, then excluding Jonah wouldn't affect that function either.

If the others had noticed that she was distracted, they would put it down to Jonah's exclusion from the community. Only Clara, her temple assistant, knew that aliens were on their way to Earth. Donna hadn't actually spoken to Clara about the matter, but she assumed Clara knew, for she was Clare's secret agent, and Clare must have passed this crucial information on to her.

Immediately the service ended Donna left the temple and hurried back to her room to await Dawn's arrival. Normally she would have busied herself by doing something with her hands – making clays models, or, latterly, working on her alien invasion game – but such pastimes were unthinkable today. Instead she occupied herself by doing some rather aimless tidying and brewing up her fish tea.

At last there was a tap on the door and Dawn walked in. Donna greeted her eagerly. "You're late!" she exclaimed. "How have you got on?" What happened at the UN? What have SETI discovered? What are the Watchers up to? I've been waiting ages to find out!"

Normally Dawn would have been amused by Donna's youthful impatience, but today she seemed burdened by worry. "I'll have to be brief," she said, perching on the settee. "The most important thing is, the aliens will definitely be here tomorrow, which means we've got to start our preparations immediately."

"What's their ship like? Has SETI seen it yet?"

"No, it's still only a point of light, and please don't interrupt! I gave a presentation to UNCATE – that's the UN Committee for Countering Anomalous Threats to Earth – and explained to them about neurospace and exactly what this invasion implied. I told them there was absolutely nothing we could do to counter it, which made them very alarmed. I assured them it was no worse than being haunted – a bit scary, but not at all dangerous provided they keep their cool and don't do anything silly like dropping a bomb on the target zone – here."

"So what are they going to do?"

"I persuaded them to do nothing, apart from keeping the Secretary General of the UN informed. Everything's being kept secret, at least for now. If they broadcast the news that spirits are about to arrive from outer space then everyone will start seeing apparitions and thinking they're possessed by demons and heaven knows what else besides. It'll be mayhem."

"But won't the UN call in tanks and helicopter gunships and rocket launchers to surround the target zone? That's the way humans usually respond to any threats."

"I managed to persuade them it would be a complete waste of time. They're going to leave everything to us. And to the Watchers."

"Fat lot of use the Watchers will be if those aliens prove to be hostile!" Donna scoffed as she poured out the tea. "Not that they're expecting any trouble. No doubt they're celebrating the aliens' arrival."

"I've been in touch with Karen. She's really excited, 'cos she's one of the 40 chosen ones. They're flying here tonight."

"Flying to the Tienshan? On spirit journeys?" Donna was so surprised she almost dropped the tea cups that she was carrying. "But it's a huge journey!" she exclaimed, her eyes round with wonder. "It's half-way across the world. Are they travelling here on broomsticks, or are they able to conjure up jet planes like us?"

"They're coming here in the flesh – in their physical bodies. They've chartered a plane that will fly them to Almaty airport today, then helicopters will ferry them the rest of the way. They'll be camping in the valley overnight."

"What?" Donna's eyes grew rounder. "Coming in the flesh? What's the point of that? They won't be able to see alien spirits with their physical eyes, and they certainly won't be able to invade Eden with their physical bodies. They won't be aware anything except for some tufts of grass and a few scrappy trees and some bare rocks."

"It's a precaution. Tomorrow morning, before the aliens arrive, they'll use their trance drugs to enter the disembodied state, and then they'll join you and the other dolphins in the temple for your morning service. John Anderson won't be joining them in the trance, but he'll be observing everything on Baby's screen. If the aliens turn out to be hostile, he'll inject them with a wake-up drug that will pull them out of their trance immediately. Back in their physical bodies they should be perfectly safe. That's the theory, anyway."

Donna carefully placed the teacups on the small table by the settee and sat down beside Dawn. "That makes sense, I suppose. Thankfully Clare will be on hand to make sure he doesn't get up to any funny tricks. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of whatever weapon it is that she'll be carrying!"

Dawn smiled. "You reckon we're safer in neurospace, facing the aliens, than battling it out with her?"

"I certainly do. At least we can turn ourselves into dragons in neurospace."

"Which brings us to your plan for protecting the dolphins and the Mind. We've not had a chance to discuss it."

"I know. But you heard me going over it with the others on Sunday night?"

"Of course. I was sitting in Angela's brain, listening to every word."

Donna glanced at her anxiously. This was the first time she'd devised anything as important and complicated as this, and it was important to her that Dawn approved of her efforts. "So what do you think of my plan?"

"If I didn't like it, I would have let you know soon enough. I thought it was brilliant. I told Rick about it, and he's making all the necessary arrangements."

Donna breathed a sigh of relief. "Just so long as Anderson doesn't suspect anything. He might not be too happy if he found out what we're up to."

"Clare's the only person in the know that he's in contact with, and she won't give anything away. She's as hard as nails."

"What about Mort? He knows. And Angela was also listening in to your discussion. Karen could have paid Mort a visit and wheedled something out of them."

"Karen? She's much too busy to go visiting. In any case, Mort knows not to tell her anything."

"All the same, it might be worth phoning him when you wake up from this trance, just to check." Donna wished she could be the one to talk to him, but that would be impossible in her dolphin body. "Give him my love," she added.

"OK, I'll check with him. Now, let's run over your plan. Tomorrow comes, you wake up in Eden to find Karen and the other Watchers already here, presumably waiting in the temple, and then that alien ship appears in the sky above the temple."

"Clare will be present in the flesh, with John Anderson, monitoring everything on Baby's screen, and she'll report what's happening to the UN on her mobile phone. John Anderson knows she's going to do that, but what he doesn't know is that her call will also be routed to Rick in Honiara."

"I've discussed with him exactly what steps he has to take once he gets that call. Just to be sure, let's go over them again..."

## Twenty Eight

Next morning, in the artificial lagoon at Crocodile Bay, Donna drifted alone, deliberately eschewing the company of others. The sky was overcast, which matched her sombre mood. A few days ago the prospect of extra-terrestrials visiting Earth had excited her enormously, but now that they were almost here her human brain was making her feel sick with anxiety and overwhelmed by guilt. The trouble was, the scheme that she'd dreamed up put the lives of 100 of her fellow dolphins at risk, and many of them were her closest friends. It had to be that way, for her plan demanded that they should be regular worshippers at the temple.

Donna had wanted to risk fewer lives, and Dawn had conceded that half that number might have sufficed to form a viable communal mind and create Eden. But there had been no time to experiment, and since it was essential that John Anderson should suspect that nothing was amiss, Donna had finally agreed that the full 100 should go.

Rick and several of his staff had arrived just after daybreak in trucks loaded with equipment and metal netting. Crocodile Bay, where the dolphins lived, formed a V-shaped incision in the Guadalcanal coastline, and the trucks had been parked near the tip of the V, at the furthest point from the artificial reef enclosing the mouth of the bay. A number of the dolphins had swum over to watch their preparations, and in the end Donna decided to abandon her solitary drifting to join them. Snippets of their whistled conversation reached her clearly through the water. "What they do? ... I see Rick ... Ask Donna, she know."

Donna did indeed know, for the humans were only putting into effect the plan that she had devised, and she whistled a response. "They put net in water. You go away. Go to reef, away from net."

Somewhat reluctantly, the dolphins backed off, but only a short distance, and then they continued to watch. They realised what was happening, for on a couple of occasions in the past, when there had been some sickness in the dolphin community, the men had created a quarantine area at the tip of the V.

Several of the men were unrolling metal netting from the back of one of the trucks, manhandling it around the tip of the V so that it trailed into the water. More and more of the netting was unrolled from the truck, while the men split into two parties, one advancing along one side of the V while the other advanced up the other, pulling the netting taut between them so that it formed an underwater barrier, cutting off the entire area of water at the tip of the V from the rest of the lagoon. The water was quite shallow here, and the netting, being about three metres high, extended from about two metres above the surface all the way down to the sea bed, so that it formed a barrier through which no dolphin could pass.

Just off the right-hand shore, about 50 metres up from the tip of the V, a large concrete post had been set into the sea bed, so that there was a gap of several metres between the post and the shore, wide enough for the dolphins to pass through. It was to this post that the men attached the end of the netting, so that the only access the dolphins had to the water at the tip of the V was through this gap.

To finish off the job, some men in boats now fixed the netting firmly in place with metal rods pushed vertically through it into the sea bed, while others fixed a metal gate to the concrete post, spanning the gap between the post on the shore. With the netting in place and this gate shut, the dolphins were cut off from the area of the lagoon at the tip of the V.

By the time the men had finished these preparations many more dolphins had arrived on the scene, and now more questions were being whistled between them. _"Who sick? What sickness is it? No one sick, why they do this? Does Donna know why they do this? Why don't they tell us? Why don't they tell us, Donna?"_

" _It is secret,"_ Donna whistled back. _"The men don't know. Only Rick knows."_

A few weeks ago there would have been no need for such secrecy, but the knowledge that there was at least one spy in their midst – Clara, the UN agent – had been a wake-up call for Rick and Dawn. Now they were acting on the assumption that one or more of the dolphin project staff might be agents of the Watchers.

One of the men back at the trucks had changed into diving gear and was now walking into the water. Donna knew that his task was to check that the metal netting was properly in place so that it formed an impassable barrier to the dolphins. She could have easily carried out this check herself, of course, but lacking hands she would have been unable to reposition the net if it had snagged on rocks or other obstructions.

It crossed her mind that this diver might be the Watchers' agent, in which case he would realise what they were up to and try to sabotage their plans. She immediately dived beneath the surface and swam slowly in his direction, until she could see him clearly with her sonar, then she glided to a halt and observed him while he worked. At this distance he would be unaware of her presence, for she was outside his visual range.

She kept pace with him as he slowly moved along the net, watching his every move. It soon became clear to her that he was entirely trustworthy, for he was checking everything with great care. However, when he had finally completed the work and had swum back to the shore, she swam along the entire length of the netting, inspecting it closely. Satisfied at last that everything was in order, she swam through the gap between the concrete post and bank, into the enclosure formed by the netting, and checked that no dolphins had somehow got in there and been trapped. When this final check had been completed, she swam back to the gap and took up her position as sentry.

Although Rick would have been unable to see any of this underwater activity, he knew that she would be on duty at the gap, and a few minutes later he appeared on the shore above her. She surfaced and he knelt down by her head. "Is everything OK?" he whispered.

She nodded her beak at him.

"Good. I'll shut the gate to seal off the enclosure." He checked his watch. "We'll start processing the dolphins in an hour from now."

She nodded again, then with a flick of her tail swam off to join the other dolphins. She had been aware all morning of an unusual amount of dolphin chatter – bursts of staccato whistles – and she knew they were becoming restive. They had expected an announcement over the loudspeaker system explaining what was happening, for Rick invariably gave plenty of warning before an operation such as this, but today there had been nothing. Donna's earlier message that something secret was going on had been passed backwards and forwards, and now all kinds of rumours were being bandied about.

One theory was that a batch of even more advanced GM dolphins had been engineered, and they were now old enough to be introduced into Crocodile Bay, though protected by the netting. Others suggested that the time had at last come for an opening to be made in the artificial reef so that part of the dolphin community could be released into the wild, and that those who were to stay behind would be held behind the netting.

Donna decided that the time had come to tell them what was really going on. Not everything, of course, and certainly not that lives were being put at risk, but just enough to calm them and prepare them for what was about to happen.

Almost an hour later the loudspeakers finally came to life. It was Rick's voice. "Donna! Donna! Take up your position at the gate."

She swam to the concrete post at the end of the metal netting, then leapt into the air a couple of times to tell the men that she had arrived.

"Open the gate," the loudspeaker instructed. Two men were standing on the bank nearby, and they immediately pulled back the metal gate. Donna positioned herself alongside the post, where she could check everyone in.

"The enclosure is now ready," the loudspeaker announced. "Adrian, Andy, Beverly, go to the enclosure! Adrian, Andy, Beverly!"

Moments later three dark shapes approached, swimming beneath the surface. Donna recognized them, greeted them, and let them pass through into the enclosure. She hated doing it, for those three might never come out again. The last thing she felt like doing was to leap into the air, but that was what she then did, to signal to Rick to call the next three on his list.

"Brian, Chloe, Christa, go to the enclosure! Brian, Chloe, Christa!"

Three more dark shapes approached. Again Donna checked them in, and with heavy heart leapt into the air again to signal to Rick. Then another three unsuspecting victims were called, then another three, and so on, until eventually the full quota of 99 dolphins had been assembled behind the netting.

Finally Donna herself swam through the opening into the enclosure, and the guards pushed the gate into place, ramming it home against the concrete post with a thud.

Now the next phase of the operation could begin. There was a small jetty in the enclosure, with several small boats moored there. One of these boats had been loaded with 200 of the psychoactive fish – enough to send the 100 dolphins into their trance – and Rick and two of the men climbed onto it. One of the men started the motor, and the boat chugged to the middle of the enclosure, where the dolphins lined up in three orderly queues to be fed. The humans fed each dolphin exactly two fish, and a couple of minutes the job was done. Shortly after that the first dolphins to be fed drifted into their trance, and on the other side of the world the temple and the township and the surrounding countryside of Eden began to magically appear.

## Twenty Nine

Donna jumped out of her chair as soon as she awoke in Eden, rushed to her window, and peered up at the blue-black of the pre-dawn sky. That bright point of light that she had seen on Baby's screen at that telescope in Adelaide must by now be visible to the naked eye. Or rather, to the naked _spirit_ eye.

But the only object in the sky was the moon, which was shining weakly and fuzzily on the horizon. The alien ship was too far away to see, perhaps it had only just reached the outer limits of the solar system. Even so, if it was travelling at thousands of times the speed of light it could be here any minute.

She gazed around at the jumbled roofs of the dwellings round about, illuminated by the golden glow from the temple, and then leaned out of her window and studied the temple itself. There was nothing amiss, everything seemed completely normal. Dawn had predicted that 100 souls would be more than enough to recreate this part of Eden, for they jointly held in their memories almost every detail of it, and she was right. Not a brick or tile was out of place.

She checked the sky again – still nothing – then hurried over to her wardrobe and dressed for the temple service. It was essential that she and the other dolphins behaved normally, for no one – Watchers or extra-terrestrials – must realise that anything out of the ordinary was going on. Most important of all, the communal mind must continue broadcasting its telepathy into space. Although it wasn't the intensely powerful telepathy that emanated from Dawn's Passion plays, it should be strong enough to act as a beacon once the alien ship reached the vicinity of Earth.

In rooms across the township the other 99 dolphins would be waking up, blissfully unaware that extra-terrestrials were about to invade. If they had known, then their alarm would surely permeate the Mind's telepathy, and the aliens would know that they had been spotted and that preparations had been made for their arrival. This would not be a problem if the aliens were dragons or some other benign species, but if they were hostile then they would be forewarned that defensive measures were in place.

And if John Anderson and his Watchers suspected that something was up, then they might take some pre-emptive action against the Mind, which could be disastrous. Dawn, Donna and Clare were the only ones here to know what was happening, together with Rick in Honiara, and of course Mort and Paul in Adelaide.

Donna let herself out of her quarters and clattered down the flight of steps to the temple forecourt. The sky was lighter now, and it was apparent that everything about the temple precincts was just as it should be. Not a cobble stone was out of place.

She crossed the forecourt and entered the temple. To her surprise and consternation it was almost pitch black inside. Why were no candles alight? Where was Clara? Where were her other occasional helpers? She realised, belatedly, that none of them were among the 99 chosen dolphins.

Cursing herself inwardly, Donna hurried behind the great altar, to the covered shelves, and searched them frantically in the darkness for the wooden box containing the wax tapers and matches, feeling every corner with her fingers. It was a couple of years since she had personally lit the candles, so she wasn't sure where to look. It was even possible that it hadn't actually been recreated by the Mind this morning, because there was no remembrance of it in the minds of the limited number of dolphins who were here today.

But then, to her huge relief, she found the box, in a recess in the wall behind the altar, exactly where it had been when she last used it. The Mind was obviously drawing upon her own memory to reproduce it just as she remembered it. She opened the lid and felt inside, and supposed there was the precisely same number of tapers and matches in it now as there had been two years ago, when this memory had been formed.

Putting the box down on a chair, Donna extracted the matches and a taper. She carefully lit a match, then the taper, and then she began lighting the candles around the great altar. As each candle came alight and the shadows lifted, more and more temple features emerged from the gloom, but Donna was too intent on her task to notice. She didn't even notice that there were some people already in the temple, sitting nearby.

"Good morning, Donna," someone said. Donna started, almost dropping her taper. A woman was walking towards her out of the shadows. Donna didn't immediately recognize her, though there was something familiar about her.

"Can I help you with those candles?" the woman asked in a tone of faint amusement.

"Karen!" Her spirit presence was the spitting image of her real, immaculately turned-out self.

"You were expecting me, surely?" The voice was mocking now. "And the other Watchers as well." Karen gestured towards the shadowy shapes seated behind her.

"Yes. Of course."

"You look just like Dawn," Karen continued in that slightly mocking tone. "If John Anderson hadn't warned me, I would have thought you were Dawn."

"Warned you? Of what?"

"That you dolphins take on the physical appearance of your mentors, when you're in Eden."

"Oh. Yes, we do."

"Here, let me finish lighting these candles for you," Karen took the taper from her. "I'm surprised you don't have someone to help you."

"I do usually. A girl called Clara is my assistant. Unfortunately she can't be here today." Donna cursed herself again for forgetting to include an assistant in the 99 chosen dolphins. Karen would be sure to suspect that something was up.

"Where are your physical bodies?" she asked, hurriedly changing the subject.

"Right here," Karen replied. "Behind the altar."

Donna realised she must have walked right through their bodies while she was searching for the box of tapers, but it had been too dark to see them. Leaving Karen to light the candles, she walked behind the great altar and took another look. Now, in the flickering candlelight, she could just make out the ghostly shapes of the entranced bodies lying on the ground.

Returning to Karen she said: "That's good. It means you can escape back into them if the extra-terrestrials turn nasty."

Karen glanced up from her candles. "It's an unnecessary precaution, I'm sure. Our prophecies – the messages we've received from space – were all very positive. Full of love and joy and promises of a great kingdom."

"Well, they would say that, wouldn't they."

Karen's face hardened. "You'll see. You and that Dawn!" She almost spat out the name. "She acts like she's the queen of heaven, invading my mind. She's got a nerve!"

"As you say, we'll see," Donna said calmly, relieved that Karen no longer seemed interested in her lack of helpers. "Where is Dr Anderson, by the way? And Clare?"

"Just outside the temple, in the forecourt. They're watching out for the arrival of the extra-terrestrials."

"Using Dawn's spirit detector?"

Karen nodded. "A very useful device."

Donna glanced towards the temple entrance. She hadn't noticed anyone in the forecourt when she'd crossed it earlier, but it had been dark and it would be easy to miss the insubstantial forms of Clare and Anderson's physical bodies.

It was now much lighter outside, and through the entrance she saw the first worshippers crossing the temple forecourt. Half-an-hour ago, back in the enclosure at Crocodile Bay, she had told the 99 that it was essential that they all attend the temple service, so no doubt the rest would not be far behind. It was essential that everything should appear normal to the Watchers.

She turned back to Karen and studied her curiously. She had brown hair and was of medium height. Mort had said he found her attractive, and Donna had to admit that she was quite pretty, though in a prim, humourless sort of way. She certainly couldn't imagine her playing Monopoly with Mort or teasing him or being much fun in the kitchen. Or much fun in bed, for that matter. Clare had reckoned she was a lesbian – something which, as a dolphin, Donna found utterly incomprehensible.

Karen was surveying her with a sardonic expression. "What's so interesting?"

Donna thought quickly. "I was wondering ... what do you intend to do when the alien ship appears? Dawn's spirit will be outside in the temple forecourt, watching for it, and she's going to signal to me, and I'll make an announcement. Will the Watchers wait in here, or will they go outside to greet them?"

"Our plan is to wait in here, as we're assuming the extra-terrestrials will head for the altar. That's the source of the telepathy they've been homing in on. But we'll see how things develop."

Helena, the organist, entered the temple and hurried down the aisle. At least I didn't forget to include _her_ , Donna thought. Donna nodded a greeting as she passed, and Helena nodded back. Then, without a word, she inserted the hymn numbers she had chosen into the wooden holder near the pulpit. They were old faithfuls: Donna had warned her earlier that there would be a fair number of visitors at the service and that she should choose hymns that everyone knew. Donna had in fact chosen the first hymn herself, and she had made sure that Helena had practised it thoroughly yesterday, after the service, so that there wouldn't be any missed notes or other mistakes.

Worshippers were now streaming into the temple and taking their seats near the front, immediately behind the Watchers. The spectacle seemed to amuse Karen. "You dolphins are very keen on your church services," she observed. "I hope the extra-terrestrials don't spoil the show."

"Aren't you at all frightened?" Donna asked her curiously. "We're about to meet beings from another world, who for all you know want to enslave us, and you act like it's a Sunday school picnic."

Karen gave her a condescending smile. "I've waited a long time for this moment, Donna. All the Watchers have. Of course I'm a little nervous, who wouldn't be? But I have the assurance of all the prophecies we've received. They're words from the heavens, we're certain of that. They tell us we're about to enter a glorious kingdom – well, some of us are about to enter that kingdom. Of course, I can understand why you might feel a little frightened..."

"Because I'm a dolphin. A second-class citizen."

"I didn't say that. The extra-terrestrials aren't human either, so I don't suppose it makes any difference whether you're human or dolphin. It's because you're not a Watcher. You haven't been preparing for the great coming. We have."

"Preparing? How?"

"By meditating on those prophecies, and by prayer – _telepathic_ prayer – and by spiritual exercises."

"By attending your meetings and going into trances, you mean, and practising spirit journeys."

"That's part of it."

"So what's the difference between what you do and what we do? We're on spirit journeys too, and we have temple services when we sing hymns and everything. And it's our Mind – the dolphin communal mind – that the aliens are heading for."

Karen gave her an uncertain glance. "There are huge differences," she mumbled. "You'd have to attend our meetings to see."

"That won't be necessary," Donna told her, seizing the offensive. "The aliens will be here any minute, and they'll be the final judge. Which will they choose, I wonder? The Watchers or the dolphins? Probably they won't distinguish between us."

She gave Karen an impish smile and added: "Though I expect they'll separate the males from the females, 'cos they're bound to want to mate with us. That should be an interesting experience, don't you think?"

Karen blinked nervously. "Shut up," she muttered. "Of course they won't want to mate. Why don't you get on with your service? Look, the place is almost full."

Donna glanced round. The temple was indeed filling up, and the last stragglers were settling into their seats, though to describe the place as 'full' was a bit of an exaggeration. There were only 100 dolphins present plus a few dozen Watchers, and the temple would hold three or four times that number. It appeared almost full only because everyone was sitting near the front.

A solitary figure appeared in the entrance and gave her a wave. It was Dawn, newly arrived on her spirit journey. She would have travelled half-way round the world in her Beetle in just a few minutes. Donna nodded back to her, and Dawn disappeared outside.

Karen threw Donna a questioning glance. "She's watching out for the alien ship," Donna explained in a low voice. "She'll let us know when it appears."

Donna turned to ascend the pulpit, then paused. "When that ship _does_ finally appear, you'd better stay close to your physical body," she murmured. "Just in case those aliens take a fancy to you and abduct it."

"Shut _up_!" Karen hissed.

Although the dolphins in the congregation must have been itching for her to tell them what on earth was going on, Donna made a point of conducting the first part of the service as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening. She began by welcoming "our human visitors" and explaining to them that since this was a paradise from an earlier age it lacked computers, canned music, surveillance cameras, motorized transport, mobile phones and all the other trappings of 21st century civilization. Not that any of these things counted for much in the spirit world, she hastened to add.

Then she led the congregation in the first hymn, a rousing rendition of 'Land of hope and glory' with 'England' replaced by 'Eden'. She had chosen this particular hymn for the benefit of the aliens who must by now be approaching the planet and who would surely be picking up the mind's telepathy. Such a hymn would send out exactly the kind of message that she wanted, of a joyous, unsuspecting people.

Throughout the hymn she kept glancing towards the temple entrance, waiting for that signal from Dawn. Helena was bashing out the notes for all she was worth, and the whole congregation responded magnificently, so that their singing reverberated around the building, and the thought that the emotions behind it were being broadcast to the heavens filled Donna with pride. She glanced at Karen, who had taken her seat at the front, and even she seemed impressed.

When the singing had died down Donna announced that more visitors were expected. She didn't mention extra-terrestrials, for that would alarm the dolphins and affect the telepathy being broadcast into space, instead she told the congregation to remain in their seats when the visitors arrived, unless she or Dawn indicated to them that they should move to the side of the temple, in which case they should proceed in an orderly fashion. Then, before anyone could interrupt with questions, she launched into the second hymn.

There was still no signal from Dawn, and Donna was becoming a little concerned. It was now almost half an hour since the mind had formed and begun broadcasting its presence, and although she didn't relish the thought of meeting extra-terrestrials, the last thing she wanted was for them to delay their arrival unduly. There would be considerable unrest among the dolphins if today's performance had to be repeated tomorrow.

Had Paul and the people at SETI miscalculated?. Perhaps the neurospaceship had been further away than they thought, or travelling at a slower speed. In which case it might well not arrive until tomorrow. Or perhaps 100 dolphins were not sufficient to generate the strength of telepathy required. Even worse, the aliens might have got wind that something was up, because something was amiss with the mind's telepathy. There could be a dozen reasons why they hadn't appeared.

Helena continued banging out the hymn with commendable energy, and the dolphins in the congregation continued to respond enthusiastically, but the Watchers in the front were becoming visibly restive, and some of them were glancing backwards towards the temple entrance. There was still no signal from Dawn, and Donna began to nervously bite her lip, something she always did in her human spirit body when things weren't going right. She normally gave a short sermon after the second hymn, and today she had prepared nothing, for she'd assumed that by now the aliens would have appeared. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury would have skipped his preparations if his address was to be cut short by visitors from the stars.

She decided that if she did have to preach, she would use the opportunity to put Karen and her Watchers soundly in their place. She would remind the congregation that the Bible stated in no uncertain terms that in the coming kingdom the first would be last, and the last first, and that those who were weak and of no account in this world would be greatest in the next. Hah! That would make Karen squirm. Though maybe that wasn't such a great idea, she reflected, because it would put Dawn in her place as well, not to mention yours truly...

Suddenly something red and huge and definitely not weak and of no account appeared outside the temple entrance, and a scaly dragon head poked through and winked an enormous eye at her. That was the signal: the aliens were here!

## Thirty

Rick's phone rang. It was Clare, and her message was curt and to the point.

"ET's arrived!"

Rick stood up and waved to the men in the five boats that were moored at the small jetty in the enclosure at the V-shaped end of the lagoon. "Get going," he yelled. Electric engines hummed into life, and the boats slid through the water away from the jetty.

Although the men knew nothing of the drama unfolding on the other side of the world, they understood exactly what was required of them. The bodies of the sleeping dolphins had been lined up into five groups, and each boat now moved along its line of dolphins, stopping at each animal in turn. Protruding from the side of each boat was a specially constructed seat to which was attached a console housing diagnostic equipment, syringes, and other items of medical equipment, and the medical technician occupying this seat took a loaded syringe from the console, carefully located the injection point in the dolphin's neck, and pressed home the syringe. He then signalled to the pilot, who immediately moved the boat along to the next dolphin to repeat the procedure.

Barring any accidents, Rick had calculated that it would take about ten minutes for all the dolphins to be injected with the wake-up drug. It would take about five minutes for the drug to take effect, so that by the time the boats were half-way down the lines of dolphins, those injected first would already be stirring, and all the dolphins should be awake within 15 minutes of Clare's phone call. The men did not know why that was important, they just knew that the animals' lives might depend upon them achieving that target.

One of the sleeping dolphins – Donna – had been separated from the rest, and she would not be injected. She was to remain in her trance, to face the alien invaders.

Dawn trotted up the temple aisle towards the altar. At least it felt like she was trotting, though no doubt the congregation would have used a different verb to describe the formidable advance of her massive reptilian body with its thick red scales and fearsome jaws. A verb that spoke of menace, awesome power, and the clank of steel claws on the temple floor. Thud perhaps, or thunder, but definitely not trot.

The Watchers were completely unnerved by the spectacle, and those seated by the aisle tried desperately to scramble out of her way, knocking over several chairs in the process. Doubtless they thought that she was an extra-terrestrial – which, in a way, she was.

The dolphins, of course, were not at all alarmed, for they had seen this many times before, and several of them clapped and cheered. Dawn always put on a good show, and they probably assumed that Donna's warning that more visitors were to join them referred merely to her arrival together with the magical puppets of her Passion plays.

"Stay calm, everyone," Donna called out from the pulpit. "The dragon's not an extra-terrestrial, she's one of us. She's here to guard the altar, which as you know is the focus of the Mind."

Dawn took up her position at the front of the congregation and surveyed the sea of faces. Part of her task was indeed to guard the altar, in case the Watchers tried somehow to use it to invade the Mind, but she was also there to keep the dolphin members of the congregation safe for next 15 minutes, that is until they awoke from their trance and the Mind closed down. They were seated furthest from the front, she noted, and closest to the temple entrance, which meant they were most at risk from an alien attack.

Her gaze wandered over the Watchers. They were seated in the first two rows, and they were eyeing her ferocious body with considerable apprehension. All apart from Karen, that is, who instead of looking apprehensive was glowering darkly at her. She had obviously cottoned on to the fact that this impressive monster was in fact Dawn. John Anderson had seen her in this guise when she had disturbed him in Angela's brain, and no doubt he had warned Karen. But why was she glowering in this way? Was it because Dawn was guarding the altar, thereby foiling some plan to invade the Mind? Or was it because, as the most impressive being in the temple, she was the one who would attract the aliens' interest? It must be the latter, she decided.

"I'm going outside to greet our visitors," Donna announced from the pulpit. There was no hint of nervousness in her voice, Dawn noted with satisfaction, though she must be feeling extremely apprehensive.

"The rest of you remain in your seats," Donna continued. "While I'm gone the dragon will entertain you with a short flying display."

Dawn glanced at her in surprise. A flying display? That wasn't part of the plan. Donna had obviously judged that a diversion was needed to prevent the congregation from getting restive and perhaps taking a peek outside to see what was happening. Well, a few aerial acrobatics would do no harm – she could swoop down to the altar quickly enough if it was threatened.

Karen immediately jumped up. "I'm going out to greet them too," she announced. "As the representative of the Watchers."

"Of course," Donna agreed smoothly. She had been expecting that. What she hadn't expected was that Karen would let slip that she and the rest of the humans here belonged to the Watchers. Most of the dolphins had probably never heard of the Watchers, but those that had might put two and two together and realise that extra-terrestrials were about to land. Not that this mattered much now, for Donna's main concern was to keep everyone entertained for a few more minutes, and to keep the aliens out, until the dolphins awoke from their trance and regained the safety of their bodies back at Crocodile Bay.

Dawn unfurled her wings and flapped them loudly up and down a few times, then she hurled herself into the air, beating them furiously, and circled round the temple. Suddenly she swooped low over the heads of the people below, at which many of the Watchers cried out in alarm, ducking and covering their heads with their hands. Then, while Donna and Karen hurried to the temple entrance, she soared up to the ceiling and circled high above them, twisting and turning around pillars and through arches.

The Watchers were awestruck by this display, and the rest of the congregation clapped and cheered. Dawn was tempted to belch out smoke and fire, for then her display would have been really impressive, but she thought it best to keep those abilities a secret. Otherwise Karen or another of the Watchers might connect her with the fire that had destroyed the COBRA flying saucer.

Meanwhile, with Karen at her side, Donna emerged from the temple entrance into the brightening day. Before them, in the temple forecourt, were the fuzzy forms of Clare and John Anderson – fuzzy because, unlike the temple congregation, they were not in the spirit but present in the flesh. They were gazing up at an object that Clare was holding above her head. Although this was fuzzy too, Donna knew that it had to be the spirit detector, its screen giving Clare and Dr Anderson a window into neurospace. Depending on where they pointed its lens, they would see the temple and the forecourt and all the buildings round about, as well as any spirits that were present such as Karen and Donna. They were, in fact, pointing it at the sky.

Donna looked up, to see what they were looking at. She saw nothing at first, just the uniform blue of the sky. Then she spotted a bright point of light, directly overhead. She nudged Karen and pointed at it.

"How do you know it's not an ordinary star?" Karen asked curiously. "It could be Venus."

"Venus would look fuzzy to us. It's _got_ to be a neurospace object."

"Oh. Of course."

They stared at it silently. "It's not moving at all," Donna observed after a while.

"Perhaps it's descending towards us, but it's still very far away."

"Perhaps." Donna wished the aliens would hurry up and land. If they delayed too long, the dolphins would wake up and the Mind would shut down and then the temple and everything else would disappear and the telepathy would cease and then the aliens might become suspicious and back off and the Watchers would know they had been tricked and her carefully crafted plan would turn into a disaster.

"Why don't they hurry up?" she muttered.

"Look!" Karen exclaimed excitedly. "It's getting larger!"

Sure enough, the point of light was now a tiny disc. As they watched, the disc grew larger, and soon it almost filled the heavens, a huge flying saucer glowing with a golden luminescence. Now Donna could see what looked like viewing ports dotted around its rim, and she could imagine alien monsters standing behind them gazing down at the houses and streets of the township. She instinctively backed away, retreating from the forecourt into the shadow of the temple entrance, and Karen did the same. Clare and Anderson remained motionless, in the middle of the forecourt, watching the approaching ship on Baby's tiny screen. That miniscule image wouldn't do justice to the awesome sight of the approaching ship.

"This is truly amazing," Karen murmured as they watched the massive flying saucer descend slowly and silently to the ground. "Our first contact with the great galactic civilization. We're very honoured, Donna."

"I suppose so." Donna was so relieved that the ship had arrived while the township and the temple were still intact that the thought that she should feel honoured hadn't occurred to her.

The alien ship was perhaps 100 metres in diameter with a dome-shaped roof, somewhat like the fictional flying saucers that Donna had seen on TV. Was this vessel constructed on the same lines as the COBRA flying saucer, she wondered? And if so, were its passengers those giant wasps that Dawn had seen pictured within it?

The ship slowly dropped the final few metres to the ground. It was far too big to fit into the temple precinct, and it was obvious to Donna that it would crush part of the precinct wall as well as many of the houses beyond. Fortunately everyone was inside the temple, or they would be crushed too. Donna briefly wondered if the ship would remain hovering a few metres above the ground, to avoid any damage, but it was not to be. There was the sound of crunching masonry and of bricks and tiles crashing to the ground, then more crashing as dozens of buildings collapsed, and finally the alien spaceship came to rest in a huge cloud of dust.

"They're lousy drivers," Donna observed mildly as the air cleared. "Even I could do better than that." Karen shot her an irritated glance but said nothing.

The damage was immaterial, of course, as everything would be magically restored tomorrow, when Eden materialised again. She was the only dolphin who had witnessed this destruction, and her memory of it would be masked by the memories of a thousand other dolphin minds.

The leading edge of the flying saucer was about 80 metres from where they were standing in the temple entrance, while the remainder curved away over the fallen debris to the left and the right. It had narrowly missed her quarters, off to the right, Donna noticed. The rim of the saucer was about a dozen metres off the ground, with the viewing ports – if that was what they were – set into the hull below.

"Look!" Donna whispered. A dark line about ten metres long had appeared on the underside of the saucer, near the rim. This line rapidly grew wider to become an opening in the ship's belly, and Donna realised that a hinged segment of the vessel was being lowered to form a ten-metre wide ramp leading from the interior of the ship down to the temple forecourt.

"It's like those old sci-fi movies," she murmured. "We're all hanging on to our seats, wondering what's going to come trundling down that ramp. I bet it'll be a robot with flashing eyes."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Karen spat. "Mankind's waited centuries for this, and all you can do is crack juvenile jokes."

Something moved in the darkness at the top of the ramp, and moments later a large square object about as wide as the ramp and several metres high appeared and started to slide down it. It had a golden metallic sheen, and as it descended Donna saw that it wasn't actually square, rather it had five sides, and set in the nearest side was what looked like a large door.

The golden object slid off the bottom of the ramp and came to rest on the temple forecourt, just in front of the ship. Donna stared at it, mystified. Was this some kind of vehicle? It didn't have wheels or wings or any obvious means of propulsion. With that door it looked more like a building. A golden pentagonal building.

"It's a portal!" she exclaimed. "It's got five sides, just like the portal that transported the COBRA people to their spaceship!" She was about to add that Dawn had told her all about that portal, but stopped herself just in time. Dawn's visit to the COBRA flying saucer was a closely-guarded secret, and it was important that Karen didn't find out about it. The fact that Donna knew about the COBRA portal would be no surprise, for John Anderson had admitted its existence when Clare had tackled him about his COBRA past.

"You're right," Karen gasped. "So the Church of the Blessed Rapture _was_ visited by aliens!"

"And now they've returned. They've come because they think that COBRA must have taken over the world by now. They want to take over the COBRA leaders, because then they will control the world."

"What's the matter with you?" Karen flared. "Why does everything have to be either a big joke or doom and gloom? Why can't you accept this encounter at face value? The first portal was a gift to COBRA, this portal is a gift to the Watchers. It's a symbol of their good will, a message to say that they come in peace."

"Hmm. I can think of nicer gifts than that. What on earth are the Watchers going to do with it?"

"Use it as a portal, of course. Can't you see the possibilities? It's a gateway to the other planets of the Galactic Federation. There must be a portal on every one of them. It means that people can go instantaneously from one world to another. Step through that door, and you step out into another world." Karen's eyes were shining now. "That's why the aliens have come here, and why they've brought that portal. To allow us to be part of the Federation."

Donna gazed at the gleaming pentagonal structure standing silently in front of her, with the massive flying saucer behind it, and wondered if Karen might be right. Looking at the scene, it almost made sense. Karen and the Watchers had been receiving messages from space for years, and they had confidently predicted this alien visitation. Would their other predictions also come to pass? If so, her own plan to shut down the mind and return the dolphins to their bodies had been a big mistake, for she would be denying them a heaven-sent opportunity to welcome the aliens as the representatives of this planet and to participate in the galactic councils.

Suddenly there was a movement at the top of the ramp, in the dark interior of the ship. Donna stared up at it intently, and she saw there a number of tall figures.

Karen clutched her arm. "Here they come," she breathed. "The extra-terrestrials!"

## Thirty One

Donna and Karen watched from the temple entrance as the aliens emerged from the ship's interior and descended the ramp onto the temple forecourt. They were walking upright on two legs, like humans, and they were about the same height or a little taller. In other respects, however, they were not at all human, or like any other kind of earthly mammal. Evolution on their planet had clearly taken a quite different route.

They were more like insects, with three pairs of bony limbs, the hindmost of which they used for walking. They were completely naked, with yellow wasp-like bodies. Most hideous of all were their heads, which had insect-like mandibles and bulbous eyes. Donna was too far from them to tell whether their eyes were multi-faceted, like those of flies and other insects, or whether they had pupils. But she could clearly make out what looked like wings folded down their sides.

She was unable to stop a wave of revulsion sweeping over her. It made her feel very guilty, for she supposed that the galaxy must be inhabited by all kinds of bug-eyed monsters, most of which were probably benign, and she supposed her near-human brain had inherited humanity's instinctive fear of spiders and stinging insects. What mattered was not her impulsive reaction to these creatures, but the fact that they matched Dawn's description of the pictures she'd seen on the COBRA spaceship.

"They look like wasps," she said to Karen in a low voice. "Just like the creatures that gave COBRA their spaceship."

Karen nodded. "Dr Anderson was half-expecting that they would."

"If they are the same species, it means they must think that our temple is a COBRA construct, 'cos it's got the same five-sided shape as their portal, and it's gold as well. It's a safe bet that they believe it's the headquarters of COBRA on Earth, especially as it's been broadcasting telepathy into space. In which case they'll assume that you and I – the welcoming committee – are COBRA leaders."

"So what's the problem with that?"

"It's a very big problem if they want to take over the earth via COBRA. They'll assume that COBRA now controls the earth, and so the first thing they'll want to do is take control of us."

Karen didn't take umbrage at this suggestion, instead her lips pursed in a nervous smile. Donna guessed that she too was repelled by the creatures' wasp-like appearance.

"I'm sure they don't intend any such thing," she said, trying to inject a note of confidence into her voice. "If you're worried, stay out of the way. Dr Anderson will inject the Watcher's bodies with a wake-up drug if the aliens start acting suspiciously." She glanced towards Anderson's fuzzy form, then added, "He'll inject me first."

Donna followed her gaze. Anderson and Clare were huddled over the spirit detector, which they were pointing directly at the aliens. Was Anderson also repelled and alarmed by what he saw?. It was impossible to tell. Certainly he wasn't making any moves to inject the Watchers.

More and more giant wasps were emerging from the ship and marching down the ramp. The first arrivals were spreading out across the temple forecourt in an arc, facing the temple entrance, with the portal in front of them. When the last of the wasps reached the foot of the ramp there must have been some 300 of them lined up in several rows in what looked like a military formation. With their large black pupil-less eyes and yellow bodies they looked more than a little menacing, and Donna gripped Karen's arm tightly.

"Be careful," she whispered. "I know we're not exactly friends and we don't belong to the same species, but we're both mammals and we share over 95% of our genes. Compared to those monsters we're virtually sisters. I'd hate it if they..."

She felt a sudden powerful urge to go towards the ship. It was telepathy, she realised, emanating from the wasps, tugging at her emotions. Was it an invitation or was it a command? Certainly there was no menace in it that she could detect, but nor was there any goodwill.

Two of the wasp-like creatures broke ranks and marched towards them, coming to a halt when they reached the portal. One took up a position to the right of its door, the other to the left. Then they gestured with their forelimbs towards it. The meaning was clear: they were inviting the two humans standing in the temple entrance to approach the portal and go inside – no doubt to be transported in the twinkling of an eye to a distant world.

Donna tugged at Karen's arm. "Don't go!" she pleaded.

Karen turned to her, and although her face was grey with fear, Donna saw in her eyes a dogged determination. "I can't chicken out now," she whispered. "This is what I've been waiting for, it's what I've always wanted. It's my destiny."

Reluctantly, Donna let go of her arm. "If anything ... untoward ... happens, Karen, remember that I can help you."

Karen threw her a questioning glance, and, on the spur of the moment, Donna revealed part of the great secret that she had sworn never to reveal to anyone: "I can turn myself into a dragon, like Dawn." She was careful not to reveal the other part of the great secret, namely her dragon fire.

Karen stared at her in surprise, and Donna detected relief flooding through her.

"Thanks, Donna," Karen whispered gratefully, and she touched Donna's arm. It was only a fleeting touch, but it left Donna feeling strangely moved, for it seemed to convey an acknowledgement that, compared to the aliens, they were indeed genetic cousins – and that Donna was her equal.

Then Karen turned and resolutely walked out of the temple entrance into the forecourt and towards the portal and the line of waiting aliens.

"Good luck!" Donna called after her. She couldn't help but admire her courage.

The powerful telepathic urge to go outside to the ship hit Dawn as she was looping the loop high above the congregation. She immediately swooped down to the great altar and landed in front of it, then she marched down the aisle, between the rows of seats, her great body blocking the way of anyone who might be tempted to obey that command.

The seats behind the Watchers were now much less crowded than before, she noticed. That was good news, for it meant that the wake-up drug that Rick had injected into the dolphins' bodies was taking effect, and they were beginning to wake up from their trance. In less than ten minutes they would all have disappeared from Eden.

When she reached the entrance, she paused just inside it, in the relative darkness, and surveyed the scene outside: the huge flying saucer, the curved line of 300 or more giant alien insects, the golden portal with two aliens standing by it, and Karen walking across the temple forecourt towards them.

She realised immediately that these were the same aliens who had visited the COBRA ship many years before, and that their return was almost certainly not in response to the communal mind's telepathic broadcasts of her Passion plays. The mind's telepathy must have acted as a homing beacon, but that was all. As she gazed at the aliens with their hideous wasp-like bodies and bulbous eyes, she felt very glad indeed that the dolphins would soon all be gone.

Donna glanced at the dragon snout poking out beside her and whispered a greeting. Their usual roles, where she was the mute dolphin able to respond only with gestures, was reversed. She quickly told Dawn what had happened.

"John Anderson and Clare are right by the ship, you probably can't see them 'cos they're too fuzzy, but they're watching everything on Baby's screen. Anderson isn't acting suspiciously, he seems to be on the level. I don't think you need worry about him. How about our people? Have they started to disappear?"

Dawn nodded.

"Thank goodness for that. I'll watch out for Karen. You look after the other watchers."

Dawn nodded again, then retreated back into the temple. Now that she knew that the Watchers intended no harm, she would do all she could to protect them. Assuming, of course, that the aliens were hostile and they needed protecting.

Outside, Karen faltered and paused a short distance from the golden portal with the two aliens standing beside its door. Donna, watching from the temple entrance, wondered what was going through her mind. By now she must be quite frightened, though the aliens weren't acting in a menacing manner, in fact they hadn't moved at all. They were simply standing there motionless, watching her.

Then Karen raised her hand in a greeting, and the two aliens responded with a similar gesture. That seemed friendly enough, and Karen plucked up courage and took a couple of steps forward. The aliens responded by gesturing towards the portal door, and again there was nothing menacing in the action. Donna wondered again if Karen had been right, and this portal was indeed a gift to the people of Earth.

Then one of the aliens reached sideways to the portal door and touched it, and the door slid silently open to reveal its dark interior – so dark, in fact, that from where Donna was standing it looked like a gaping void. The creature gestured again to Karen, and there was no mistaking its meaning: she was to go inside.

Karen stepped hesitantly forward. Donna watched nervously, trying to imagine the thoughts that must be racing through her mind. If she went in there, what was she letting herself in for? Would she ever come out again? Karen glanced round, first at Donna and then at the fuzzy shapes of John Anderson and Clare, who were still watching everything on Baby's screen. Staring straight at them, Karen tapped her finger meaningfully on her arm. Get ready to inject my body with that wake-up drug, she was saying.

John Anderson raised his arm and waved to her to show he understood, then he continued watching the unfolding drama on Baby's screen. Donna wondered what he was thinking and what plans he had hatched. Ever since the demise of COBRA he had devoted himself to this project, setting up the organization that was to become the Watchers as well as trying to influence the dolphin communal mind through the information he was depositing in Jonah's brain.

Perhaps he had always known that the Mind would act as a telepathic beacon, calling the aliens here, and now he was doing his utmost to turn that to his advantage. No doubt, like Karen, he really believed that there was a Galactic Federation, and that by welcoming the aliens here he would gain status and power. Even so, he wasn't prepared to risk his own skin, for it was Karen who was entering that portal, while he remained safely out of reach in his physical body.

Donna watched Karen walk slowly towards the open door of the portal. Then, with a single backwards glance, she stepped into the dark interior. Donna couldn't help but admire her guts. But as for John Anderson, watching everything from the safety of his body, she felt only contempt.

The two aliens followed Karen into the portal and the door slid shut behind them. Watching the drama unfold, Donna waited with baited breath for what would happen next. What could be happening to Karen? Had she by now stepped out onto another world? Would she return in a few minutes with tales of the wonders she had seen, and lead all the Watchers into the portal to fulfil their supposed destiny? But the golden portal was silent and unmoving, and the lines of aliens spread out behind it were unmoving too. They, like her, seemed to be waiting for something to happen. She tried to sense telepathically if there were any emotions, benign or malign, emanating from them, but there was nothing. Even the telepathic urging to go towards the ship had ceased.

As the seconds passed Donna started to relax slightly. The dolphins inside the temple would be returning to their bodies on the other side of the world at the rate of one every five or six seconds, and she had calculated that by now more than half of them must have disappeared. A few minutes more and they would all be gone, and then the temple and the forecourt and all the buildings round about, which were the product of their minds, would vanish. She wondered what the aliens would make of that.

Donna turned her head to glance back inside the temple. She saw that Dawn, no longer concerned about protecting the Mind from the Watchers, had transformed herself back into her human form and had mounted the pulpit and was addressing the congregation. No doubt the Watchers, who were still sitting there, thought that she was Donna.

She was telling the Watchers to remain in their seats, and that they weren't to be worried that people were disappearing into thin air all around them. What was happening to the dolphins was no different from what would happen to them, should Dr Anderson decide to inject them with the wake-up drug.

Donna turned back to watch the ship and the aliens. A movement at the edge of the temple forecourt caught Donna's eye. The blurred forms of Clare and John Anderson had twisted round and they appeared to be staring at the temple. Not via Baby's screen, but with their naked, physical eyes. That meant they weren't actually seeing the temple, for that was an invisible neurospace object, rather they were be staring through it, at something in the physical world beyond its walls.

They started backing away in alarm. What on earth had they seen? Donna couldn't see anything amiss, for the temple was blocking her view, and even if the temple suddenly disappeared whatever was bothering them would be no more than a ghostly apparition to her. The only way that she would really be able to see the source of their alarm would be to invade Clare's mind and observe the world through her physical eyes.

Donna glanced back at the portal and the line of aliens, waiting beneath the massive bulk of the golden ship. There was still no movement. Closing her eyes, she transformed herself into her dragon form, though rather smaller than usual, to about a tenth of her normal size. She hoped that the aliens, at the far end of the forecourt, wouldn't notice something that small. Opening her eyes, she gave an experimental flap of her wings, then leapt into the air and sped off towards Clare.

It took her about a minute to reach her destination. Clare must have sensed her presence immediately, for Donna had the feeling that she was welcoming her with open arms. Hard-as-nails Clare must have been seriously alarmed by whatever she was witnessing to be so welcoming. There was a momentary sensation of swirling shapes and colours as the cathedral of Clare's mind formed around her, and then she was standing in the nave, staring at the stained-glass window at the far end showing Clare's view of the world. Flapping her wings, she sped towards it, landing at the top of the steps immediately in front of the altar that was the seat of Clare's consciousness.

She gazed up at the window. There was, of course, no sign of the temple or the forecourt or the great ship or the aliens or any other neurospace object, instead what she saw was the wiry grass beneath Clare's feet, the distant mountains ringing the valley, and, in the foreground, about 40 metres away, the bodies of the Watchers, asleep on the ground. Standing next to her was John Anderson. Donna had never seen him before, except as a fuzzy image, but she couldn't fail to recognise him. He looked exactly like Jonah.

Clare's gaze was fixed on one of the bodies – a woman – who was lying apart from the rest. The body suddenly convulsed, leapt up, and then fell back twitching. Karen! Donna recognised her immediately.

And then the awful truth dawned. That was how the portal worked. Whatever its location, it connected that point in neurospace with the physical body of any spirit that entered it. When she had stepped into it, Karen's spirit had been instantaneously transported to her physical body, and the two aliens had travelled with her. It wouldn't matter where in the galaxy her body was, she would still have been instantly transported to it. It was the ultimate teleportation device, though these wasps were using it for their own sinister ends.

And now those wasps were inside her, fighting her for control of her body. That was the reason for those convulsions. Whereas she might be able to hold her own against one, she would be overwhelmed by two. Donna imagined that one would pin Karen's spirit down while the other would take control of her unfamiliar human functions. That was what the rest of the aliens lined up in the forecourt were waiting for, the outcome of that battle. If their two colleagues could overcome Karen and control her body, then they would know that they could do the same with the other human spirits assembled here. They would herd them into the portal, take over their bodies, and then, hidden inside them, begin their conquest of Earth.

Karen's body convulsed again, and her arms flailed wildly. Then the convulsions ceased and she sat up and gazed around, taking everything in: the bodies of the other Watchers lying on the grass beside her, the grass and trees of the valley, and Clare and Anderson watching her intently. A ghoulish smile contorted her lips, and she stood up.

She looked just like Karen, indeed she was Karen, but the set of her face and the look in her eyes was nothing like the Karen that Donna had known. Although that Karen had not been particularly to Donna's liking, she had at least been human. This Karen was altogether more sinister.

## Thirty Two

Clare and Anderson were transfixed. Wasting precious moments, they watched spellbound as Karen rose to her feet and lumbered drunkenly towards them. She had a grotesque grin on her face, and she dragged her feet in the manner of a zombie. Donna, observing her progress in the stained-glass window of Clare's mind, tried desperately to devise a course of action that might avert the impending catastrophe.

For if two of the aliens could take control of Karen's physical body, then the rest of them would certainly be able take over the remaining Watchers. They would believe that they had taken over the COBRA leadership, which should by now be occupying positions of power and influence across the planet. Thanks to Dawn, COBRA had been destroyed, and the aliens couldn't possibly use this bunch of pathetic Watchers to take over the Earth. Nevertheless, they could cause a great deal of trouble, and if they returned to their home world there was no knowing what other devilish plots they might hatch.

Donna's mind was working feverishly. The aliens must know that there were others waiting in the temple, and that, like Karen, their physical bodies were asleep nearby. They were standing in motionless lines, waiting patiently to assess the results of this initial foray into a human mind. They would have seen nothing of Karen's awakening, for they were in neurospace and she was hidden from them by the temple walls, but in moments she would stagger through it onto the forecourt, and then they would know that their invasion of her mind had been successful. They would only see her physical body as a ghostly image, of course, but that would be enough. Then they would swing into action, rounding up the spirits of the other Watchers and herding them into the portal.

Her most urgent task was to protect those Watchers from the fate that had befallen Karen, and the only sure way to do that was to inject their sleeping bodies with the wake-up drug. She was tempted to leap on the altar below the stained-glass window and try to take over Clare's body, but Clare would almost certainly resist her, which would waste even more precious seconds. She would have to spur John Anderson into action by other means.

She formed an image in her mind, of Anderson standing by the sleeping bodies of the Watchers with a large syringe in his hand. It appeared like a vision in the stained-glass window of Clare's mind, blotting out everything else. Donna held it there for a couple of seconds before allowing Clare's normal vision to return.

Clare understood her message immediately. "Inject your damn Watchers!" she hissed at Anderson. "Now! Good God, man, can't you see what those aliens have done to Karen? They'll make zombies of you all!"

John Anderson gave a sudden start, glanced at Clare with wild eyes, and then stared back at Karen. The alien spirit that had possessed her was evidently gaining a better mastery of her body, for now it was staggering towards them in a bandy-legged fashion, though still with that ghastly grin. It was an unnerving sight. But Clare's words had the desired effect, and John Anderson darted off at an angle, obviously intending to skirt round Karen to get to the Watchers' bodies. Karen's body came to an abrupt halt and her eyes watched him race by, her mouth still contorted in a grin. Then she turned and started after him. The creature controlling her must have guessed what he was up to.

Donna breathed a sigh of relief. This diversion gave her a little time to get her own act together before the main body of aliens realised what was happening. Although they would have seen John Anderson's ghostly form run off and disappear through the temple wall, they wouldn't have seen the rest of the unfolding drama, for it was hidden by the temple. So they'll continue patiently waiting, Donna reasoned, and while they're waiting I'll go inside Karen and destroy her invaders.

Turning from the stained-glass window and Clare's view of the world, Donna closed her eyes, flapped her wings, and flew out of Clare's skull into the open air. Opening her eyes again she saw in front of her the giant flying saucer and the lines of wasp-like aliens, still patiently waiting to see the outcome of the battle for Karen's body.

Suddenly the houses round about began to flicker, and some of them disappeared, and in moments they were all gone. Beyond the town, other parts of Eden would be disappearing, from the glacier at the head of the valley and the river Chilik that flowed from it to the fissure in the rocks and the other end of the valley. Donna turned, and saw that part of the temple vanished, and moments later the rest of it went too. Now everything that had been hidden by its walls could be seen. There was Dawn, back in her huge red dragon body, sheltering the spirits of the 40 Watchers, and nearby was the ghostly form of Karen's physical body giving chase to an equally ghostly John Anderson.

The disappearance of the dolphins' dreamworld was good news in that it meant that they had all awoken and returned to their bodies, but very bad news indeed in that it meant that Donna's time had run out. Now the watching aliens could see that Karen's body had come alive and that their invasion of her had been a success. Sure enough, as if prompted by an invisible signal, the wasps all suddenly sprang into action, streaming forwards towards the great red dragon and the 40 human spirits of the Watchers.

If John Anderson could inject the bodies of the Watchers and get them awake, then they would be safe. Although the two aliens controlling Karen's body might not have been certain what his intentions were when he started running forward, they were determined to stop him anyway. They were forcing Karen's body to give chase as fast they could.

Clare, observing this, started after her, though she was hampered by the spirit detector. She was carrying this, and kept pointing it in the direction of the line of advancing aliens, checking their progress on its screen.

Donna was torn by indecision. She could either rush to Dawn's assistance and attempt to protect the Watchers' spirits from the advancing aliens, or she could help John Anderson and Clare in their efforts to revive the Watchers' bodies by entering Karen's skull and attacking her invaders. In the end she decided on this second course of action. Partly this was because she was afraid that the spirit detector might get damaged if there was a fight, and partly because she felt a duty towards Karen. A tenuous bond had grown up between them while they had stood together at the temple entrance, watching the great ship arrive and the aliens disembark, and she had promised to protect her if things turned nasty. And her lumbering gait and the grimace contorting her pretty face were very nasty indeed.

Flapping her dragon wings furiously, she gave chase to Karen, catching up with her just as she reached John Anderson and the sleeping bodies of the Watchers. He was wrestling with the straps of one of the large rucksacks that were lying on the grass beside the bodies, and Donna supposed that these held the syringes filled with wake-up drugs. Did they also contain weapons? Anderson was sure to take such precautions – in which case he might be tempted to eliminate the spirits controlling Karen by the simple expedient of shooting her in the head. It made Donna's own rescue mission doubly urgent.

Without more ado Donna dived into Karen's head, and moments later she found herself standing at the end of the nave in the cathedral of Karen's mind. She was still in her dragon body, and tensing her legs and wings so that she could leap away if attacked, she glanced around warily.

Everything looked completely normal. There was the stained-glass at the far end of the cathedral, showing the view through Karen's eyes – it was of Anderson, catching his breath after his unaccustomed exertions and feverishly trying to open the rucksack. Below the window was the altar which was the seat of Karen's consciousness – though now under the control of an alien consciousness – and to each side of the nave the doors leading to Karen's memories.

Donna's eye caught a movement in the shadows at the foot of the steps leading up to the altar. An alien! She felt a stab of fear. Immediately her dragon reflexes took over, forcing her to suck in a huge draught of air, and she felt a wave of heat spread through her belly as her internal fires roared into life.

It was a new experience for Donna, for although she had known the fires of passion, she had never before breathed out the deadly fires of war. Although Dawn had promised that she would one day give Donna some military training, she had always insisted that her protégé was still too young, and that in any case the basic skills were hard-wired into her dragon brain. This was indeed the case, as Donna now discovered. She found she knew instinctively how to control her fire so that it remained firmly within the confines of her belly, and she felt certain that, when the moment came, she would be able to release that fire to deadly effect.

Reassured by this discovery, she advanced down the nave towards the dim form of the alien. When she had covered about half the distance she realised that the creature was guarding what looked like an enormous ball of white cotton wool. A few steps nearer, and she saw that the fluffy ball was some kind of cocoon with a body encased inside it. It must be Karen, she suddenly realised, trapped like a fly within! The aliens hadn't killed her, for that would result in the death of her body, instead they had immobilized her spirit. And now one of them was guarding that spirit while the other controlled her body.

Suddenly, without any warning at all, the alien leapt at her, a blur of whirring legs and wings. He twisted his body as he came, so that his back was facing her, and strands of white gossamer thread billowed from his abdomen, weaving through the air towards her. Before she had time to jump aside, the threads were all over her, clinging to her wherever they struck and wrapping themselves around her legs and her neck. She tried to leap backwards to escape their sticky grasp, but she was too late, and in moments she was so entangled that she could scarcely move. And still the gossamer threads kept coming like a mass of tenuous ectoplasm, completely enveloping her. A few seconds more and she would be as thoroughly immobilized as Karen, unable even to open her jaws to use her fire. And whereas the alien had been careful to keep Karen alive, he would have no compunction about killing her.

She forced her jaws open sufficiently wide to gulp in more air. Something like a volcanic eruption exploded inside her, the valve at the bottom of her neck flipped open, and a bolt of intense heat shot up her neck. Black smoke billowed from her nostrils, her tongue automatically flipped back out of harm's way, and a powerful jet of fire burst from her jaws.

She waved her head around in every direction, instantly shrivelling to nothing the engulfing strands of sticky thread. She couldn't reach it all, but enough had gone to allow her to move her limbs. The alien had leapt backwards, away from her fire, and now he danced around before her, moving so fast that her flames could not touch him. As he leapt this way and that and she tried to spear him with her fire, it seemed as if he was somehow able to anticipate each twist of her head, for he was always a step ahead of her.

She cut her fire and tried to study his intricate manoeuvres. It must be possible to get the better of him. Immediately his forelegs – there were four of them – flashed out at her, and she saw that they were tipped with sharp claws. Before she could jump back he was upon her, and there was a searing pain across her chest, and another in her right forelimb. Two of the blades had struck home, slicing through her tough scales.

She gasped with the pain, and immediately her internal fires erupted again, flinging more flames up through her throat and out of her jaws. She swung her head from side to side and up and down, hoping that by chance that the flames pouring out of her would get him. She wondered briefly if her fire was incinerating any of Karen's brain cells, but there was no avoiding that if she was to save herself.

At last her fire struck home, raking the lower part of his body. He screamed in agony, and then what was left of him was no longer prancing before her but thrashing around on the floor, trying desperately to get away from her. With great satisfaction she played her fire mercilessly over his remains, so that he writhed and shrieked, and then there was silence and all that remained was a cloud of acrid black smoke.

Her satisfaction quickly gave way to a feeling of guilt. For as the smoke dissipated she saw that the floor of the nave where she had finished him off was charred. That could only mean that her supernatural fire must have destroyed something of Karen's mind. Donna had no way of knowing whether or not the damage was severe, or what functions might be impaired. Perhaps it was equivalent to a minor stroke, in which case her mind might recover. Donna very much hoped that this would be the case.

But the battle was only half over. Karen's spirit was still entombed in her ball of gossamer, and the second alien was still controlling her body. Somehow Donna had to wrest control from the invader, and then destroy it.

First she had to release Karen from her cocoon. Gulping in air once more to feed her fire, Donna opened her jaws a fraction and allowed a thin jet of fire to erupt. Very carefully, she directed her fire at the gossamer threads encasing Karen, but avoiding Karen herself. It took almost a minute, but eventually most of the gossamer had shrivelled away and Karen was able to struggle free.

Slowly and gingerly Karen rose to her feet. Watching her, Donna thought that she looked a broken woman. Her earlier resoluteness and confidence had clearly been shattered, and although she knew that the fearsome dragon standing in front of her was Donna, she cowered in front of her, unable to meet her gaze. Donna's heart went out to her, and she transformed herself back into her human form.

"Don't be afraid, Karen," she said gently. "You're safe now."

Karen stared at her blankly, and then with a great sob she crumpled forward and fell into Donna's arms, burying her head in her shoulders.

Donna stroked her hair tenderly. "We're going to destroy those aliens, Karen. But there's no time to waste. Try to pull yourself together, 'cos we're going to start by getting rid of the creature who stole your body."

Karen lifted her head. "OK," she sighed weakly. "I'll try to help."

"That's the spirit," Donna said heartily. "I'll turn back into a dragon, then we'll fry him for supper."

Donna stepped back a couple of paces and transformed herself back into a dragon. Then she picked up Karen in her scaly forelimbs and, holding her as gently as she could, she flapped her wings furiously and leapt into the air. Moments later they were fluttering down onto the altar, and then they were sinking into it.

Suddenly she was seeing the world through Karen's eyes and the landscape was reeling and Clare and Anderson were in front of her and trying to wrestle her to the ground, and at the same time she was involved in a desperate clash of wills with the alien usurper who had taken over Karen's body. With her human-like brain she was more at home in this body that he was, and she forced herself outwards, filling the consciousness of Karen's brain and squeezing him back, and all at once he was gone and she was in control of Karen's arms and fingers and legs and toes.

She was immediately and painfully aware of Clare manhandling her, dragging her to the ground. She went down with a bump, and Clare immediately jumped on top of her and pushed down hard on her arms.

"It's me!" she yelped. "Clare, it's me! I'm back!"

Clare gaped at her in surprise and tentatively relaxed her grip. At the same moment Donna relinquished control and pulled herself back into a tight mental ball so that Karen could take over and become one with her body again. Immediately Donna found herself ejected back into the cathedral of Karen's mind, standing before the altar, and all around her was the malign presence of the alien.

Donna had been expecting this, and she immediately thrust herself into the air and flew down the nave, at the same time gulping air. As her internal fires erupted she sped above her opponent then dropped to floor and spun round to face him, at the same moment opening her jaws to release the deadly inferno. He was coming towards her, a blur of dancing motion, and, as it happened, directly in her line of fire.

The flames completely engulfed him. There was no escape, and his screams lasted only a second before they abruptly ceased. She instantly cut her fire, to minimise any further damage to Karen's brain. All that was left of the alien were a few blackened scraps and a whiff of black smoke.

Donna glanced up at the stained-glass window to check what was happening in the physical world beyond Karen's skull. Karen was evidently now sitting up, for Clare was crouching beside her with her arms round her, apparently trying to comfort her. Donna couldn't imagine Clare comforting anyone – though she supposed that Clare probably couldn't imagine her, a dolphin, doing anything like that either.

Several metres away, at the periphery of Karen's vision, were the prone bodies of the Watchers, and near them was John Anderson. He was kneeling by a box of syringes that he must have removed from one of the rucksacks. At last he was preparing to inject his Watchers with that wake-up drug..

So what was happening to the Watchers' spirits? Had Dawn been able to fight off the giant insects, or were they even now herding the Watchers into the portal? The only way to find out was to leave the relative safety of Karen's body and join the fray. Donna closed her eyes, and, leaping into the air and flapping her wings madly, propelled herself into the neurospace world beyond Karen's skull.

## Thirty Three

Donna emerged into what can only be described as a scene from hell. Dawn, spitting fire, was surrounded by dozens of smouldering alien corpses, while many more of the wasp-like creatures were buzzing angrily around her, enveloping her with those clouds of sticky gossamer that spewed from their abdomens. A short distance away the petrified Watchers were being herded towards the portal by a battalion of 50 or more aliens, who were leaping around them in a dizzying dance, menacingly flashing their dagger-like claws.

As she watched, one of the Watchers broke free and tried to make a run for it. A giant wasp gave chase and was immediately upon him, blades flashing. There was a shriek, and the man fell to ground, both arms sliced off, though there was no blood, and then the head came off too and rolled away.

It was a sickening sight, but there was no physical reality to it. The man's physical body was lying intact on the ground a couple of hundred metres away. His death would be real enough, though. His spirit had been destroyed, and so his heart would have stopped beating.

She glanced towards the sleeping bodies of the Watchers. Like everything else in the physical world about her, they were ghostly and blurred. John Anderson's ghostly form was finally administering that wake-up drug, for he was kneeling beside them with what looked like a carton of syringes. A few metres away was Karen, sitting on the grass, with Clare kneeling beside her. None of them were aware of the horrifying drama being played out around them in neurospace, for Baby, their window into that world, was lying on the ground several metres away. All they could see was the grass beneath their feet, the encircling mountains, and the golden rays of the dawn sun striking the slopes of the mountains to the west.

Donna turned her attention back to the battle. Dawn was now hopelessly entangled in the sticky threads, so much so that she was completely engulfed and could hardly move, and more clouds of it were still settling over her. Donna's first thought was that she should fly to her assistance. Raining fire on Dawn's assailants would certainly throw them into disarray and kill quite a number, but their speed and agility would mean that most would jump out of the way and quickly return to the attack, and if they managed to entrap her then all would be lost.

She decided instead to cause a diversion by attacking the flying saucer and the golden portal. Although these were neurospace objects and therefore constructed out of the aliens' minds – and presumably easily replaced – they might contain within them something that was very precious and irreplaceable. Something that was the equivalent of the great altar in the temple, which if attacked could seriously damage their community.

Although Donna had the form of a dragon, the aliens hadn't yet spotted her, for she was still only a fraction of her usual size. Well, it was time to change that, and closing her eyes she visualised herself in her normal dimensions. There was a stomach-churning wrench, and she immediately opened her eyes and flapped her suddenly-enlarged wings and sprang into the air.

Flapping with all her strength, she ascended rapidly into the air. Now the huge alien ship was below her, with the portal nearby and the line of terrified Watchers being herded towards it. A little way off was the large cottonwool ball that was Dawn's sticky prison. She had been thoroughly defeated.

The aliens that had overwhelmed her must have spotted Donna as soon as she upped her size, for they had abandoned their prisoner and were now flying up towards her. But in the open air she could easily outstrip them, and in a few seconds she was high in the sky above the golden disc of their great ship.

Turning, she dived down towards it, flapping her wings furiously and gathering speed. The aliens changed course and tried to intercept her, but they were too late. Sucking in a bellyful of air, so that her fires exploded into life, she hurtled towards a point on the circumference of the ship. At the last moment she pulled herself out of the dive and, opening her mouth wide, streaked over the dome of the ship, raking it with fire.

She cut a line right across it. The dense black smoke spurting from it told her that she was doing some damage, but she was flying too fast to see what. Then she was streaking upwards again, still madly flapping, and once safe above the angry wasps she circled around to survey the scene. The ship's dome had been sliced open, as if by a knife, and the two halves were starting to peel apart. She felt hugely elated. This was even more exciting than winning at Monopoly!

She became aware of distant shrieks of anger, and to her immense satisfaction saw that the aliens herding the Watchers had abandoned their victims and launched themselves at her. She had guessed correctly: there was something within that ship that was very precious to them, and they had to protect it at all costs.

The Watchers were staring transfixed at what was happening. No doubt they thought that she was the same dragon that they had seen earlier in the temple, for Dawn, trapped inside her cottonwool prison, was completely hidden from their view. Then they became aware that they were no longer captives, and with one accord they turned and raced back the way they had come, away from the portal and the ship. Had they but known it, now that they were free of their captors, they could have entered the portal in perfect safety and been returned immediately to their bodies.

Gulping in another draught of air, Donna hurled herself once more down to the great ship. This time the wasps were ready for her, and she was met by an angry cloud of them, blades flashing at her and sticky gossamer threads thrown across her path. She sucked in air and belched out a broad jet of fire, punching a hole right through them and killing a large number, and in an instant she was past and sweeping across the dome of the ship with a second line of fire, at right-angles to the first.

As she sped over the mid-point of the ship and the smoking line of her first pass, where the dome was peeling apart, she saw something moving in the heart of the damaged vessel. There was too much smoke and she was flying too fast to catch more than a glimpse of it, but she could see that it was alive and very large. Was this what the aliens were so desperate to protect?

Moments later she had completed her second pass and was once more thrusting herself upwards, flapping her wings furiously. Now several dozen aliens were in hot pursuit, and out of the corner of her eye she could see many more swarming above the mid-point of the damaged ship, desperately trying to protect whatever lay within.

High above the ship she came out of her climb and hovered for a moment, assessing the situation. Angrily circling some way below her were a number of wasps, keeping their distance for fear of her fire. Below them, on the ground, the spirits of the Watchers were running away from the battle, heading for a large outcrop of ghostly rocks, no doubt hoping to hide behind them. As she watched, one of their number suddenly vanished, and moments later two more disappeared into thin air. John Anderson's wake-up drug must be very fast-acting – either that, or humans reacted more quickly to the drug than dolphins. Soon they would all be gone.

A little way from them a wisp of smoke was curling up from Dawn's cottonwool prison, and she realised that Dawn had managed to work her jaw free and was burning her way out. As for the great ship, Donna saw that its dome, which had been quartered by her fire, had now peeled away to reveal hundreds of hexagonal compartments. She had no idea what their function might be, but it made the interior of the ship look like a giant honeycomb. Perhaps the aliens really were a kind of wasp, and this ship served as their nest. As for the large living thing that Donna had seen moving at the centre of the ship, that was now obscured by aliens swarming all over it.

About half of their number had now been destroyed. Although those that remained were a formidable foe that could still overwhelm her, victory was in sight. The Watchers were fast returning to their bodies, Dawn would soon be free, and the aliens and their giant ship could not withstand her all-powerful fire. It was really great being a dragon, she thought, even if it did play havoc with one's love life.

She twisted her great body in readiness for her third dive, gulped in air, and hurled herself down towards her quarry. Immediately several wasps rose up from the swarm to meet her, spreading out to attack her from all directions. Some wasps that had been circling immediately below her also closed in on her, and in moments she was surrounded by them. She twisted and turned to escape their whirring blade-like claws and sticky gossamer threads, but they were fast.

She felt a sharp sting at the base of her tail, and her dragon reflexes kicked in, flicking her tail violently. A wasp spun away, claws flailing wildly. There was another vicious sting, and then another, making her body twist this way and that. As well as that, strands of thread were adhering to her wings, slowing her down. But her assailants were few in number and she was quickly through them.

Kicking out with her legs and flapping her wings as hard as she was able, Donna sucked in more air as she hurled herself towards the main swarm and the thing they were so desperately defending. In moments she was surrounded by dozens of wasps, and everything was a confusing mass of flailing claws and gossamer threads and giant wasps criss-crossing her path. But she held her fire and tried to ignore the stabs of stinging pain, resolutely driving down to the damaged ship with its mysterious cargo.

She gulped in a final draught of air. What felt like molten lava was now churning inside her, and the pressure was so great that she was at bursting point. And then, as the last of the protective swarm rose up like a whirring cloud to meet her, her dragon instincts cut in, opening the valve at the base of her neck and flipping back her tongue. A plume of red-hot lava erupted up her throat, and as the creatures converged upon her a huge cascade of fire and smoke exploded from her jaws, instantly vaporising the whirring heart of the swarm and scattering the rest.

The massive explosion of fire acted like a rocket, slowing her down with a strong reactive force. She hastily shut off her fire, otherwise she would have been propelled backwards, perhaps into more wasps. She found herself hovering about 50 metres above the exposed interior of the ship, with the alien swarm scattered, and at last she had a clear view of what it was they were trying to protect.

It was a huge wasp, about 20 metres long with a bloated torso. If the ship was a hive, then this creature was surely its queen. Donna supposed that an entire nest of aliens must have made this spirit journey from their distant home to Earth, and that this was their leader. Destroy the queen, and the invasion would be over.

Donna glanced round. The aliens had regrouped and were coming at her in a three-pronged pincer attack, one group flying at her from the left, another from the right, and a third from above. Some distance away was Dawn, free at last of her sticky prison and launching herself into the air. The Watchers had finally disappeared, all safely back in their bodies. The end was in sight.

Swallowing more air, Donna twisted her body and dived straight down, aiming directly at the alien queen. The wasps, now almost upon her, shrieked with rage and followed her down. Ignoring them, she let the full force of her fire explode onto swollen monstrosity. Flames enveloped the creature, making it steam and hiss. Then, with a load crack, the creature split open and belched out a cloud of black smoke. At the same moment an ear-splitting scream reverberated through Donna's mind, and then there was silence.

Donna immediately twisted her body and swerved away, expecting the remaining wasps to be all over her, but they had abandoned the attack and were flying aimlessly around. They seemed to be dazed and at a loss to know what to do now that their queen was gone. And now Dawn had taken up the attack, and was picking them off one by one.

With the battle almost over, Donna was suddenly overcome by weakness. Even her wings felt heavy. It came to her that her energy reserves had been exhausted by all that fire, and as well as that her body was a mass of wasp stings. She had read about humans being attacked by swarms of bees, now she knew exactly what that felt like. The best thing she could do now was to get out of the way and leave the mopping up to Dawn.

She circled round the ship, giving the remaining wasps a wide berth, and headed back towards the spot where Clare and John Anderson and Karen would be, together with the waking Watchers. She wanted to make sure that they were all safe. To her left was the golden portal, and she noticed that a number of wasps were now on the ground and hurrying towards it. She watched as a couple of them reached it, opened the door, and went inside. They must be seeking shelter from Dawn's fire. The door closed behind them.

They weren't going to use it as a shelter, Donna belatedly realised. It was their route home! On entering it they would be translated back to their sleeping bodies on their home planet, and then they would call up reinforcements. No doubt this was the primary purpose of the portal, to provide a gateway between their world and this. She should have incinerated this contraption before attacking anything else, but it was too late for that now.

She had to do something to stop the other wasps reaching it. Twisting her body and flapping her weary wings, Donna threw herself into a steep dive, crashing down with a mighty thud immediately in front of the portal door. Righting herself to face her foes, she opened her jaws and summoned up sufficient strength to let out a blood-curdling roar. The wasps, who were almost upon her, skidded to a halt and retreated a few steps, eyeing her cautiously. Most of their brood had been killed by that deadly fire, and they had no wish to share their fate. Except that her fire was spent, and if they got wind of that they would be on her immediately. Somehow she would have to bluff it out and hold them at bay until Dawn was able to rescue her.

She sucked in a lungful of air, hoping that this would fan what remained of her fire into life. Even some smoke wafting from her nostrils would be enough to scare them off. But there was only the smallest hint of warmth within, and now the wasps were inching nearer, suspecting perhaps that she had been weakened by all those stings. She searched her brain desperately, hoping that her dragon self would come up with something. Perhaps if she spun round and lashed out with her tail...

Above her, at the edge of her vision, a dark shape appeared. Suddenly what seemed like sheet lightning enveloped the wasps. In an instant they were ablaze, and in moments all that remained were a few blackened scraps and wisps of smoke. Dawn! She had understood Donna's predicament and rushed to save her.

Gratefully, Donna surveyed the smoking remains. No more of the creatures were heading for the portal, and now Dawn, who had flown back to the ship, was pursuing the few remaining wasps who were still buzzing aimlessly over it.

She turned her attention to the portal, wondering about the two aliens who had already entered it. Were they still inside, or had they already been returned to their bodies on their home world? Perhaps even now they were mustering reinforcements, and soon thousands more of the creatures would pour out of it. She reached out a claw to open the door.

She touched it, and immediately the portal began to glow with a kind of inner luminescence. Donna jerked her claw away, startled. It reminded her of how the temple glowed first thing in the morning, while all about was still dark. Certainly this strange object and her temple had much in common. Could it be that this portal had reacted to her presence, her _dragon_ presence?

There was a loud plop of imploding air and the portal disappeared. Mystified, she stared at the empty space where it had been. Surely it had sensed her touch! Perhaps it had transported itself back to the aliens' home planet together with the two aliens who were inside it. She decided it didn't really matter if they had gone back, the main thing was that the portal was no longer here on Earth. The doorway to the alien's world had gone, and therefore no reinforcements would come.

Dawn was still circling above the damaged ship, picking off the last of the aliens. With their queen dead and the portal gone, they had lost the will to fight, and in a very short time Dawn had destroyed them all.

As the final wasp crackled and died in her scorching fire, the great ship, which was the product of their alien minds, winked out of existence.

#  Part 5: Dragons

## Thirty Four

As soon as she awoke in Eden the next morning, Donna jumped out of her chair and rushed to the window. The first faint rays of dawn were lightening the sky to the east, and the temple was glowing with its ghostly luminescence, casting a golden aura over the temple precincts. One glance was enough to convince her that the wall of the temple forecourt, which had been partially demolished by the aliens' spaceship, had been completely restored, as had the crushed houses nearby.

That was just as she had expected, for these neurospace structures were created anew each day by the Mind, which was the product of the dolphins' entranced minds. And since none of them, apart from Donna herself, had witnessed yesterday's destruction, there was no chance that the Mind would reproduce it now.

But some trace of yesterday's momentous happenings must surely remain. Something must have been culled by the Mind from her own vivid memories and reproduced in the darkness below. Perhaps the charred remains of some of the aliens littered the temple forecourt. She went out onto her small balcony and peered down, but so far as she could tell in the dim light there was nothing. Certainly there was no sign of the burnt-out flying saucer.

So what about the golden portal? Was there any sign of that? The thought that it might suddenly reappear as mysteriously as it had disappeared, and that hundreds of giant wasps might pour from its doorway, bent on world domination and revenge, made her shudder. But there was no sign of it, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

She wondered if the two aliens who had escaped inside it were back on their home planet, reporting to their leaders. Perhaps even now preparations were being made for another long flight to Earth in another flying saucer, only this time they would be better prepared, for they knew what they were up against.

She would share these fears with Dawn, who would be flying in soon for a debriefing session. Late yesterday afternoon she and Rick had visited Crocodile Bay to congratulate Donna on her great victory and to pass on the thanks of the Secretary General of the UN, but it had been a very unsatisfactory meeting as Donna could only respond by nodding her beak and waggling her fins. She couldn't tell them anything about her heroic battle with the two aliens who had captured Karen's mind, or indeed about much of her victorious attack on the great ship and its defenders. Donna smiled with pride at the memory. She couldn't wait to regale Dawn with her adventures.

But her most pressing concern was to get ready for the temple service. It would be the most important service she had ever conducted, for it was her first opportunity to enlighten the dolphin community about the alien invasion. She quickly dressed and sat down at her small dressing table to comb her black hair and apply her makeup. She was a youthful version of Dawn, and the lipstick and eyeliner were the same shades that Dawn would have used. It had of course been Dawn who had persuaded the Mind to reproduce them each morning.

A few minutes later she was clattering down the steps leading from her quarters and crossing the temple forecourt. The new day was now lightening the sky, though the large doorway of the golden temple was still shrouded in darkness. Entering it, she saw that Clara, conscientious as ever, had already arrived and was busy with the candles.

Although she and Jonah had been moved to the GeneSys dolphinarium, away from the rest of the dolphin community, they had today been fed the psychoactive fish that allowed them to share in the dolphins' trance. Rick had insisted on that, as he wanted Clara to introduce herself to the community during today's temple service, ahead of her transfer to Crocodile Bay later that afternoon. Now that it was known that John Anderson and the Watchers posed no immediate threat to the dolphins or the Mind, Jonah would be allowed to return home as well.

"Good morning, Clara," Donna murmured as she walked up the aisle. Although Clara was much younger than Clare, in the flickering candlelight she was her spitting image, which Donna found most disconcerting.

"Good morning, Donna," Clare replied with a smile.

Bitch! Not content with stealing Jonah, Clara was now addressing her as an equal. It had been _Ma'am_ before. Before long she would be trying to take charge of the place. That was only to be expected, of course: Clare, her mentor, was the most controlling person Donna had ever met. Apart from Dawn, that is.

Donna toyed briefly with the idea of dispensing with Clara's job completely, thereby removing her from the temple hierarchy and putting her firmly in her place. A few hours of concentrated prayer and fasting should be sufficient to persuade the Mind to make the candles come alight all by themselves as soon as the temple materialised each morning.

Then Donna told herself not to be so unreasonable. It was absurd that she should feel so resentful towards Clara. The truth was that she herself no longer wanted Jonah, for Mort had replaced him in her affections, and Clara was really doing her a favour by stealing his heart. In any case, romance was a pretty tepid business compared to the excitement of being an all-conquering fire-breathing dragon. All yesterday afternoon, as she drifted around the lagoon, basking in the memory of her great adventures, she had become more and more convinced that these romantic entanglements were just a distraction and that she had a much higher destiny. She would be Earth's ambassador to the stars.

"Congratulations, by the way," Clara said, interrupting her thoughts. "I understand you saved the planet."

Donna glanced at her in surprise. "Oh. Thank you. How did you know?"

"Dawn told me about it privately earlier this morning, at the dolphinarium. She said that since I'm part of the team, so to speak, I ought to know."

"I see. Yes, I suppose you did ought to know."

"I hope we can be friends, Donna. Do you mind terribly that I'm having it off with Jonah?"

Donna glanced at her in surprise. There was certainly no beating about the bush with Clara. She was as forthright as Clare. Donna's opinion of her went up a notch.

"I did mind at first," she admitted. "But not anymore. The fact is, Jonah and I are incompatible, and I have other ... interests now. I hope you'll both be very happy."

"If I can help you, Donna, in any way at all..."

Donna searched Clara's face, trying in vain to read her emotions. Though it was obvious how she must feel, having been a solitary GM dolphin all her life, with only Clare to give her companionship. Donna felt suddenly very sorry for her, and she knew what she must do.

"Thanks, Clara, I'm sure you will be able to help. I don't exactly know what Dawn meant when she told you that you're now part of the team, but why don't you come back to my place after the service? Dawn will be there, and I'd really like you to join us."

Clara's face lit up. "I'd love to come. Thank you, Donna."

"You can't bring Jonah, I'm afraid."

Clara nodded. "I understand. John Anderson's his mentor, and we don't want anything to get back to him."

A thought struck Donna, and she gave Clara a hesitant glance. "The thing is, Clara, I have a secret that I'm not sure I can talk about in your presence. It's an ability I have that must be hidden."

"If you mean your power of fire, I know about that."

"What?" Donna stared at her in alarm. "How did you find out?"

"Dawn told me about it. She said you used it to incinerate the alien ship and most of the aliens. She told me not to tell anyone about your fire, not even Clare, otherwise she'd kick me out of Crocodile Bay and that would be the end of everything for me, including my frolics with Jonah."

Donna smiled. "That sounds like Dawn. I'm surprised she didn't threaten to chop off your head and feed you to the sharks. The thing is, my fire makes me the top gun in neurospace, so if an enemy – such as John Anderson – ever found out about it, they might decide to kill my dolphin body. It would be easy enough for someone to get to me in Crocodile Bay."

Clara nodded, then looked thoughtful. "You can't be sure that Anderson or someone else won't discover your secret, especially after yesterday. If they wanted to kill you, they could easily do it when you're in a trance. Like now, for instance. That's when your dolphin body is most vulnerable. I take it Rick has arranged special protection for you?"

"There are always several guards patrolling Crocodile Bay at those times. But there's no one assigned to me specifically, if that's what you mean."

"That's exactly what I do mean. You have to tell him to organise that. It's got to be someone totally trustworthy. And why not organize a rota of your dolphin friends to skip their visit to Eden to watch over you while you're in a trance? Just in case someone tries to get to you underwater."

"I'll do that, Clara. Thank you." Donna smiled, and then, remembering how moved she'd felt when Karen had touched her arm immediately before the battle with the aliens, she put her hand on Clara's arm.

"I'm glad Dawn asked you to join the team," she told her new friend. "It was definitely one of her better ideas."

Almost an hour later, the temple service over, Dawn joined them in Donna's quarters.

"Clare phoned me from Adelaide earlier," she told them as she settled into the settee. "All the Watchers got back safely, apart from one who suffered a heart attack."

"The aliens killed him," Donna told her.

"I'd guessed that. Baby's safe too, apparently. She's been returned to the telescope, to monitor neurospace." Dawn glanced at Clara, sitting beside her. "Baby's the spirit detector," she explained.

Donna looked up from her stove, where she was brewing her fish tea. "Clare was with the Watchers when they returned to their bodies. Did she overhear what they said about the battle? What did they make of the fire-breathing dragon?"

"They couldn't stop talking about it, apparently. Clare didn't mention anything about _two_ dragons, so they obviously thought that the dragon they saw in the temple was the same dragon that saved them and destroyed the ship – which Clare and Anderson assume was me. Your secret's safe, Donna."

"Thank goodness for that. And what about Karen? Is she OK?"

"She was really upset and confused, apparently – much too confused to say anything sensible about what had happened to her. She spent most of the flight home crying and dozing, and she's quite unsteady on her feet. Clare took her to the hospital in Adelaide for some tests, and they kept her in overnight. Clare thinks she'll be there for a while."

Donna left off her tea-making and told them about the battle she'd fought in Karen's mind. "I must have destroyed part of her mind with my dragon-fire. I suppose she's suffered a kind of stroke."

"Hopefully she'll recover," Dawn told her. "The brain is able to grow new neurons – assuming it's neurons you destroyed."

"What's more worrying, she now knows that you have the power of fire," Clara pointed out.

"That's true," Donna muttered. She returned to her stove and the tea. "She's bound to tell Anderson. I don't know what we can do about that."

"You'll have to talk to her," Dawn said firmly. "Threaten her with total burnout. Tell her that if she breathes a word you'll turn her into a mindless zombie."

Donna stared at Dawn blankly. "Talk to her? How can I do that?"

"You're going to visit her this evening, in Angela's body. Everything's been arranged."

"What?" Donna's heart leapt with wild excitement. She would see Mort! Her resolve never to see him again and to devote herself instead to the far nobler enterprise of being Earth's ambassador to the stars was swept away by the rush of endorphins and other potent chemicals surging through her sleeping dolphin body. Her hands started to shake, and she had great difficulty pouring out the tea without spilling it. The smell of oily fish arising from it seemed to take on the fragrance of all the flowers of Paradise.

Fortunately she had her back to the others, so they couldn't see the smile lighting up her face.

"How did you manage to arrange that?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

"I didn't arrange it, Clare did. It was all her idea."

Donna spun round in surprise. "Clare? Why did she do that?"

"Because all Karen wants is to see you. Clare got thoroughly fed up with her weeping all the time and going on about how wonderful you were. It made her want to puke, she said. So she contacted Mort, and he, it seems, was delighted to help. Which rather surprised her, as she couldn't understand why he should want to help Karen, of all people."

Dawn shot Donna a meaningful glance, and it was obvious that she had no illusions as to why Mort was so eager to cooperate. Donna wondered if Clare had also twigged the reasons, but had chosen to keep quiet about it. She owed Donna a favour, after all.

"I suppose you'll want Rick to give you a whopping dose of the trance drug," Dawn added resignedly. "So that you can remain in Angela after visiting hours and practise being a guardian angel to Mort!"

"I shouldn't mind," Donna admitted, trying to pick up the cups nonchalantly. However, her hands were shaking so much that she made them clatter, and some of the tea spilled onto the floor.

Dawn jumped up, trying to not laugh. "Here, I'll carry those. All this excitement is too much for you!"

If Clara was mystified by the spectacle, she was too polite to show it. Instead she complimented Donna on how good her tea smelt, and when Dawn handed her a cup she eagerly sipped some.

"This is great, Donna!" she exclaimed. "You must teach me how to make it."

Donna glanced at her gratefully. It was a welcome change of subject. "I'm thinking of starting up cookery classes," she told her. "On Tuesday mornings after the service."

"What a great idea! And later on you could introduce tea-making competitions, to see who could make the fishiest brew. You wouldn't be allowed to take part, of course, 'cos you'd run away with all the prizes."

Dawn took a sip of the ghastly stuff. She was beginning to identify with Clare's desire to puke.

"This really is delicious, you know," Clara was saying, taking another sip. "Have you any other hobbies beside cooking, Donna?"

Donna pointed to her clay models on the windowsill. "I like making models. And I've started inventing games. Board games."

"Board games? How exciting! We must play some of them. Better still, why don't you introduce a games morning, perhaps on Saturdays? To try them out."

Donna's eyes lit up. "Do you think I should? Well, let me tell you about my Alien Invasion game..."

At the other end of the settee Dawn closed her eyes and wished that the communal mind would start to close down. Although she was glad that her fears that Donna and Clara would squabble had proved unfounded, the prospect of endless cookery mornings and games mornings and all this childish tittle-tattle was getting on top of her. Perhaps it was just that she was 30 and Donna and Clara were still in their teens, but for the first time in many years she was beginning to feel left out. Maybe it had been a mistake to include Clara in her little team.

## Thirty Five

To Donna's chagrin, she found that Mort had a visitor when she flitted into his house on her dragon wings at around 6 o'clock that evening. She had hoped to have him to herself. She flew around the fuzzy head of the visitor several times, but the features were too indistinct to tell who it was.

She flew up the stairs and into Angela's bedroom. The girl was evidently expecting her, for she was lying on her bed with several magazines open with what looked like pictures of Captain Bogey, her rock idol. Donna flew into her skull, and in no time at all she was in control of her body. She jumped off the bed and went down to the lounge.

The visitor turned out to be Clare. Mort was sitting opposite her, on the settee.

Donna had intended to flounce in with a witty comment or two, but she was all of a fluster with both her hearts fluttering madly – the faintly-sensed throbbing of her dolphin heart back in Crocodile Bay, and the pounding of Angela's heart as it pumped powerful hormones through her veins. For the first time in her life Donna was tongue-tied, and she silently sat down beside Mort on the settee and wished Angela's body would stop blushing. She'd heard of female dogs being on heat, but she hadn't appreciated that humans suffered similarly. Her cheeks were on fire.

Clare, sitting opposite, was eyeing her with some amusement. "You look flustered, Angela," she murmured. "Is it over some boy?"

Donna shot her a murderous glance. Clare knew perfectly well that she wasn't addressing Angela.

"That's right," Donna said, as calmly as she could. "Angela's been ogling some pictures of Captain Bogey. She has to do that to let me take her over."

"Donna!" Mort exclaimed. He grabbed her hand, which in the circumstances wasn't at all helpful. The fire in her cheeks spread down to her neck, and the palms of her hands became sweaty. It was most embarrassing.

"Don't tell me you like Captain Bogey too," Clare said silkily. "He must be quite something!"

Donna took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. If she could wipe out a shipload of aliens, then surely she could get the better of Clare.

"Captain Bogey?" She managed a careless shrug. "He's OK, I suppose, but he's not my type. I prefer someone with a tail and a couple of fins and a great big snout."

"Ah," Clare murmured. She glanced away, evidently deciding to let the matter rest.

Donna's blush receded, but she felt annoyed with Clare and wanted her revenge. A sarcastic remark she'd heard in a film recently had come to mind.

"You should have let me know you were coming, Clare. I would have so looked forward to meeting you again. Sadly, you've deprived me of that pleasure."

"God, you're worse than Dawn," Clare muttered. "Well, if you must know, I came to congratulate you. And to thank you."

"Oh. I see." Donna stared at her, quite taken aback. "I don't know what to say, Clare. Except that it's really nice of you."

"Yeah, well don't get carried away. I'm coming on the orders of Dr Song, and it's her congratulations and thanks I'm delivering. Me, I just hate your guts."

Donna grinned. She understood the humour behind that remark. "Thanks anyway."

"I didn't see what happened – I'd abandoned the spirit detector to look after Karen – but I understand you and Dawn managed to wipe out the aliens and their ship."

"Something like that," Donna agreed. Although Dawn had told her that Clare had seen nothing of her fire, it was relief to have this confirmed.

"I should tell you that it's been decided, at the highest level, to keep the whole affair secret. The world will never know that we've been invaded by aliens, or that you and Dawn saved us. So I'm afraid this is all the thanks you're likely to get."

"Not quite _all_ the thanks," Mort announced. "I've made you a fish pie." He took her hand and stood up. "Come on, let's go and eat."

When they reached the dining room Donna let out a gasp. Most of the table was occupied by a magnificent floral display. A mass of red flowers had been arranged on a wire frame in the shape of a dolphin, floating on a sea of blue with yellow flowers in the front representing a beach. It was the most amazing sight, and for the second time that evening she was lost for words.

Mort put his arm round her shoulder and squeezed. "It's to thank you. For everything."

"I told him you would prefer a few fish heads stuck in a vase," Clare said. "But he wouldn't have it."

Donna burst out laughing. If Clare hadn't said that, she would probably have burst out crying. She had never been so overwhelmed with emotion.

"Nobody's ever given me flowers before," she said, trying to keep back her tears. "In fact nobody's ever given me anything. It's wonderful, Mort, I think it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Apart from beating you at Monopoly, of course."

He smiled. "You _do_ like flowers, then? I wasn't sure."

"Of course I like them, you silly thing. I've got a human brain. They're really, really lovely. Thank you, Mort, this is something I'll never forget."

Clare groaned. "Can't we get back to trading insults? You're putting me off my food."

"Ah yes, food," Mort murmured. "The fish pie is in the oven. I'll get it."

"I'm coming too," Donna said, jumping up. "You know I like to help in the kitchen. I'll bring the plates – I hope you've got them warming. And I hope you've remembered I'm very partial to parsley sauce. You must let me have your fish pie recipe, by the way, 'cos I'm thinking of running some cookery classes. Classes for dolphins, of course, not humans."

Clare was staring at her with a bemused expression and shaking her head slowly. It was a gesture she'd seen on TV, and it implied that Clare thought she was mad. But why would she think that? There was nothing at all crazy about wanting to help in the kitchen, or about liking parsley sauce, or indeed about running cookery classes, even if she was a dolphin. Why Clare, or any other human for that matter, should think her crazy was beyond her.

Clare left about an hour later, leaving Mort and Donna to visit Karen in hospital. That was the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where Angela had been kept, and it was only a short drive from Mort's house. As they walked along the long corridor to Karen's ward they bumped into a couple of nurses who Donna recognized.

"You're looking really great, Angela," one of them said, giving her a hug.

"Have you got a boyfriend, yet?" asked the other.

"Mort's the only man in my life. I can't cope with any more."

"Why ever not? You could all play Monopoly together. That would be really fun." The two nurses exchanged glances and giggled. Angela and Mort's Monopoly games in hospital had been the source of considerable amusement.

Donna frowned. "I don't think that would be much fun at all. Additional players would severely reduce my chances of winning."

"She hates losing," Mort told them. "She sulks."

"I don't sulk! Anyway, I hardly ever lose, so you wouldn't know."

"You two are always bickering," the first nurse said, laughing. "Like an old married couple."

"We're not like that at all," Donna retorted. "We never bicker, we tease. That's quite different. It's what young couples do. I've seen it on television."

"How do you put up with her, Mr Lane? We wondered what had hit us when we had to look after her here."

Donna slipped her hand into Mort's and looked up at him anxiously. "You enjoy having me, don't you, Mort?"

He squeezed her hand. "Of course I do."

She turned triumphantly to the two nurses. "There you are! We don't bicker."

They burst out laughing and continued on their way.

"Did I say something funny?" she asked Mort.

"I don't think so. I thought you were the model of sobriety."

"So why did they laugh?"

"I expect because Angela's my daughter. Father and daughter don't normally behave like this together."

"And the dissonance amused them." She walked on in silence for a while, her arm linked in his. "I can see I've got a lot to learn about human social interactions."

He patted her hand reassuringly. "You do pretty well. For a dolphin."

"But I'm not good enough. I want to do it perfectly. I hate it when people look at me like I'm crazy or laugh when I haven't said anything funny."

"I like you exactly as you are, Donna."

"Really? Even when I sulk? Not that I do sulk, of course."

"Even when you sulk. Not that you have ever sulked, of course."

"We're here," she announced, pointing at the sign above the large doorway. "Karen's ward."

Karen was by herself in a small side room. Donna guessed that Clare had arranged that, to prevent anything that was said from being overheard. She was sitting up in bed leafing through a fashion magazine when they walked in, and she gave them a wan smile.

"I wasn't expecting a visit from you two." Her voice was little more than a whisper.

Mort sat down on a chair by her bed and smiled encouragingly at her. "Why not, Karen?"

Karen glanced guiltily at Donna. "Because of Angela. You must hate me for that – letting her rot in neurospace for all those years."

"Of course I don't hate you. Things are working out pretty well, on the whole. Why don't we let bygones be bygones?"

Karen's eyes filled with tears. "I really would like that, Mort. I want to put my past behind me and start again. With you and Angela and Dawn and everyone else."

"And with John Anderson and the Watchers?" Donna asked.

Karen clutched at the sheet and started twisting it nervously. "I'm finished with them. I don't want to see them ever again. Fortunately Clare brought me in here, and she promised she wouldn't tell them where I am. She told me she was able to keep my presence here secret." She glanced up at Mort. "So how did you know I was here?"

"She told us. She asked us to visit you."

"Oh. She promised she would arrange for Donna to come."

Mort smiled. "Donna's here, Karen. In Angela's body."

Karen stared at her blankly. "What?"

Donna took her hand. "Forget what I look like, Karen. Close your eyes if you like. I'm Donna."

"But you can't be. Your voice ... it's Angela's."

"Of course it is. I've got to use Angela's vocal chords. How did you think I would be able to visit you? In my dolphin body, in a fish tank?"

"I didn't know. I thought maybe in Dawn's body. You looked like Dawn, when we were at the temple in Eden."

Donna laughed. "In real life I look more like a whale. Forget appearances, Karen."

"Yes. Of course. I'm still a bit confused, I'm afraid."

"You suffered some damage to your mind, Karen," Donna told her gently. "It happened when I exorcized the aliens who had invaded you. Do you remember that?"

"I remember. You turned into a dragon, and there was a lot of fire. You burned him up, and then you set me free and picked me up and cuddled me and then I was in charge of my body again."

Tears filled her eyes again, and she grabbed a tissue from a box by her bedside and blew her nose. Remembering how Clare had put her arms round Karen yesterday, Donna leaned over and did the same. Karen buried her head in her chest and held on to her tightly, and she stroked Karen's shoulders. A slight dampness started to seep through Angela's top.

Not that Donna was in the least concerned about a few tears dripping onto her. She was used to gallons of the stuff. She was more worried about what might be going through Mort's mind, now that Karen had let slip that she was able to turn into a dragon and slay her enemies with fire. If was bad enough if your girlfriend turned out to be a werewolf, but this...

"John would have let me die ... or worse," Karen was saying through her tears. "But you saved me. Thank you so much, Donna. I'm so sorry I was so horrible to you and to Angela and to everyone else. It all seemed OK at the time, but now I realise ... Something's changed in me, it's not just my memories, it's something else. I never want to go back to how I was."

"Some of your neurons got burned up when I destroyed the creature that had possessed you. I'm really sorry about that." Donna wasn't actually sure that any neurons had been destroyed, but she supposed that since love-goddess fire could influence the physical brain to make it produce the chemicals of love, so war-goddess fire could also affect it in an adverse way.

"The brain's able to repair itself," she continued, trying to strike a cheerful note. "So you should get better pretty soon. Though if any of your memories have been lost, they'll never be recovered. I guess that means you may have suffered some slight personality changes that won't be reversed."

"I don't mind that," Karen said, releasing Donna and leaning back against her pillow. "In fact I'm glad. It means I can make a fresh start."

Donna sat back in her chair and surveyed Karen warily. Her eyes were still damp, but she seemed to have perked up slightly. "I'll do anything I can to help you, Karen, but you have to promise me something."

Karen dried her eyes with another tissue. "I'll do anything you say."

Donna paused for a moment, aware that Mort was sitting next to her and taking in every word.

"My dragon-fire is a great secret, and I want you to promise never to talk about it again. Not to anyone. If word got out, my life would be in danger. Do you understand, Karen?"

Karen nodded slowly. "You're afraid of what John might do."

"Not just him. There are others as well. It's not too difficult to kill a dolphin."

"I wasn't lying when I told you that John had no plans against you or your communal mind–"

"No plans that you know about. Do you believe he told you everything? Or that he told you the truth? You trusted him, and you almost paid with your life. Do you still trust him, Karen?"

"No, I suppose I don't. Anyway, I promise I won't say anything. You can go into my mind and erase my memories of what happened, if you like. The less I know the better."

"I've damaged you enough already. I gather they've given you some tests. Have you had the results?"

Karen nodded. "Mostly I'm OK, I think."

"That's a relief. What did they find?"

"Well, they told me my language and reasoning skills are fine, but they said something about peripheral memory impairment and coordination problems. But I won't need a wheelchair or anything like that. I'm on medication for shock and trauma, and they say that provided I take things easy for a while and continue taking my tablets I'll be OK. I can go home tomorrow, they said."

"Tomorrow? That's really great!"

Karen's face crumpled, and her eyes became damp once more. "I'm frightened, Donna. I don't want to be by myself."

Donna touched her arm sympathetically. "I'm not surprised. You've had a terrifying ordeal."

"It's not just that. The Watchers will come calling – they'll expect me back – but I don't want to see them again. Or John might come. He's got this power over me, I can't explain it. It's something about his eyes, they seem to reach right into me. If I go back to my apartment..." She looked at Donna appealingly.

Donna recalled what Dawn had told her about Anderson's piercing eyes. Even she had found them unnerving. "Don't you have any family to stay with?"

Karen hesitated. "There's Rick. He's my cousin. I was hoping that perhaps ... I might come to Honiara. I'd be safe there."

Donna gasped. "To stay with Rick and Dawn?"

"Please, Donna, you could arrange it. I could visit you every day in Crocodile Bay."

Donna looked at her doubtfully. "I don't know ... I suppose it would be OK for a couple of weeks. But they're very busy people, and they like their privacy."

"What about your job, Karen?" Mort asked her. "You don't want to lose that. Isn't there someone in Adelaide you could stay with?"

"My job? I don't know whether I could ever ... do my job again. My mind's so messed up... I don't know if I could handle all those people."

"You'll recover, though. Anything you've forgotten you can learn again. You could work in a junior role for a while."

"I suppose I could. But who would I stay with? There's no one here I would feel comfortable with. Or safe."

"Would you feel safe in my house?"

Karen gaped. "Stay with you?"

"I've got plenty of room, and I know Angela would appreciate having someone around. She gets a bit lonely. And Donna could visit us sometimes, like now. Couldn't you, Donna?"

Donna's heart leapt. "Of course I could, Mort! Lots of times. I think it's a great idea."

Karen stared from one to the other. "Are you sure that would be OK? What about your reputation – a strange woman living in your house?"

"Don't worry about that. It would probably enhance my reputation. You're an attractive female, after all."

Karen gazed up at him for several seconds. "You won't be getting any ideas, will you, Mort? There can never be anything between us."

Mort looked a little embarrassed. "Uh, I understand that. Clare's told me ... about you. And how about you, Karen? I hope you won't be getting any ideas. Angela wants – and needs – a boyfriend."

It was Karen's turn to be embarrassed, and she glanced away. "Don't worry, Mort. I don't want any ... relationships. Not for a while, at any rate. I promise."

Mort looked relieved. "In that case, you're more than welcome to stay with us," he said heartily. "I'll make arrangements to collect you tomorrow." He frowned. "Tomorrow's Friday, I'm tied up in meetings all morning. But I should be able to pick you up mid-afternoon. Is that OK?"

Karen nodded, wiping away another tear. "You're so kind. Both of you are so kind. I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't worry about that," Donna told her. She was desperately trying to hide the huge elation she was feeling at the way things were working out. "I'll arrange to visit tomorrow evening."

"Would you, Donna? To help me settle in? I'd really appreciate that."

"Donna makes a good guardian angel, doesn't she, Karen?" Mort said brightly. "I'm sure we'll all get on very well – provided you let her win at Monopoly, of course."

A little later, as they walked out of the hospital into the night and headed towards the car park, Mort asked: "Aren't you going to tell me what you did to the aliens, Donna? I asked Clare earlier, but she didn't know much. It must have something to do with that fire you were talking about."

Donna took a deep breath. The moment to reveal all had come. "I wanted to tell you earlier, Mort, but people kept getting in the way – first Clare, then those nurses, then Karen. We haven't had a moment to ourselves."

He glanced at her with an odd expression. "You sound just like Sally. That's what she used to say, and in exactly that voice. Angela talks like her, you know."

Donna glanced at him blankly, then remembered that Sally was the name of his late wife. "I'm sorry I remind you of her, Mort. Does it make you sad, remembering?"

"No, I've got over it now. You've helped me a lot. I guess you're as much my guardian angel as Karen's and Angela's."

He took her hand and squeezed it, and she blushed a little. He obviously liked the thought of having her as his guardian angel, and she very much liked that idea too.

"I'm not that much of a hero, Mort," she said shyly. "In spite of what Clare says."

"For Clare to admit that you're a hero, you must be an absolute superstar!"

She smiled at him, and then without more ado launched into her explanation. "When I told you I was a guardian angel, it was kind of true. Part of me was born in the stars, Mort. I'm more than dolphin, and Dawn's more than human. We've both got dragon blood in us. Something from the heavens entered us at our conception. I know that sounds crazy, and I don't really understand it, but it's true. It's because of what I am that I was able to defeat those alien invaders. I come from some kind of master race from..." she waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the bright orb of the moon overhead "... way out there."

He was silent for a moment, digesting her words. "You're a dolphin with a human brain, you've got dragon blood from the stars, and at this moment you're inhabiting the body of my daughter. I can't imagine anything more crazy than that. You say it's true, but how can you be sure? Have you met any other dragons?"

"No, apart from Dawn. She deduced everything from her own experiences. She even figured out how to pass her dragon blood onto me, at my conception. It's an amazing story, and I'll tell you about it one day."

"Everything about you and Dawn and everything else that's happened in the last few weeks has been amazing, so in a strange kind of way what you're telling me now makes sense. It certainly explains why you two have such weird powers."

They reached the car, and they got into it in silence. Donna was on tenterhooks, wondering if what she'd told him would affect how he felt towards her. He'd called her powers 'weird', and they were certainly that. She wouldn't blame him if he thought she was a witch who travelled around on a broomstick.

"So although you act like an angel and you've got the body of a dolphin, you're actually a dragon," he muttered. "Is that what you're telling me?"

She nodded in the darkness. "But I'm only a dragon in neurospace. Dawn thinks that dragons only exist in neurospace. So don't worry, I'm not about to sprout claws and wings and gobble you up."

He grunted. "And because you're a dragon you've got this fire. The fire that destroyed the aliens and damaged Karen's brain."

"That's right. There's something truly miraculous – divine even – about my fire. In neurospace it destroys life, but in the physical world it creates life. It's what empowers those amazing kisses that floored Paul and Clare and anyone else that experiences them."

"Ah. I've wondered about those."

"Dawn calls them love-goddess kisses." She touched his hand. "You ought to try them sometime, Mort."

He squeezed her hand briefly, then gently pulled his hand away and started the motor. "Not while you're in my daughter's body, Donna."

"No," she sighed. "That would be most unwise."

They said nothing for a while as he concentrated on the difficult business of manoeuvring the vehicle out of the car park and through the maze of narrow hospital roads. He obviously felt he couldn't trust its automatic navigation systems.

When she had first travelled with him in his smart car she had quite fancied taking over the wheel, but she had come to realise that driving a car in Adelaide was much trickier than flying through neurospace. There was all that stopping and starting, and instead of being able to pass through walls and other obstacles you had to laboriously go round them.

"So dragons are real," he said finally. "All those legends from all over the world, they've got some basis in fact."

"They're even mentioned in the Bible," she said.

"But the Bible links them with Satan."

"Those were false dragons," she replied, repeating what Dawn had told her. "True dragons can breathe out fire, and none of the Bible dragons can do that. In the Bible fire belongs to God, not to Satan. True dragons are good, not evil."

"You must be seriously good to have saved the planet from those aliens!"

"I've been itching to tell you about that," she said proudly, and with great aplomb she spent the rest of the journey home recounting in graphic detail her conquest of the giant wasps. Mort was still coming to terms with the revelation that an essential part of the creature that he had come to love was a superbeing from the stars, and he let her prattle on, interjecting a few wows and goshes and other encouraging remarks, and she didn't finish until they arrived back home.

"I must teach you a new game," he said as they entered the house. "It's called Risk, and it's right up your street. You've got to slaughter your opponent's armies, take over continents, that kind of thing."

Her eyes lit up. "That sounds almost as good as zapping aliens. Let's play it now."

He glanced at his watch. "We won't have time. I'll make some hot chocolate – I want to talk some more."

She shrugged. "OK, if you think I'll like hot chocolate. I've never tried it."

"Angela adores it, and you're using her taste buds." He led her into the kitchen, and she made herself comfortable on a kitchen stool while he heated up the milk.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked.

He busied himself with the drinks before replying. "You're obviously extremely powerful and really important, Donna. And not just on this planet. You've told me that you belong to a kind of master race, and that your fire is supernatural. In fact you used the word _divine_."

"I hope you're not about to worship me, Mort. I should hate that. Anyway, Dawn's much more powerful than I am."

"That's not the impression I get. The thing is, if you're this incredibly powerful being, why are you so keen to visit me to help in the kitchen and play Monopoly and Scrabble and Risk and stuff like that? It's so incongruous. In fact, that's the weirdest thing of all!"

She stared at him blankly. "I don't see any contradiction in saving the planet and wanting to visit you. What do you expect me to do? Float around on a cloud contemplating my navel?"

"No, of course not. It's just that you should be sorting out global conflicts and performing miracles and healing the sick. Things like that."

"But I'm a dolphin! In any case, the only miracles I can perform are my amazing kisses, and when I offered to possess you to kick-start your love-life, you turned me down flat. You could have had all the women in the neighbourhood gasping at your feet and pleading for more. So it's _your_ fault I'm not going around performing miracles. And the result? You've got precisely nowhere. There's not a woman in sight!"

He smiled. "OK, I take your point. But it still baffles me why you, a dolphin with these amazing powers, should want to visit me, a middle-aged man? It's ridiculous. I really appreciate you coming, and I hated it the last time you left and it seemed so final, and, OK, I know you enjoy our little get-togethers too, but if you can't work a _real_ miracle and turn yourself into a woman, then there really isn't much point to it. It can never lead anywhere. Can it Donna?"

"No, Mort," she admitted sadly. "It can't."

She sipped her hot chocolate, but she was now too upset to pay any attention to its taste. He was right, of course. There really was no point trying to pursue a relationship with him. And although Angela had been very cooperative so far, before long she would have a boyfriend or two, and then the last thing she would want was to spend her evenings possessed by a spirit, even a spirit that could empower her kisses.

Suddenly she became aware of her dolphin body floating beneath the stars in Crocodile Bay. "I'm waking up, Mort," she wailed. "I don't want to go yet!"

He reached out and took her hand. "I don't want you to go either. You'll come tomorrow evening, won't you?"

"Of course I will. I promised Karen I'd help her settle in. I'll come at the usual time, to help with the dinner, and we'll play that new game of yours. And thanks again for the flowers, they were lovely."

"I wish you could take them with you."

"They wouldn't do at all well in the sea, I'm afraid."

She didn't catch his reply, for she was suddenly 2,000 miles away, floating under the stars in Crocodile Bay. Her only consolation was that Angela, who had so kindly let her borrow her body, would appreciate the cup of hot chocolate she'd left behind.

## Thirty Six

"Dad, your red-hot momma's back in town!" It was six o'clock the next evening, and Angela had just sensed Donna's presence.

She put down the carrot she was peeling. "I'd better leave this for Hotpants to finish!"

She stood up and headed for the door. She was going to her bedroom, where she'd left her magazines. As she left the kitchen she turned and blew her father a kiss.

"That's your only kiss for the night, Dad," she told him strictly. "Whatever you do, don't let her give you one of those love-goddess kisses. And remember, I'm aware of everything that's going on when she's in my body!"

A few minutes later Angela's body returned to the kitchen. "Hi Mort!"

Donna was trying to sound cheerful, though she had been feeling depressed all day. She knew that this could be her final visit here. Mort's brutally frank assessment of their relationship last night, that it could never lead anywhere, had thoroughly quenched the elation she'd felt at her victory over the aliens, and now the only thing of any consequence was the fact that she was forever trapped in her dolphin body, with no place in Mort's human home. She had been stupid to imagine that there could be any other outcome.

"Did you collect Karen from the hospital?" she asked.

He looked up from pan he was stirring and smiled. "I certainly did, a couple of hours ago. And a great pile of clothes from her apartment. She's resting in her room. She seems very tired. She's still suffering from shock, I think."

"I'm not surprised. Those aliens–"

"Best not to talk about them. I did, and she burst into tears. It took her quite a while to calm down."

"But she's all right apart from that?"

"Seems to be. She's certainly pleased to be here."

Donna felt a momentary stab of jealousy. Karen, who had brought so much heartache to this home, could simply walk in and stay, whereas she, the one who had rescued Angela and turned Mort's life around, was forever barred.

"Well, what can I do to help?" she asked. A few chores would at least keep her mind off her misery.

"Everything's done. Why don't you see if Karen's awake? She's dying to talk to you again. To reach her bedroom turn right down the hall–"

"No need to explain. Angela will show me."

"I suppose so. I gather that when you possess her, like now, she's aware of everything that's going on. She's even started calling you _Hotpants_!" He smirked.

Donna shot him a puzzled glance. "She must be referring to my hot dragon breath, when I pant out fire on my enemies. Quite a flattering nickname, don't you think?"

He resumed his stirring, and Donna had the distinct impression that he was trying not to laugh. "I suppose it is," he agreed. "It's certainly appropriate."

She frowned, realising that there must be something humorous about that name that had eluded her, then shrugged and went upstairs to Karen's room, following the visual cues that Angela kindly provided. Karen was indeed awake, though she was quite drowsy. She was almost pathetically pleased to see Donna again and insisted on sitting up in bed and hugging her.

"It's very strange, talking to you in Angela's body," Karen murmured as she released her. "I suppose I'll get used to it."

"I'm afraid you probably won't get used to it. I won't be coming here many more times."

Karen stared at her aghast. "Why not?"

"I can't expect Angela to keep giving up her evenings for me. She's a grown woman, she's devoting herself to her exercise regime and her lessons so she can get a life–"

"And soon she'll have a boyfriend etcetera etcetera." Karen lay back and gazed gloomily through the window. "And then Mort will look for someone else to share his life with, and _she_ certainly won't want me around."

"Neither of us will be welcome then, Karen."

Karen turned to her, and her eyes were again filled with tears. "I just wish, somehow, we could be together, you and I. I feel safe with you, Donna. Are you sure I couldn't stay with Rick and Dawn?"

"It could only be for a short while, a couple of weeks at the most. What you want is impossible, Karen. I'm a dolphin, you're a human, and there's nothing in this world that can change that."

"I know." Karen pulled out a tissue from the box by her bed and dabbed at her eyes.

Donna was so overcome that she had to grab a tissue too, and she smiled sadly through the wetness at Karen. "We'll be bawling our eyes out if we stay here. Dinner's almost ready, let's go downstairs."

She helped Karen up and into her shoes. "Have you seen the flowers Mort got for me?" she asked, trying to sound cheerful. "No? They're really gorgeous."

A few minutes later, when they entered the dining room, Donna saw that the marvellous flower arrangement that had adorned the table yesterday was still there. Karen went into raptures, and when Mort came in carrying a tray of food she insisted that he take some photographs with her and Donna sitting on each side of the display.

The meal started happily enough, but soon the conversation started to flag. Donna and Mort were both very aware that this might be their last meal together, and with Karen present it was impossible to express their feelings for each other. And as for Karen, while she was very grateful to be able to share Mort's home, she was weighed down with the knowledge that this arrangement could only be temporary.

But then, when the meal was almost over, Donna suddenly had an idea. It wasn't just an ordinary idea, it was a seriously good idea. In fact, it was an absolutely _brilliant_ idea. It was the mother of all brainwaves, yet it was so obvious that she wondered why she had never thought of it before. It was without doubt the best idea she had ever had.

She bucked up immediately. "That was a great meal, Mort," she said heartily. "One of the best. It certainly beats leaping into the air to catch raw fish being thrown out of a bucket!"

He smiled at her. "I'm glad you liked it."

"You excelled yourself. The food's great, the flowers are great, everything here is great. Don't you agree, Karen?"

"Why yes. It's all wonderful."

"I know you're really going to enjoy staying here, Karen," Donna continued. "The evenings are such fun – Mort's got loads of board games to play. Haven't you, Mort?"

He reached over and patted her hand. "I adore your enthusiasm for everything, Donna. But Karen's 30, she may not want to play Monopoly and Risk and games like that."

"Of course she will. You will, won't you, Karen?"

"I expect so," Karen answered doubtfully.

"And Mort's such a good cook. I really enjoy helping in the kitchen. It's great, messing around with pots and pans and mixing up gravy and all that. You'll enjoy that too, Karen."

Karen was looking a little dazed. "Will I? Oh, yes, of course I will."

"And Mort's got this really flash car. Oh, I forgot, you've already seen his car. You'll enjoy going shopping in that."

Karen perked up somewhat. "Yes. I'll like that."

"Everything's absolutely wonderful," Donna concluded, giving them both the sunniest of smiles. "We're going to be one big happy family together."

"Well, I'll clear everything away," Mort said, giving her an odd look. "Perhaps you and Karen would like to choose a game you'd both like to play."

"Sure thing, boss. We need to go to Karen's bedroom first, though. There's something rather important that she and I have to talk about."

It was about half-an-hour later that Karen walked into the lounge. She had made herself up with lipstick and eyeshadow, dabbed on her most expensive perfume, and put on her most glamorous dress. She walked over to the settee, sat down, and crossed her elegant legs. Mort put down his book and gazed at her open-mouthed, his eyes slowly taking in her hair and her lips and the curve of her breasts and finally, as if in a trance, resting on her legs.

She smiled back at him. "What's the matter, Mort?"

He came to with a start, and pulled his eyes back to her face. "Um, nothing. Where's Angela?"

"She's gone to bed. She was feeling tired."

His face fell. "Gone to bed? Has Donna left her?"

"About 15 minutes ago."

"Oh." He looked utterly forlorn. He picked up his book and stared down at it. "I thought she was going to spend the evening with us."

"Mort! Of course I'm spending the evening with you! Now stop messing about and let's play something."

"Donna!" He gaped at her, dropping his book on the floor and managing to look bemused, delighted, and doubtful all at the same time, or at least in very quick succession. It was so funny that she burst out laughing.

He laughed as well, though rather sheepishly. "Karen let you take her over?"

"It seemed the best thing in the circumstances," she explained when she'd managed to stop laughing. "We had a long talk and decided to share you."

"Share me?"

"It's a division of labour, you see. I'm going to play games with you in the evenings, 'cos I'm really good at that, and she's going to spend all your money during the day, 'cos that's what she's good at."

He stared at her for several seconds, digesting this information. "Does that mean ... you'll be taking over Karen's body on other evenings as well? Not just tonight?"

She surreptitiously adjusted her dress to reveal a little more of Karen's legs. She had the impression he liked looking at them. "Of course."

"You mean for several weeks?" He was struggling to grasp the full import of her words. "Karen has agreed to that?"

"Not several weeks, _loads_ of weeks. Hundreds of them in fact. Every night till death do us part. Assuming you can put up with me, that is. And Karen as well."

A broad smile crossed his face. "I guess I'll manage. I just hope I don't run out of money for Karen to spend."

"Don't worry about that. I've threatened to haunt her if she's too extravagant, and in any case she's hoping to go back to work as soon as she's recovered. You're getting a bargain, you realise – two women for the price of one."

She patted the empty place next to her on the settee. "Come and sit here, Mort. I've got this great game for us to play. You'll really like it."

He jumped up eagerly and sat beside her. "Your alien invasion game?"

"No, it's much better than that. Better than Monopoly even. It can be played by any species, not just humans. Dolphins, aliens, frogs, anyone can play it."

He laughed. "I can guess what _that_ game's called: 'Survival of the Fittest'. You'd really enjoy that, wouldn't you, wiping the board of every other species? The ultimate mass extinction."

"Hey, that's not a bad idea! It would make a great game. We could have Random Mutation cards, which give you extra claws, venomous stings, vicious horns, that kind of thing, and then there would be Cosmic Catastrophe cards – asteroids hitting the earth, global warming, stuff like that – which wipe out 90% of the population of your species. You throw a dice to determine the number of genetic changes you're allowed, and we'll design a board with different ecosystems so that you can move from one to another. The possibilities are endless. We'll have to work on it."

"It'll certainly give us something to do in those hundreds of evenings we'll be spending together. Anyway, back to tonight. What fate have you planned for me, if it's not Monopoly, Risk, Alien Invasion, or Mass Extinction?"

"Oh yes. Tonight. Well, the game I had in mind is one that I don't suppose you've played for a long time. It's called Mummies and Daddies."

Mort looked taken aback. "Um, no. I've not played that game for quite a while."

"Now, strictly speaking you're supposed to be married before you play Mummies and Daddies. But that rule only applies if you're a human, 'cos other species don't get married, they simply perform some kind of courtship ritual and then mate. So since I'm not human, I thought it was legitimate for us to play it. The people at your church could hardly frown on it, could they, seeing as I'm a dolphin. What do you think, Mort?"

"Seems reasonable." He had a rather dazed expression.

"Though since you're human, and since you're likely to want to play Mummies and Daddies on the hundreds and hundreds of other nights we'll be spending together, then you ought to put things on a proper footing by marrying me. Or rather me and Karen, since we're sharing this body."

"Yes. I suppose I did. Certainly." He seemed to have difficulty keeping up.

"Good. I'm glad that's settled. I'll leave you and Karen to sort out the wedding arrangements. Now, let me explain the game. There are three phases to it: the beginning, the middle, and the end."

His expression cleared. The game's simple logic offered a welcome oasis in an increasingly baffling world.

"That makes sense," he said. "You begin at the beginning and you end at the end and there's something in the middle."

"Exactly. The something in the middle is a dose of my super-duper ultra-spectacular love-goddess kisses. And you know what happened to Paul when I gave him one of those."

"It's etched on my memory. I feared for my daughter's innocence."

"I cut things short on that occasion, so nothing much happened. It'll be a different story tonight, though. You'll be consumed with bodice-ripping passion, leading in fairly short order to the end phase of the game. The trouble is, too much bodice-ripping can prove a very costly business. Karen is bound to want to buy replacements, and I hate to think what the price tag on a dress like this might be."

He ran his finger across the top of her dress, where it met the curve of her breasts. The momentous implications of Donna's babblings had finally hit home. "I'm sure you've got an ingenious solution," he said softly.

"That's the purpose of the beginning phase of the game. We avoid the problem completely by the simple expedient of removing the dress. You'll cope with that, won't you Mort?" He was stroking the top of her breasts now, and it was making her feel quite breathless.

"It shouldn't be beyond me," he murmured. "There's usually a zip down the back."

He moved his fingers across her bare shoulders and down her back. "Ah yes, here it is." He started to pull the zip gently downwards.

She leaned forward slightly to make it easier for him. "You humans are very strange, you know. I spent ages getting into this dress and making it look right, and almost immediately it's got to come off again. What's the sense in that?"

He ran his fingers slowly across her bare back, and she became aware that a number of interesting physiological changes were starting to take place in Karen's body.

"Wearing a dress like that tantalizes the human male," he murmured. "It makes him eager to find out what's beneath it."

"Really? Well, I hope you won't be disappointed by what you find. It'll be very difficult for me to get hold of another body if you are."

He glanced down at her, and she noticed that he was getting quite breathless too. "I don't think I'll be disappointed, Donna. Not in the least."

"Karen's body does seem to be remarkably well-proportioned, I must admit – for a human body, that is."

He smiled. "That's not the most important thing, you stupid dolphin. The most important thing is that it's got _you_ inside!"

Suddenly she was in his arms and he was kissing her cheeks and her eyes and her ears and her neck and her throat, and she was stroking his hair and his back. Then he placed his hands on her shoulders, pushed her gently away, and kissed her on the tip of her nose.

"I've never met anyone who talks as much as you," he declared, "and most of the time it's utter claptrap. I don't want to hear another word from you, young lady, not until the game's over. And this time _I'm_ going to sweep the board!"

"Yes, Mort," she murmured happily.

## Thirty Seven

The next time she saw Dawn was a couple of days later, on the Sunday morning after the temple service in Eden. She had gone back to her room and was sitting at the table working on her alien invasion game when Dawn walked in.

She jumped up to greet her visitor. "Hi Dawn! You must try these biscuits, I made them yesterday. They're great. Mort gave me the recipe."

Dawn smiled. "Practising for your cookery lessons?"

"I just wanted to make you something you'd like. To say thanks for everything."

"That's really nice of you, Donna. I'm touched." She took one and tried it. "This is really good!" She sounded rather surprised.

She made herself comfortable on the settee. "Isn't Clara joining us today?"

"She's gone down to the river with Jonah. I told her to, it's such a lovely day. They might as well make the most of it. They're so sweet together, it's lovely to see them." She skipped back to her stove and put on the kettle.

Dawn frowned and eyed her suspiciously. "How are Mort and Karen getting on? Rick told me you visited them yesterday evening as well as Friday."

"They're getting on really well. It's been a great success."

"That's a relief."

Donna busied herself with her tea-making, and Dawn noticed that she was humming to herself. She'd never heard her do that. "You seem full of the joys of spring."

Donna put down the cups and ran across the room to her and knelt down beside her. Her face was aglow. "I'm so excited, Dawn! Mort and I are getting married!"

Dawn stared at her in silence. Donna had thought she might fall over backwards at the news or have a fit or maybe even pass out, but she seemed too stunned to be able to show any emotion at all.

"Mort asked you to _marry_ him?" she managed at last.

"Actually, it was more that I told him he ought to marry me, and he agreed. With some enthusiasm, I might add."

"You told him he _ought_ to marry you?"

"Well yes. In view of what ... happened between us."

Dawn closed her eyes. She looked as if she was hoping this was all a bad dream and that if she waited long enough she would awaken in her old familiar world.

"Do you mean you ... and Mort ...?"

"Yes! Isn't it wonderful?"

"Wonderful? Good grief, it's terrible! Angela's his daughter!!!"

Donna burst out laughing. "Don't you understand? I take over Karen now."

"Oh. Of course." Dawn opened her eyes. "It's still terrible."

"Why? Karen's not _that_ much younger than Mort. 15 years younger, in fact. And he's very young for his years – especially after one of those love-goddess kisses. Wow!"

Dawn passed her hand over her brow. "Age is not the issue, Donna. It's your species. You're not even a primate, dammit! Dolphins can't possibly marry humans. It's ridiculous. In fact it's illegal."

"It's Karen who'll be marrying him, Silly. There's nothing ridiculous or illegal about that. She's human and female and single – an ideal combination if you're looking for a wife."

"But ... but she's a lesbian!"

"You still don't get it, do you? The plan is that I'll take over her body every night, so it's me that's making love to him. You'll tell Rick to give me those drugs every night so that I can do that, won't you, Dawn? The future happiness of Mort and Karen and me depends upon it. Here, have another biscuit. I made them specially for you."

"And Karen's happy with this arrangement?" Dawn was still struggling to get to grips with the situation.

"Perfectly happy. Tell you what, why don't you visit us tonight? I'm sure Angela wouldn't mind you borrowing her body. Come early, before I arrive to take over Karen, to give yourself time to chat with her. Talk to Mort as well if you like."

"I think I'd better. I wanted to talk to Karen anyway, to pick her brains about John Anderson."

"Good idea. But you won't stay too late, will you?"

"Don't worry, I won't interfere with your marriage training."

"Thanks, I really appreciate that." Donna jumped up. "I'll make you a nice cup of tea. And have another biscuit. Have all of them."

She resumed her tea-making, then hesitated and glanced rather diffidently at her visitor. "Um, while we're on the subject of marriage training, would you mind taking over Karen's body one night? I'd be there in the background, of course, taking notes. The thing is, you're such an expert, and I'm sure both Mort and I would benefit greatly from ... you won't? What about taking over Mort, then? OK, OK, I was only asking..."

Karen was resting on her bed when Donna took possession of her at around six o'clock that evening. Angela was nowhere in sight, and she presumed that Dawn must already have had her talk with Karen. She got up, changed into a really slinky little number, then had second thoughts and put on a much more modest skirt and top. Any slinkiness could await Dawn's departure.

She found Angela a few minutes later sitting with Mort in the lounge. "Hi Mort. Hi ... is it Dawn?"

Mort smiled at her, and Angela's head nodded. She was looking very serious, Donna noticed, and her heart sank. "Is anything the matter?"

"Yes," Dawn said grimly, speaking though Angela's vocal chords with her Australian accent. "I've been talking to Karen."

Donna gasped, and she dropped into a chair. Her heart had descended like a dead weight into the pit of her stomach, and she felt slightly sick. "She's changed her mind, hasn't she? About Mort and me. She doesn't want for us to get married."

"Oh, she's more than happy about that. Everyone is more than happy about that. Including Angela." Dawn permitted a small smile to cross Angela's face. "Hotpants is the hero of the hour, it seems."

Donna breathed again, and her heart picked itself up and did a little dance. "So what's up?"

"John Anderson, that's what's up."

"Oh, _him!_ Why don't we simply invade his fat head and burn his brains out?"

"It hasn't come to that yet. Karen reckons that one of the first things Anderson will want to do is visit that telescope and check Baby's memories. Of the invasion."

Donna shrugged. "So what? They'll only show the ship landing and the aliens emerging."

"Maybe they will only show that, and maybe they won't. Baby was lying in the grass while Clare attended to Karen, and Anderson was occupied with injecting the Watchers with that wake-up drug. Her lens might have been pointing at the battle – in which case she would have recorded you flying through the air and pouring out fire on the ship and everything else as well, including my own dragon fire, and then he'll know there were _two_ dragons. Simple deduction will tell him the rest."

Donna nodded. "He'll figure out that I'm as powerful as you, and then he might take steps to neutralize me. And possibly you as well."

"Exactly. I've phoned Clare, and she told me that she carried Baby in her bag on the journey home, and that Anderson never got near her. And Paul has confirmed that Anderson hasn't contacted him since then to visit the telescope."

"So no one's looked at Baby's memories?"

"Not yet, so far as we know. I've arranged for us to go there this evening to check them – and to erase them if necessary. We've been waiting for you to get here."

Mort stood up and fished his car keys out of his pocket and rattled them. "I want to see your heroic antics for myself. To find out if you're as hot when you're flying through the air as you are when you're writhing beneath the sheets. Come on, Hotpants, let's burn some rubber!"

She jumped up and took his hand. "Have you fixed the wedding date yet?" she whispered. "I'm starting to worry that Karen might change her mind."

"I arranged it with the vicar at church this morning. It's in four weeks' time."

She threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. "I love you, Mort," she squealed.

He squeezed her to him and kissed her fondly on the tip of the nose. He seemed to like to do that when he was in a playful mood. "I don't know why you're worried about Karen. She's settling in really well. She was prayed for at church this morning, and that seemed to do her no end of good, and the vicar talked to her for ages afterwards–"

"Just so long as he doesn't get any ideas!"

"Don't worry, she'll be a respectable married woman soon."

"Huh! I know what you humans are like. Even vicars. I watch TV too, you know."

"As you've pointed out before, you have ways of making her toe the line. Like haunting her. Anyway, as I said, she seems really happy with the way things are going. In fact she actually kissed me on the cheek earlier. I quite forgot myself and patted her on the bottom, but she didn't seem to mind. I know she's supposed to be a lesbian, but I get the impression she rather enjoys you taking her over. I think it's those red-hot kisses of yours – she's mentioned them several times."

"Good heavens! So when we make love–"

"Come on, you two lovebirds!" Dawn growled behind them. "Let's get moving."

They reached the SETI site in the Mount Lofty range about 40 minutes later, by which time the sun was sinking towards the hills in the west. The guard at the gate was expecting them and waved them through, and when they pulled up in the parking space by the red building between the two domed observatories both Clare and Paul were there to greet them.

They didn't look at all happy at being dragged out on a Sunday evening, and no doubt they were very puzzled as to why Dawn was so agitated about what the spirit detector might reveal. Dawn had reminded Mort to say nothing to them about Donna's fire.

Clare eyed Karen suspiciously when she stepped out of the car. Donna favoured her with a broad smile. "Guess who's sitting in my body?"

Clare groaned. "I might have guessed. And it'll be Dawn in Angela's body, I presume."

"Naturally."

"The two ugly sisters, fawning over Prince Charming Mort."

Donna glowered at her. "We're not ugly! Are we, Mort?"

"You're certainly not. You're my two gorgeous Cinderellas."

She turned triumphantly to Clare. "You see?"

"Yeah, I see. Come on, Cinderella, let's get this ball over with before it's bloody midnight and we all turn into pumpkins."

Dawn and Donna exchanged glances. Clare and Paul evidently intended to view Baby's memories too.

They entered the red building and descended the dimly-lit spiral staircase to the underground tunnel housing the optics for combining the images from the two telescopes. It was then just a short distance along the tunnel to where the combining optics were housed. There was Baby, bolted to the metal framework immediately below the optics, her lens pointed at the mirror that reflected the combined image. They all stepped onto the low platform and crowded round Baby's screen, which was glowing faintly in the darkness.

The fuzzy images of stars were moving across it as the twin telescopes slowly tracked their zigzag route through the Milky Way, searching for invaders from across the galaxy. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack – though if a neurospace object did appear in the path of the telescopes, Baby would spot it immediately.

"You'd better take charge," Paul muttered to Dawn. "I still can't get the hang of your crap menu system."

"OK." Angela's body pushed forward and pressed the buttons on the top of Baby's casing. Dawn was very glad that Paul found the menus confusing, for it meant that Baby's memories were a little more secure. This time she didn't attempt to explain to him what she was doing. A date and time appeared at the bottom of the screen, and then the screen went blank as she rapidly tracked back a few days and hours, to the moment when the invasion began.

Baby's screen turned blue, and there was a bright point of light in the centre of it. They watched in fascinated silence as the point grew in size to become a small golden disc and then a very large flying saucer. It was difficult to see it clearly, because it was jiggling around the screen – Clare had been holding Baby, and her hands were evidently shaking. They saw the ship landing and the ramp open up, and then the golden pentagonal portal slide down it. Dawn paused the playback, and briefly reminded them of the purpose of such a structure, pointing out that this one was similar to the portals used by COBRA.

"As you know, it's a kind of teleportation device for spirits. Karen's spirit went into it, together with two of the aliens, and she and they were immediately transported into her body. The COBRA portal was used slightly differently, to transport the COBRA members to their ship. That's how their rapture experiences worked."

Dawn pressed a button and the playback resumed, and they saw the giant wasps walk down the ramp. On the small screen they looked far less menacing than in real-life, but even so Karen's body reacted in a most disconcerting way, and Donna found herself starting to panic. Her pulse rate increased dramatically and her stomach started to churn. She imagined Karen's spirit sitting in the cathedral of her mind, observing everything in that stained-glass window. Her traumatic reaction to what she was seeing was so strong that it triggered her brain's fear response, despite Donna's spirit being in control.

"I'd better leave," Donna grunted. "Karen's body is reacting violently. I think I'm going to be sick."

Clare gave her a sympathetic glance and moved aside. Donna pushed past and sat down on the edge of the low platform and stared along the dimly-lit tunnel and hoped that the nausea would die down. However, the darkness did nothing to soothe Karen's tormented spirit, and Donna wondered what she could do to help.

There was one thing she could do, she supposed. She cast her mind back 48 hours, to that moment when she was lying naked in Mort's arms and about to deliver that first sensational love-goddess kiss. Their lips touched and seemed to merge together, and for a timeless instant it was as if all the energies in the universe were focussed in that merging, and fire boiled through her body as fiercely as the dragon-fire that had erupted within her at the battle of the aliens.

And as she relived that moment of incandescent passion, Karen's agitation died away, and Donna felt in its place a warm contented glow and a feeling of great love for her. And she knew then that Karen would forever want her guardian angel to come upon her each night and, in her body, make love to Mort.

"Donna!" It was Angela's voice, calling out from the shadows. "Are you OK? You'd better see this."

"Coming!" She jumped up onto the low platform and pushing past the others to peer at Baby's glowing screen. The jerkiness that had marred the picture earlier had gone, and Donna realised that Baby was now lying on the ground, where Clare had dropped her in her haste to get to Karen. By chance Baby's lens was pointing almost directly at the alien ship, and a red dragon – Donna – was swooping over it, raking it with a fierce blast of fire.

"I've told them that the dragon's you," Angela's voice whispered in her ear. Donna glanced at Clare and Paul, wondering how they were reacting. They were staring spellbound at the screen. It was now showing the dragon pulling out of her dive. Now she was flapping her wings madly as she climbed high above the ship, chased by dozens of the wasps. Reaching the top of her climb, she turned and hurled herself back down, fire blazing from her jaws, and cut a swath of destruction through the aliens to attack the ship again.

They watched as her second line of fire crossed the first, quartering the ship so that its upper surface peeled away to reveal the enormous distended body of the alien queen. Above it the red dragon was throwing out fire at a swarm of wasps that were attacking her. They watched as the dragon fought her way through the swarm to rain down fire on the queen, and then they saw the second dragon – Dawn – join her, to spit more fire on the aliens.

Then they saw a number of wasps break away from the rest and stream towards the golden portal. Moments later the first dragon plunged down towards them, but the wasps had a head start, and by the time she reached the portal two of them had made it inside. They saw the second dragon swoop down and pour out fire on the other wasps, and after that the sudden disappearance of the portal. Dawn paused the playback at that point. Donna had explained the implications of that event to her that morning in Eden.

"I was too slow," Donna murmured apologetically. "Those two aliens escaped."

"Slow?" Mort gave a short laugh. "I hardly think so. You were lightning fast!"

"The trouble is, they've almost certainly been returned to their bodies on their home planet, and told all their little friends what happened. Before we know it, we'll have another flying saucer on our hands."

"I don't think so," Dawn declared. "They won't be back, I'll tell you why. When I started to attack them, they knew exactly how to get the better of me. They had obviously fought dragons before. They came to Earth expecting it to be controlled by COBRA, instead they found dragons. That was a complete surprise. They know now that all their preparations have been thwarted, and that they can't possibly overcome us, at least not without a very costly fight."

"I think perhaps you're right," Donna said, and she told them how the portal had disappeared the moment she touched it. "It was like it was programmed to recognise dragons. They know all about us, and they're frightened."

"Let's hope so," Clare muttered in the darkness. "We'll know soon enough. If in a few days' time we see more ships heading towards us, we'll know we're in for it."

No one had any reply to that, and Dawn resumed the playback. They watched as Dawn destroyed the remaining aliens, and then they saw the ship wink out of existence. When it was over Dawn said: "I'm going to have to wipe that battle scene. John Anderson and the Watchers must never learn of Donna's power. It would be so easy for them to kill her dolphin body."

Nobody disagreed, and in a very short while all record of Donna's great victory was erased forever, and the fuzzy images of stars were once more moving across Baby's screen.

Mort put his arm round Donna's shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. "You were amazing," he murmured. Clare and Paul evidently thought so too, for there was a noticeable absence of any cutting remarks from Clare, and Paul was eyeing her with something approaching respect.

"The next job," Dawn announced, turning to Paul and Clare, "is to decide what we're going to do about you two, now that you've discovered the truth about Donna."

They stared at her in alarm. "What do you mean?" Paul's voice, Donna noticed, had a slightly higher pitch than usual.

"I really ought to wipe out your memories of this evening," Dawn told him. Although she was speaking with Angela's vocal chords, she had managed to inject a hard edge to her voice. "The trouble is, wiping out memories is a rather hit and miss affair, and I'd do quite a bit of damage to your brain. You know what happened to Karen, and Donna was trying _not_ to harm her. You'd probably spend the rest of your days in a psychiatric institution. It might be more humane to kill you."

"If you're afraid we might reveal anything–" The pitch of Paul's voice had gone higher still.

"That's precisely what I am afraid of."

"I promise I'll say nothing. Why should I say anything? I can keep a secret as well as anyone."

"Well... If you really can keep a secret, Paul. Of course, if any of this leaks out, and I find that you're responsible–"

"Don't worry. I won't say a word."

"And what about you, Clare?"

"It's my duty to tell Dr Song," Clare replied coldly. "Everything." She obviously wasn't at all fazed by Dawn's threats, and Donna wondered if she was carrying a gun.

"And who will Dr Song tell?"

Clare shrugged. "No one. So far as I know."

"Very well. But impress on her the need for absolute secrecy. Donna is one of this planet's most precious resources, and she must be protected at all costs."

"Of course."

Donna stared from one to the other in the half-light. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. She, a dolphin, was one of Earth's most precious resources? But Dawn seemed completely serious, and Clare certainly wasn't arguing the point. It made her feel very proud, but also rather worried. Being as important as that could have all kinds of unforeseen repercussions.

She moved closer to Mort and slipped her hand in his. "Do you mind?" she whispered. "Me being one of Earth's most precious resources, I mean?"

He glanced down at her in surprise. "You've always been that to me, my precious. Ever since that first day, when you told me you were a guardian angel and very powerful. I knew then that you would be quite a handful."

"You don't feel daunted by me or anything like that?"

"Of course not. To me you're just a very unusual and very lovable young lady who likes cooking and playing games and teasing and cuddling up to me. I think you're adorable."

Clare and Paul were staring at them with expressions of total bemusement. Clare, for once, seemed lost for words.

"It's all right," Dawn told them, "I haven't pickled your brains and you're not hallucinating, this is real. Believe it or not, they're getting married!"

"Heaven help us," Clare gasped. "Next we'll be hearing the patter of tiny fins, and then your precious resources will be bloody everywhere!"

Donna was about to explain, somewhat indignantly, the precise nature of her relationship with Mort when the strident noise of an alarm reverberated around the chamber. It almost made her jump out of Karen's skin. "What on earth's that?" she cried.

"It's the spirit detector – I've hooked it up to our alarm system," Paul shouted above the din. "It's spotted something!"

They all turned to the screen. Sure enough a bright, clear point of light was moving across it. Dawn stabbed at the buttons on the top of Baby's casing and the noise stopped. "It's another spaceship," she whispered. "Those wasps are coming back!"

Paul fiddled with a control panel at the side of the optics above Baby, and the point of light stopped moving across the screen. Donna realised he had locked the twin telescopes onto that tiny patch of sky.

Dawn immediately zoomed the image, and the fuzzy points of light that were the stars moved outwards beyond the edges of the screen. The bright point of light at the centre widened and then split into two, and as she increased the magnification it split into several more, and by the time she reached maximum zoom and the image had started to pixellate there were perhaps a dozen bright points spread over the central part of the screen.

"That can't be a ship," Mort exclaimed.

It was Clare who stated the obvious. "It's a bloody armada!"

## Thirty Eight

By the time they left the underground tunnel and emerged onto the surface it was about 8.30 and night had fallen. As no one had eaten, they decided to drop in at a restaurant in town. Paul and Clare led the way in Paul's car, and half an hour later they were sitting around a table in a secluded alcove. It was not the restaurant from which Paul and Clare had been so unceremoniously ejected a couple of weeks ago, Donna noted.

By now Donna was quite at home with human dining rituals, and she wasn't at all fazed by the array of cutlery laid out neatly in front of her nor the wine glasses nearby. She didn't even glare at the waiter when he opened out the neatly-folded napkins and placed them on their laps, presumably because he considered his guests incapable of performing that simple operation for themselves.

Mort, sitting opposite her, was perusing the menu. "I presume you fancy fish, my dear?"

"No, I've decided to be more adventurous. I'm likely to be around for another 30 years – assuming those aliens don't wipe us out – so I ought to get used to other food."

"Good idea." He turned the page. "You've got plenty to choose from here."

"I think I'll have wasps," she said without bothering to look at the choices. "That seems appropriate in the circumstances. No, I think I'll have bees, they look juicier. Do they do fried bees?"

"I'm afraid they don't. Humans in western societies don't normally eat wasps or bees or any kind of insects."

"How extraordinary! I thought all omnivores ate insects. Well, that's something we'll have to put right. We'll open the first insect restaurant in town, Mort. We'll make a fortune. You've got a big garden for all those beehives, and we'll use some of those spare rooms in your house to breed–"

"Donna!" Dawn hissed. "Choose something. Or shall I choose for you?"

"OK, I'll have a bird. I know humans eat birds. Seagull will do. I've always wanted to try seagulls, but I could never catch one. Though I did get a cormorant once, when it was diving for fish..."

"For heaven's sake!" Paul growled, throwing his menu down in disgust. "Doesn't she ever stop? She's putting me off my food! Look, civilized people don't eat that kind of thing. Order duck for her."

Donna scowled at him. "You are obviously unaware of the derivation of 'omnivore', Dr Gibson. Or if you are, you interpret 'omni' in a very restrictive way. The Romans, who were very civilized and who gave us the word, certainly understood it correctly. They had no qualms whatsoever about eating seagulls and bees–"

"You've made your point, Donna," Clare said tiredly. "This is supposed to be a war meeting, not a Latin lesson. Now let's order our food so we can get down to business."

A few minutes later, when the waiter had taken their order, Clare asked the question that was uppermost on everyone's mind – everyone, that is, apart from Donna, who was now rubbing her ankle against Mort's leg under the table and wondering if lobster, which he had chosen, was an aphrodisiac.

"So what are we going to do? There must be enough of those damn aliens heading our way to keep Donna's insect restaurant supplied for the next thousand years."

"Except they exist only in neurospace," Dawn pointed out. "They're spirits, on spirit journeys. They can't bomb Earth or anything like that."

"They can possess people. Like they possessed Karen. And if they chose the right people they could take over the world."

"Their victims would have to allow them in," Dawn pointed out. "Spirits can't just march into someone's mind and take them over."

"Donna took me over easily enough, on my first date with Paul," Clare muttered. "All that was needed was some trickery on your part."

"You're assuming that what we're facing is more of those giant wasps. These aliens might be from other planets. They might be benign."

Clare smiled grimly. "They might be – but I doubt it. We have to prepare for the worst, you know that as well as I do. So, we assume they're hostile. What do we do?"

Dawn shrugged. "It's obvious. Donna and I fly into space and intercept their ships and blast them out of existence."

Donna pricked up her ears. This was the kind of thing that normally only happened in movies, and it sounded very exciting. Perhaps they would make a movie of it one day and she would be a film star and a celebrity. Though the trouble with being a celebrity was that everybody wanted to know about your love life, and in her case that could prove most embarrassing. It would certainly raise a few eyebrows at Mort's church.

"You could intercept them before they even reached here?" Clare asked. "And do your fire-throwing stunts in space?"

Dawn nodded, and Clare breathed a sigh of relief. "In which case we don't have a problem."

Dawn thought for a while. "It's not as simple as that, I'm afraid. We don't know if they're hostile. I can't possibly incinerate them until I find out."

"But that's ridiculous!" Clare exclaimed, staring at her in disbelief. "You haven't time for that, they might be only hours away. You can't pussy-foot around!"

Dawn stared back at her implacably. Although she was staring through Angela's eyes, they had taken on a strange steely quality, as though something deadly lurked within. A startled expression crossed Clare's features. "OK, you can't just wipe them out," she muttered, lowering her gaze.

"So how do we find out if they're malign?" Donna asked, finding herself siding with Clare for a change. She couldn't help feeling that Dawn was being somewhat pernickety in her reluctance to wipe out the invaders. That fleet of ships _had_ to be more of those wasps.

"I'll intercept them, but instead of blasting them out of the sky I'll attempt to communicate with them."

Donna gaped at her. "You mean board their ships? That sounds really scary."

Dawn shrugged. "Somehow I'll find out what we're facing. If they're hostile, I'll destroy them."

"They'll destroy you, more likely!"

"If they can destroy me, then there's nothing anyone can do to stop them."

"I'm coming too," Donna reminded her. "That'll double your chances."

"No, you're not," Dawn replied firmly, "I need you here. If I'm to intercept those ships I need to set a very precise course, and I can't do that without your help. Even so I might miss them, and then you'll be needed to defend Earth."

"I was wondering how you thought you were going to meet up with them," Paul grunted. "They could be dozens of light-years away, and completely invisible without a very powerful telescope."

"Will they be above the horizon at midday tomorrow?" Dawn asked.

Paul did a quick mental calculation. "Yes. Just."

"Good. Now, this is my plan..."

Just before midday the next day – Monday – they assembled again in the dark tunnel beneath the twin telescopes. As before, Dawn was occupying Angela's body and Donna was occupying Karen. Mort had insisted on being present, although he had had to cancel a business meeting.

Clare and Paul had been there most of the morning, and Paul now had a rough estimate of the distance of the armada and when it would arrive. The ships, he told them, "are coming straight for us." He had calculated that the wasps' flying saucer had been travelling at around one light-year an hour, and assuming that this armada was travelling at the same speed, the expected time of arrival was in the region of 30 hours. Given the large margin of error in his calculations, this meant that the aliens could arrive as soon as Eden appeared the next day, which was in 24 hours time, or at the latest the day after that.

Clare had phoned Dr Song at the UN and told her the news, and she had also notified John Anderson. Apparently he was noticeably less enthusiastic about an alien encounter than before. He even told her that he did not wish to visit the SETI site to see the armada for himself. "He's really had the wind taken out of his sails," Clare commented.

Joining Clare and Paul on the low platform beneath the optics, Dawn and Donna saw a faint scattering of fuzzy stars on Baby's screen, with a clear bright point of light in the middle of them that was the alien armada.

"Memorize that pattern of stars," Paul said to Dawn. He sounded very business-like, Donna noticed, as though he was quite enjoying the challenge they were all facing. "It's below the main mass of stars of the Milky Way, and you should be able to spot it once you're in space. It will help you to check your course – if you head out towards it at or near your maximum speed, which I suppose is the speed the wasps were travelling at, you should meet the armada in about 15 hours."

Dawn, in Angela's body, stared at the pattern on the screen and nodded. "Rick's going to drip feed my body with nutrients and the trance drug," she told them. "I'll remain in this trance for as long as it takes."

Donna took Angela's hand. "Just make sure you come back, that's all."

"Don't worry. Just concentrate on what you have to do to get me there."

"Head off towards..." Paul checked the screen above his control panel, then gave her a GPS fix. "Then carry straight on through the upper atmosphere and into space. You'll be within the field of view of the telescopes, and we'll send you regular course corrections."

She nodded. "I'll go pretty slowly to begin with, just a thousand miles a second or so, until you tell me I'm spot on target. Then I'll hit the accelerator and head off as fast as I can – which as you say is probably about a light-year an hour."

Mort was looking distinctly unhappy. "If you're travelling away from us that fast, and the aliens are heading towards us at a light-year an hour, how on earth will you stop and match speeds with them? As soon as you spot them you'll be past them."

"There's no momentum in neurospace," Dawn told him. "I'll simply slam on the brakes, turn round, and step on the gas. Like I said, driving my souped-up vintage Beetle is a piece of cake."

Clare rolled her eyes skywards but said nothing. Mort was still looking unhappy. "It's a vacuum in space, and the temperature is an awful lot of degrees below zero. Even those aliens needed a huge airtight spaceship to come here. And you're travelling in a _car_?"

Dawn smiled at him. "I've travelled in space before," she reminded him. "Everything will be fine. My engine takes everything from the bloodstream in my body, including oxygen."

She checked the time on Karen's watch. "Eden should have formed by now. So unless there are any more questions I'll be on my way." She glanced around at the others.

"You look after yourself," Paul said gruffly, and Clare nodded and shook her hand. Donna took her other hand and squeezed it.

Dawn turned to Mort. "Hold onto me, in case Angela collapses. And I'll see you all ... sometime."

Angela's eyes closed and her body went limp in Mort's arms. Almost immediately she blinked and shook her head a couple of times to clear it, then pushed herself upright.

"Thanks, Dad," she mumbled. "Dawn's left me."

They all turned to Baby's screen. A bright red object half-filled it, masking everything else, but it was shrinking so fast that within a couple of seconds the bright white point of light that was the alien armada had reappeared and the red dot was moving off to the right."

"Tell her it's left hand down a bit," Clare muttered.

"I will, right away." Donna replied, turning Karen's body towards Mort. "Grab hold of me, Mort."

"No problem," he smiled, slipping his hands round her waist. She wrapped her arms round his neck and cuddled up to him, and then, just like Angela, her eyes closed and she went limp. A couple of seconds later they opened again.

"Our Donna's quite a girl," Karen murmured as she extricated herself from Mort's embrace.

A few moments later Donna's spirit-world James Bond car skidded to a halt in the temple forecourt. Although Eden was still shrouded in pre-dawn darkness, she'd spotted the golden luminescence of the temple from afar. The car disappeared into thin air and Donna hurried into the temple. Clara had just arrived and was lighting the first candle.

"You're early today," Clara commented when she saw her.

"The aliens are back. Dozens of ships!"

"What?" Clara almost dropped her taper. Although Donna had seen her earlier that morning in Crocodile Bay, she had been unable to tell her the news. Partly this was because of the limitations of dolphin language, but mainly because their whistles travel a fair distance through the water and it would have been impossible to prevent others overhearing.

"They'll reach us tomorrow or the next day – unless we destroy them." Donna quickly explained Dawn's plan to intercept them. "I'm going to send her course corrections telepathically," she said. "By taking over the communal mind. Like Dawn takes it over on Passion-play Sundays."

Clara gazed at her in disbelief. "But will the Mind accept you?"

"Dawn says it will, and I'm sure she's right. I don't think it can distinguish between the two of us. I can touch the altar quite safely, I've tried it before. Watch!"

She walked up to the great altar and boldly rested her hand on it. Clara jumped back in alarm, but there were no thunderbolts. There wasn't even a threatening rumble.

"I'm afraid you'll have to take the temple service today," Donna told her. "Helena will have sorted out the hymns. Get everyone to pray for Dawn and me – say we're on an important secret mission. I'll be in and out during the service, but in the shape of a dragon. You'd better warn them – tell them it's Dawn."

Clara nodded. She didn't seem at all fazed by the prospect of taking the service, Donna noted.

"I'm afraid I'll have to hurry," she said. Before Clara could reply she had turned herself into a dragon, and with a great flapping of wings she leapt into the air and fluttered onto the great altar.

As she sank into the altar, it seemed to Donna that her mind was expanding rapidly outwards to embrace the farthest reaches of space. It was of course an illusion, as also was the sense that she was somehow at one with the universe and aware of all its parts. Her oneness was with the amalgamated memories of the dolphin community. She was aware of Clara, and of the loneliness of Clara's past and her desire for acceptance and her great delight in Jonah. She was also aware of Clara's knowledge, gleaned from Clare's mind, of the workings of the UN and of its secret tentacles across the planet.

She was aware too of Jonah and his affection for her. She felt his pleasure in Clara, and she saw something of the depth of his knowledge of English social history gleaned from John Anderson's mind. She also knew Jonah's experience of the impenetrable wall surrounding part of Anderson's mind in which was hidden his secret knowledge of the Watchers and their plans, plans that might include taking over the Mind.

Donna was also aware of the vast dream that was flowing through the Mind, of Eden with its castles and farms and the town and the temple, and everyone waking up and getting dressed and preparing to attend the temple service or indulge in other human activities.

At any other time she would have found all of this most fascinating, but she was in too much of a hurry to attend to it now. Dawn had explained to her exactly what she needed to do. She allowed fire to erupt in the depths of her being, just as Dawn did during her Passion plays, and focussed her thoughts on that picture of Baby's screen showing the red point of light veering to the right away from the white point of light. She had to fill the Mind with that image, so that it would be pulsed telepathically into space. If aliens living at the heart of the galaxy could receive the Mind's telepathy during those Passion plays, when it was empowered by dragon fire, then so surely could Dawn's spirit aboard her vintage VW Beetle in near-Earth space.

Donna held that image for a few seconds, and then allowed her fires to die down. Withdrawing from the Mind, she found herself fluttering above the altar, with Clara nearby and still lighting candles. Ignoring her, Donna flapped her wings and headed out through the open doorway onto the forecourt. Ascended high above it, she transformed herself into her human form and enclosed herself in her James Bond car. Then she spoke the GPS coordinates of the SETI site in the Mount Lofty Range into her satnav and hit the accelerator.

A few moments later, half-way round the world, Karen gave a slight start. "Hold on to me, Mort," she exclaimed. "Hotpants is back!"

"Don't call her that!" he whispered. "Clare might hear, and she'll tease her mercilessly. Donna would never forgive us."

"Sorry," she whispered back, and collapsed into his arms.

"You're preparing Karen for the big day, I see," Donna observed tartly when she found herself in Mort's arms.

"She's a keen student," he replied, "and she's quite dishy. It seemed a shame to miss the opportunity."

"Pig!" she exclaimed, and kissed him lightly on the lips. Clare, off to the side, was studiously ignoring them.

Donna turned to Baby's screen. The red dot was now at the extreme right of it, but was slowly edging back towards the middle. It was also moving slowly upwards.

"It's right hand down a bit now," Clare said. "And tell her to stop going uphill!"

"I hope I'm not exhausting you, Mort," Donna murmured as she wrapped her arms around him and prepared to speed off to Eden again.

It was about an hour later that Donna's journeys between Karen's mind and Eden came to an end. If Mort wasn't exhausted, then she certainly was, for she had lost count of the number of times she had gone backwards and forwards in her mission to broadcast course corrections. The adjustments that Dawn had to make had grown increasingly smaller, and now the red dot was superimposed over the white dot in the middle of Baby's screen, hiding it completely. It had been that way for several minutes.

"That's as close as we'll get," Paul announced. "You can tell her to step on the gas."

Donna departed on her weary way for a final time, and a couple of minutes later the others saw the red point of light suddenly shrink to nothing and the white dot was visible once more. Dawn was on her way to the stars and her rendezvous with the alien fleet at a speed that was impossible to comprehend.

## Thirty Nine

As Dawn roared into the sky above the Pacific Ocean, her foot pressed down on the accelerator pedal, the units on the speedometer on the Beetle's dashboard rapidly changed from hundreds of miles per hour to thousands of miles per hour to tens of thousands of miles per hour and finally to hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. She had no idea how it was able to calculate this, and could only suppose that, like the engine itself, it was using the mysterious capabilities of the dragon part of her brain.

She lifted her foot from the accelerator and the engine went silent. She watched the moon slip rapidly behind her and then gazed through the windscreen at the Milky Way, a broad ribbon of stars stretched out before her across the blackness of space. The information from the real world reaching her brain was too sparse to distinguish the individual stars, instead it appeared as an amorphous luminous mass.

Much more interesting was the telepathic imagery that she knew must be coming from the Mind. It was waking to the dawn, millions of miles below her in the Tienshan Mountains, and, powered by the fused minds of a thousand telepathic dolphins, broadcasting into space, perhaps reaching as far as the edge of the solar system. She had no idea why or how it was doing this, but whatever the reason, a confusion of images flickered through her mind. She glimpsed the temple and the township and the castle as well as some of the farms, as the Mind recreated them from the memories of the waking dolphins.

So far everything was going according to plan: she had air to breath, she was comfortable, and she was picking up the Mind's telepathy. All she could do now was wait for Donna's course corrections. Able at last to relax, she leaned back in her seat, stared out at the bright fuzzy ribbon of the Milky Way spread out before her, and let the faint images of the Mind's telepathy flicker across her vision.

She wasn't aware of the kind of weightlessness that astronauts experience, for spirits are always weightless. Instead she felt exactly as she would if she was in her car back on Earth. Her Beetle was generating its own neurospace equivalent of gravity, pulling her into her seat. She'd experienced the same phenomenon on the COBRA spaceship.

The telepathy from the Mind suddenly strengthened, becoming so strong that it blocked out the images of space. Donna's fire must be empowering it! An image of Baby's screen filled her vision, with the red point of light that represented her vehicle moving away to the right. After a few seconds the image disappeared and the fuzzy stars reappeared in front of her. Dawn leant forward and pressed a button on the steering column: this released the steering, allowing her to twist the steering wheel a fraction to the left. She locked the steering again, sat back, and continued waiting.

A few minutes later she received another blast of powerful telepathy with another course correction, and this time she had to twist the wheel slightly to the right and push it up a millimetre of two. Over the next hour she received many more corrections, until finally she received a picture of Baby's screen telling her she was spot on target. At last she was on course to intercept the alien armada.

She pressed her foot down hard on the accelerator, and the Beetle's massive engine roared into life. Keeping her foot held down, she watched as the dial on her speedometer climbed higher and higher, while the engine continued to roar. There was no sense of acceleration, for spirits, along with all other neurospace objects, have no mass. After a couple of minutes the speedo recalibrated itself to read in millions of miles per hour, shortly after that in tens of millions of miles per hour, and finally in tenths of light-years per hour. The needle continued to climb, and finally came to rest at 1.3 light-years per hour. This, she supposed, was the neurospace limit – the speed of telepathy.

She released the accelerator, and the engine went silent. She was now far out in space, beyond the limits of the solar system, and the sun just another star in the middle of her rear-view mirror. Even the background telepathic imagery being broadcast by the Mind had disappeared.

Settling back in her seat, Dawn was suddenly overcome by weakness, and she felt dizzy and breathless. She had the sense that something inside her had been left behind, but what it was she had no idea. Her breathlessness grew worse and she started to gulp in air. And then she realised, to her horror, what the problem was: the air inside her cabin was thinning!

What could have happened? Had her vehicle been punctured? That seemed impossible, for any meteorites or other physical objects would pass straight through a neurospace object without leaving a trace. Certainly there was no hiss of escaping air.

Slowly her breathing returned to normal, and she began to relax. The problem, she decided, was that her engine had consumed all her sleeping body's reserves of energy and oxygen, leaving hardly any to support her vital functions. Fortunately Rick had rigged up a drip-feed to keep her bloodstream topped up with nutrients. She closed her eyes and waited for the tiredness to pass.

After a while she opened her eyes again. She hadn't exactly snoozed – she supposed that spirits couldn't actually do that – but she had at least rested, and now she was feeling a little better, though certainly not her usual self. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost two hours since she had launched herself into space. Gazing out through her windscreen, she noticed that the fuzzy shape of the Milky Way looked exactly as it had earlier, as though she hadn't travelled any distance at all. Then she reflected that even at her mind-boggling speed it would be another hour before she reached even the nearest star.

Then she remembered Paul's instructions to check for that pattern of stars within which would be the alien armada. She must be in a dazed state to have forgotten that! She fixed her gaze on the fuzzy splodges of light lying straight ahead, below the main mass of stars, and sure enough she could just make out the tell-tale pattern. There was, of course, no gleaming neurospace point of light in the midst of them, for it would be many hours before that would become visible. She closed her eyes again and dozed and waited for those life-giving nutrients to reinvigorate her spirit self.

She opened them just over an hour later. She felt refreshed, though still not fully recovered. She noticed that a star off to her left was quite bright and was moving relative to the other stars. She realised that it must be close by, and she wondered if she might be pulled off-course by its gravitational field. But she quickly rejected that idea, for if she wasn't affected by acceleration then she wouldn't be affected by gravity either.

She wondered where she was located in the vast galaxy of stars. It would be nice to have some kind of visual display, showing her route. She pressed the button on her satnav, hoping it might oblige, but the only message that appeared on its tiny screen was _ERROR_. She supposed it only worked in the vicinity of Earth.

She settled back in her seat again. A visual display wouldn't really show her anything that she didn't already know, for in spite of her colossal speed, she had hardly moved at all from edge of the galaxy, where the sun and Earth were located.

Slowly the hours ticked by. She still wasn't her usual self, and she still had the feeling that she had left something of herself behind, though it was nothing she could put her finger on. Perhaps it was just her mysterious dragon self reacting to the fact that she was such an incomprehensibly vast distance away from home and Rick and Donna and everyone she loved .

After a while she stretched her legs out across the passenger seat and leant her back against the door, only occasionally pushing herself up and glancing through the windscreen to check the heavens ahead. The tell-tale pattern of stars remained firmly fixed in sky ahead of her, and there was still no sign of bright point of light that was the armada. Most of the time her mind was a blank, though she did at one point wonder about her physical body back in her bedroom in Honiara, being fed nutrients through those tubes. Rick would be popping in occasionally to check up on her. She wondered, after all these years of marriage, whether he would steal a kiss from her sleeping lips. She very much hoped he would. She would be sure to be aware of it, and that would take away the sense of loss that was afflicting her.

It was then that she made the awful discovery: she no longer had any sense of her physical body! Normally on a spirit journey she would have some awareness of it, but now there was absolutely nothing. Desperately, she felt around in her mind, trying to detect something, perhaps the breeze from the ceiling fan wafting over her sleeping body. But there was nothing, nothing at all. It must be the enormous distance she had travelled, she decided, it was too great to maintain those tenuous links.

But it couldn't be that. She was still linked to her body, for oxygen extracted from her bloodstream was continuing to flow into her cabin. The sense that something had gone missing from inside her had hit her almost at the start of her journey, immediately after that period of rapid acceleration when she passed out of the neighbourhood of the solar system and its surrounding stars. And then she knew what it was: either the prolonged acceleration, or her departure from that region of space, had cut the bonds between her spirit and her physical body, just as Angela's spirit had been cut off from her body four years earlier!

The implications were terrifying. For it meant that her physical body was now in a coma, and even if Rick injected a wake-up drug she would not return to it. She was marooned in space!

No wonder those wasps were so desperate to reach their portal, willing even to risk Donna's fire to do so. They too had been cut off from their sleeping bodies, and with their ship destroyed and much of their hive as well, that portal was their only route home. And if there was such a thing as a galactic civilisation, then it too could not exist without portals.

One thing was certain: without a portal, she would never find her way home unaided. Her satnav didn't work this far from Earth, and it would be impossible to point her car in exactly the right direction. She would be at least ten degrees out, which would translate into a vast distance over the course of her return journey. The sun would be just one of a million stars surrounding her. Her best hope was to locate those alien ships and travel to Earth with them. It meant that she could not destroy them, or at least not all of them, even if they were hostile.

She looked at the dashboard clock. She was now almost 12 hours out, and according to Paul's calculations it would be another three hours before she would intercept the alien fleet. Well, his calculations had a large margin of error, and she ought to keep her eyes fixed on that pattern of stars ahead of her, to make sure she didn't miss the alien ships.

And so she sat upright in her seat and concentrated her attention on the sky ahead. The minutes passed, and stretched into an hour, and nothing changed. One or two stars around her slowly moved relative to the others, eventually slipping behind her, but there was nothing else to relieve the boredom. There was no cause for alarm that she still hadn't spotted the alien fleet, of course. For she was still more than an hour away from the probable contact time.

After a while it occurred to her that she should reduce her speed, otherwise she would be past the alien ships almost as soon as she spotted them, and then she would find it impossible to catch them up. She gently pressed the brake pedal, keeping her foot down until the units on the speedometer were showing just tens of thousands of miles per second.

Now she searched the heavens all around her, for if the ships were close by they wouldn't necessarily be directly ahead. It would be a miracle if they were, for it would have meant that the course she had set while near the earth would have been spot on.

And then, about ten minutes later, she spotted it, a clear bright point of light to the left of the windscreen. She immediately slammed on the brakes, and, unlocking the steering, she twisted the wheel hard to the left, then hit the accelerator. The engine burst into life, and she headed not for the point of light itself but well to the left of it, so that she would cross the path on which it was travelling. After a few minutes, when she reached about a quarter of her maximum speed she cut the engine and coasted, her eyes fixed on the tiny point of bright light. The expenditure of energy had left her slightly out of breath.

The bright dot slowly moved left across her field of view. She twisted the steering wheel a little to the left again and hit the accelerator. She was still a little off-course, but after several further manoeuvres the point of light wasn't moving to the left or right or upwards or downwards but coming straight at her. She hit the brakes again, keeping her eyes fixed on that point of light. It remained motionless, right in the centre of her windscreen, heading directly for her.

It must still be a huge distance from her, for it wasn't growing in size. But how far away? There was no way of telling, but once it did start to grow in size it would almost immediately split into a number of individual points and seconds after that the ships would streak past her and converge to become a tiny single point in her rear-view mirror. If that happened it would take her ages to turn round and get up speed and catch up with them. In fact, if they were travelling at the maximum neurospace speed she would never catch up with them.

She couldn't risk that. Gently pressing the accelerator, she pulled down hard on the steering wheel so that the car did a tight turn. She twisted in her seat so that she could keep her eyes on the point of light, and as soon as it appeared in the rear window she turned the wheel in the opposite direction. A few more adjustments, and the point was in the centre of the window. That meant that she and the armada were heading in the same direction.

The bright dot was now in the centre of her rear-view mirror, so she was able to watch it without twisting her head. For about five minutes it sat there motionless against the black backdrop of space, and then, quite suddenly, it grew larger and split into a small cluster of dots. She immediately hit the accelerator, and the engine roared into life once more. She held her foot down, keeping her eyes fixed on that mirror. She watched the points of light fan outwards as the armada slowly caught up with her.

The bright points drew level with her, and she cut her engine. Now she could count three points to the left and four to the right, and she supposed there were probably others out of sight above and below her. She glanced in her mirror, and there was a point directly behind her. It rapidly expanded and became a luminous disc, and then it grew so large that it filled her mirror. She hit her accelerator to match its speed, and a few moments later it drifted past her, on her right side.

It was, she saw, a golden flying saucer, just like the saucer that had arrived on Earth a few days ago. There were round windows dotted around the rim, and on its underside was the outline of a rectangle which would open outwards to become a ramp. None of which was in the least bit encouraging.

Dawn matched her speed to that of the huge flying saucer, and then transformed herself into a dragon. Her vintage Beetle was comfortable and had protected her human form from the vacuum of space, but she felt much safer encased in those thick scales and with the power of fire at her disposal. As a dragon, she could survive a vacuum.

The ship was less than 100 metres away, and it filled her vision. The windows glowed brightly, and she scanned them for signs of life, but could see nothing. Nor were there any guns or other weaponry protruding from ship, and certainly no indication that it might be about to attack her. So far as she could tell, its surface was smooth and featureless, and there was no sign of any doorway or airlock apart from the outline of what she assumed was the ramp.

If she was to board that ship then it had to be through the ramp. She couldn't simply float through the walls, for it was a neurospace structure, not a physical one. First, though, she would take a peek through one of those glowing windows. Keeping a wary eye out for any sign of attack, she flapped her wings to reach the ship.

To her surprise her wings had no effect. However hard she flapped them, she remained rooted to the spot. Then it dawned on her that wings wouldn't work in a vacuum, instead she needed rocket propulsion, something along the lines of the engine of her car. That shouldn't be too difficult, for that engine drew on her dragon nature, belching out smoke and fire. Her jaws could surely perform a similar function.

The dragon blood flowing through her body provided sufficient oxygen for a small amount of fire, and twisting her head so that she was facing away from the ship, she opened her jaws and let out a brief blast. A tongue of fire and some smoke streamed out, thrusting her in the opposite direction, towards the ship. She gave another small blast to correct her course, and then she was drifting towards the nearest windows.

She hit the ship with a thud, bounced off, and had to blast out more fire to bring herself to rest beside it. She was afraid that the sound of that first impact might have set off an alarm inside the ship, but there was still no movement. She was now alongside one of the windows; it was she supposed, about a metre in diameter. Cautiously, she stretched out her neck and peered through it.

She could see nothing at all save that bright glow. Whichever way she looked, it was the same. The window must be made of some opaque substance, she decided, or at any rate it was opaque when viewed from the outside. She withdrew her head quickly, in case whatever was inside had spotted her. The only way to find out what was inside the ship was to board it through the ramp.

Another short blast from her jaws, and she was drifting down the side of the ship towards the outline of the ramp, and with a further couple of blasts she managed to park herself just a few feet away from it. There was, she saw, a large red button in the wall of the ship to the immediate right of the ramp, and it took one more tiny blast to bring her alongside it.

There was no lettering on the button or any indication of its purpose, though that, she supposed, was hardly necessary. A button like that was asking to be pressed. Glancing around nervously, she lifted a claw and pressed it.

Something moved, and she jerked back in alarm. It was the ramp beginning to unfold from the ship. She kicked herself away the ship, afraid of what emerge. As she drifted away, the ramp slowly descended and she was able to look up its length into the dim interior. There was no movement within or any sign of those wasps. In moments the ramp was fully open.

She continued her slow drift from the ship, but still there was no sign of life. So once again she twisted her head and emitted another rocket blast, and now she was heading for the base of the ramp. In less than a minute she had closed the gap, and then she bumped against the foot of the ramp.

Instantly she felt the tug of the ship's gravity, and she had to struggle to hoist herself up onto the ramp. She crouched on it, her claws extended and as much fire as she could muster in that vacuum at the ready in her belly. But in the darkness at the top of the ramp there was no movement, indeed nothing at all there that she could see. Cautiously, she crept up it.

When she reached the dark space at the top of the ramp, Dawn found herself in what she supposed was an airlock, for ahead of her was another door with another red button set in the wall beside it. This would lead to the interior of the ship, and with her heart in her mouth and her fire at the ready, she reached out with a claw pressed that button.

She detected through the wall of the ship the hum of machinery, and behind her the ramp slowly started to rise. Her exit to the outside world was closing, trapping her inside the ship. The space in which she was standing grew darker as the ramp rose higher, cutting out the starlight, and then, as it locked into place with a clunk, she was left in complete darkness. There was a sudden hiss as the atmosphere of the ship blew into the darkness, and she took a cautious breath. It seemed to be ordinary air, or at least an atmosphere that her dragon body was comfortable with. She gulped in as much of the air as she could and felt the fire within roar into vigorous life. It was a most reassuring feeling.

There was the hum of more machinery and the inner door began to slide slowly aside, letting light into the airlock. Sucking in even more of the ship's air to fan her flames, she opened her jaws wide, ready to face whatever lay beyond that widening gap. Wisps of black smoke spurted from her nostrils, and the smell of sulphur filled the airlock.

The door was now wide open, and she found herself staring into a vast cavernous space. It was lit by the glowing luminescence of the domed roof, just as the COBRA flying saucer had been. But there were no winged angels or giant wasps on any other creature facing her, in fact there was nothing there at all. The ship was completely empty! No wonder she could see nothing but glowing light through that window, for that was all there was. Even the floor was glowing.

She had been half-expecting the ship to be honeycombed with small compartments, like those that she had seen on the wasps' flying saucer a few days ago, perhaps with a huge queen at its centre, but there was nothing at all threatening here, and she relaxed and let her fires subside a little. It seemed that the creatures that had sent this great armada were not wasps but were from a different world, or worlds.

She stepped cautiously out of the airlock doorway and into the interior of the ship. And now she could see that it wasn't entirely empty. Off to the side was a golden pentagonal structure – a portal! Mystified, she stared around the vast space again. Was there nothing here but a portal? It seemed that the sole purpose of this mighty vessel was to transport a portal to Earth. And what of the other ships in the armada? Were they also empty apart from portals?

And then the truth hit her. It should have been obvious all along that she would only find portals on these ships. The extra-terrestrials who sent them wouldn't board these ships until they were much closer to Earth. Then they would step into a portal on their home planet and step out on board a moment later. What's the point of enduring months or possibly years crossing the galaxy on a spirit journey when you can use a portal?

Her epic journey through space to intercept this armada had been a complete waste of time. She was no wiser as to the identity of these extra-terrestrials, or whether they were friendly or hostile. The only way to determine that was to remain on this ship until they reached Earth and creatures emerged from that portal, and although she might be able to destroy hostile beings that emerged into this ship she certainly wouldn't have time to destroy those that emerged into the other ships as well.

And yet ... these ships couldn't be _completely_ empty. They were, after all, mental structures, the products of someone's imagination, and that someone had to be on board or at least close by to maintain the ships' existence. Without such a presence they would wink out of existence – just as Eden disappeared when the dolphins woke up. These vessels could no more exist apart from the minds that had created them than her vintage Beetle could exist apart from her. Someone had to be on board each ship, enduring this huge spirit journey.

She sucked in air again, opened her jaws a fraction, and carefully scanned the vast interior of the ship again. She was looking for a single, solitary being.

This time she spotted the creature almost immediately. She hadn't seen it before because it was so small. It looked like a red dragonfly, just a few centimetres long, and it was hovering a short distance away. She twisted her body to face it, jaws wide and breathing smoke. Immediately the dragonfly grew in size and became a real dragon, poised in mid-air. Thrashing its wings frantically, it crashed down on its hind legs.

A dragon! She stared transfixed at the magnificent creature. It could be her spitting image, with those hard red scales and vicious claws and that fearsome blade at the end of its tail. But what transfixed her was not the awesomeness of the sight, but the knowledge, the stupendous knowledge, that her longed-for dream had finally come to pass.

She had encountered her own kind!

## Forty

The dragon carefully folding his wings. Dawn had automatically categorised the creature as male, though there was no reason to do so. The question of gender was in any case irrelevant, as dragons are asexual.

"Hello," he said. "You must be Dawn."

She was gobsmacked. First, by the fact that he could speak at all, for it had never occurred to her that dragons might have vocal chords. Second, by the fact that he spoke in English. And third, by the fact that he knew her name. He could not have picked that up by reading her mind, for only emotions and images can be communicated telepathically.

He was gazing at her, obviously expecting her to return the greeting. Such pleasantries were clearly just as important where he came from as they were on Earth. She would have to try using her vocal chords, though she had no idea how. All she could do was trust her dragon instincts.

She imagined herself clearing her throat in preparation for speech. Immediately a blast of superheated steam erupted from the base of her throat and whistled up through it, clearing out all the accumulated soot. At least, that was what appeared to happen, for a great puff of steam laden with black particles spurted from her nostrils. She formed her words carefully, as might a young child learning to speak.

"I'm ... delighted ... to ... meet ... you," she said. At least, that was what the human part of her brain said. The sound that actually emerged from her jaws was an odd mixture of grunts, snorts, and clicks.

How odd, she thought. And then she realised that the other dragon had spoken in grunts, snorts, and clicks too. Somewhere in her brain, probably at the interface between the human and dragon parts of it, translation had taken place without any conscious awareness. No doubt the same process was happening in the brain of the dragon facing her – his brain was translating her dragon grunts into whatever language his physical body used. For she had no doubt that he did have a physical body, asleep on some distant alien planet. Only by such a mechanism could dragons, born of races from a thousand different worlds, communicate with each other.

She wondered what this dragon's physical body looked like. He might even be one of those wasps – in which case he was a false dragon, on his way to enslave the earth. Well, that at least was easy to check. Only real dragons could breathe out fire. She breathed in more air to feed her fire, in readiness for a possible attack.

"Are ... you ... a ... real ... dragon?"

In response he turned away from her, sucked in some air, and breathed out a small red flame. It would barely have killed a fly, and indeed anything more might have caused some damage to his ship, but it was undeniably fire.

The dragon must have sensed the mixture of strong emotions that were flooding through her, for she caught a sense of benign amusement coming from him. He had sensed her utter delight at meeting one of her own kind, and her wonder that there really was a race of superbeings like her, and the fact that she was gobsmacked because he knew her name.

The dragon let his fire die down and turned back to face her. "I've been expecting you," he said. Or that was what her human/dragon brain interpreted his grunts and snorts to mean.

She stared back at him in astonishment. How could he have known she was coming? A picture appeared in her mind, evidently projected telepathically from him, of a red point of light moving towards a white point of light against a black background. Donna's telepathic course corrections, projected by the Mind!

That telepathy, powered by Donna's fire, had not only reached her while she was still in the vicinity of Earth, it had travelled far out to the stars at the speed of thought. It had gone ahead of her, and had been picked up by this creature perhaps an hour ago, and he had realised that such a powerful signal must have the same source as the other telepathic messages – her monthly Passion plays – that were drawing this armada to Earth.

And that, of course, explained why he knew who she was. She was the dragon from Earth. The dragon who had sired her, some 30 years ago in her mother's womb, had probably been a human like her. At any rate, he – or she – would certainly have remained on Earth after her conception to watch over her progress and perhaps to nurture her, just as she had watched over Donna. And no doubt he had access to a portal, and so he was able to visit the community of dragons and keep them informed of the situation on Earth. That was how this dragon knew her name.

So why had her dragon parent abandoned her? The only reason she could think of was that he had died, just as she herself would one day die. She was about to ask her dragon host about this when a giant wasp suddenly appeared in front of her. She jumped back in alarm, her questions forgotten. The wasp vanished as quickly as it had come, and she realised that it was merely an image conjured up in her mind by the other dragon. Dragons were evidently masters of telepathic communications, and she made a mental note to practise those skills on Donna.

"They came to your planet?" the dragon asked.

Again she stared at him in surprise. Didn't he already know the answer to that question? Was he unaware that less than a week ago the wasps had invaded Earth? Didn't he realise that this was why she was checking out this alien armada? Was the close proximity of these two alien encounters no more than a coincidence? It seemed inconceivable that this should be so.

"They ... came," she told him, still speaking slowly and carefully. "We ... destroyed ... them."

It occurred to her to try out the telepathic skills that dragons evidently possessed, and she brought to mind the pictures she had seen on Baby's screen of Donna's slaughter of the aliens and the destruction of their ship. She sensed very clearly the satisfaction the other dragon felt at this imagery.

"Good," he said.

She formed the image of the wasps' flying saucer, which was the same as the COBRA flying saucer and which was etched in her memory. Then she waved a forelimb, indicating the glowing walls of the dragon's ship. "The same kind of ship," she observed, speaking with more confidence now.

"They were with us before," he explained. "But now they fight us."

"Us? Who is _us_?"

A picture flooded into her mind of stars with planets spinning around them, and a kaleidoscope of different life forms, mostly humanoid, marched past. There clearly was some kind of galactic federation, just as John Anderson and the Watchers had always maintained.

No doubt the Watchers and their predecessors, COBRA, had received visions along these lines. They knew, and now she knew too, that these were not figments of their imaginations. Perhaps COBRA had received those messages from the wasps, which John Anderson had confessed had visited and influenced them. What he and the other COBRA leaders hadn't known was that the wasps were renegades and not the emissaries of that great confederation of species. The wasps had deceived them into believing that, when they returned, the COBRA leaders would rule the earth and take their seats on the galactic councils.

Although COBRA had been destroyed, John Anderson believed that the wasps would one day return, and he had drawn up plans to meet them as the representative of Earth. That was why he had set up the Watchers, why he had developed in them the ability to pick up telepathic communications from the federation, and why he perhaps intended to take over the dolphin communal mind through whatever it was he had put into Jonah's brain. If all those preparations came to fruition, he could indeed present himself to the aliens as the most powerful person on the planet.

Except that the wasps, when they had finally returned, weren't interested in any of that. Their intention was to take over the people they had deceived, and through them to take over the world. Dawn wondered how many other planets they had conquered in that way.

Her immediate and most pressing question had been answered. This armada of ships was not about to attack Earth, they had come in friendship. The presence of this dragon guaranteed that. She had countless other questions, of course, for she had waited so many years for this moment, but these could await the dragons' arrival. The main thing now was to get back to Earth and make whatever preparations were necessary for that great encounter.

But there was one question she had to ask. "Why are you travelling to Earth?"

A sequence of pictures appeared in her mind that she recognised instantly. They were scenes from the plays she had performed in Eden on Passion Sundays and which the Mind had broadcast to the stars. That was the reason for the armada, to see her Passion plays!

So the Watchers were wrong. This epic voyage was not to incorporate Earth into a galactic federation or anything like that, though that could be a by-product, it was just to see a play. It was really weird, and she shook her head in disbelief, but he just stared straight back at her. That was the reason for the visit.

"I have to go now," she told him. "To prepare for your arrival." And prepare she must, if she was going to entertain these alien visitors with one of her mind-blowing shows.

The dragon responded by turning and pointing his snout at the portal. Apart from accompanying him to Earth on board this ship, that was her only way back. She nodded at him to show she understood, then turned to go to it. To her surprise, at that very moment the door of the portal slid aside and another dragon trotted out. He stared at her in surprise.

"This is Dawn," her host explained. "She's come from Earth. To check up on us."

"Ah," the newcomer said, evidently satisfied by this explanation. Behind him, the door of the portal slid silently shut.

Her host turned to her. "My name's Zapfyre, by the way. My shift's ended, and Warblitz here is taking over."

"Nice to meet you both," she said. She hadn't thought about it before, but obviously there would have to be some kind of shift system to keep an epic voyage like this going.

Zapfyre pointed his snout at the portal again. It was evidently time for him, and her, to go. All her unanswered questions would have to await their arrival on Earth. She trotted over to the portal, with Zapfyre close behind, and touched the door. Whereas the wasps' portal responded to Donna's dragon touch by disappearing into thin air, this portal responded in much more welcoming manner: the door slid silently aside, revealing an interior that was as black as space. With only a slight hesitation, she stepped inside.

Dawn was instantly transported back to her bedroom in Honiara. She was floating above her bed, gazing down at her sleeping body. She was still cut off from it, for she could feel nothing of her physical self, but she knew that once inside her brain that connection would be restored. She dived into her skull, waited for the cathedral of her mind to form around her, then flew onto the altar. And then she was in possession of her body once more.

It was like being in charge of a vegetable. Although her mind was alert, her body was so heavily drugged that she couldn't wake it up. She couldn't move her legs or her arms or her fingers or anything else, she couldn't even open her eyes. Somehow she would have to contact Rick and get him to administer a wake-up drug.

She withdrew from her body and, floating above it once more, gazed around the room. Although her bedroom and its contents were very fuzzy to her spirit eyes, she could tell that Rick was not there. She flitted through the house, looking for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. If he had been around she would be able to fly into his brain, and he would have sensed her presence and known that she had returned from her mission.

She flew through the wall into the garden outside. The sun was low in the sky, and she could tell by its position that it was about 8 am: he must have left for work. She toyed with the idea of flying there to look for him, but then decided it would be quicker and more satisfactory to phone him from Adelaide. It would be about 7 am there and Mort's household should be stirring.

She immediately transformed herself into her Beetle, spoke the GPS coordinates of Mort's house into her satnav, and less than a minute later was streaking over the northern Australian coastline and heading inland. A few moments later she came to a halt outside Mort's house, and shortly after that she was walking into Angela's bedroom. Angela was still in bed, but snoozily awake and dreaming of romance, and Dawn was able to slip into her mind and immediately take her over.

She crawled out of bed and went over to the sink to splash the sleep out of the girl's eyes. Then she put on Angela's dressing gown and padded down the long hallway in search of Mort's bedroom. She had no idea which door was his, and Angela was no help, for although she was observing everything from the recesses of her mind, she had no idea what Dawn was looking for.

She was about to ask the question out loud when a door opened and a bleary-eyed Karen emerged. She looked decidedly the worse for wear, with her normally immaculate hair all over the place, and Dawn couldn't help wondering what Donna had been up to last night.

"Hello, Angela," Karen mumbled groggily. "You're up early."

"It's Dawn. I'm back!"

"What?" Karen blinked herself awake. "Great! What happened?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Where's Mort? I want to ask him if I can use the house phone."

"It's over there." Karen pointed to the far end of the hall. "Just use it, he won't mind."

Dawn walked over to it and dialled Rick's wristpad, and he answered immediately.

"Rick!" she squealed. "It's me!"

"Who's me?"

"Dawn, you idiot!"

"What? You don't sound like Dawn. You sound Australian."

"That's because I've borrowed Angela's body. Go home and wake me up, my pet."

"Oh. Right. How did you get on?"

"Everything's fine. I'll tell you when you wake me. Bye!"

She replaced the receiver and turned to Karen, to tell her what had happened in space. Then it occurred to her that it would be much better to wait a few moments so that she could tell everyone in the household at the same time.

"Get Mort!" she told her, and turned back to the phone and dialled another number. Karen padded off down the hall. After a few moments Clare answered the phone.

"Clare, it's Dawn. And don't say I'm not Dawn because I don't sound pommy enough. I'm in Angela's body."

"Does that poor girl ever get her body to herself? I'd hoped we all might be dancing on your grave by now, but it seems you're still in the land of the living."

"'Fraid so." Dawn waved to Mort, who had just emerged from his room with Karen in tow, and beckoned them over. She quickly explained to Clare over the phone and to the others what had happened. "Several species of extra-terrestrials are coming to Earth. There does seem to be some sort of galactic federation, just as the Watchers claimed. They're coming to visit Eden, to see my Passion play."

"Just to see that?" Clare asked in astonishment. "Don't they want to incorporate Earth into this federation of theirs?"

"I suppose they do, though nothing was said about that. But they're friendly, that's the main thing."

"Hm. We'll see," Clare said sceptically. "You just be on your guard, that's all. And don't agree to anything on Earth's behalf without consulting me and Dr Song."

"Of course not. Has Paul worked out when the ships will arrive? I reckon it will be around 15 hours from now."

"Yeah, that's roughly what he worked out. It means they won't arrive in time for your Eden's materialisation today, but they'll be in good time for tomorrow's show. I've already told Dr Song, and she knows you've gone into space to intercept them. I also told John Anderson. "

"You had to tell him, I guess. What did he have to say for himself?"

"He was very intrigued, of course. He asked me to let him know what you discovered."

"Don't tell him too much! If he knows that the aliens are friendly and that there really is a galactic federation out there, he's going to pull out all the stops to show them that he's the big cheese around here. He'll plan to take over the communal mind, that's for sure."

"So _you_ say. Karen isn't so sure, and she knows him better than anyone."

"Well, we'll see. Did he say if he's planning to bring a planeload of Watchers to Eden again"

"He is, despite last week's fiasco. They're leaving this evening."

"And you're going with them? With the spirit detector?"

"You bet I am. It'll be the same routine as last time."

"Watch him like a hawk. As soon as he finds out that the aliens are friendly, he'll make his move. If it's to take over the communal mind, he'll have to put himself into a trance. If he does, make sure you inject him with a wake-up drug."

"Don't worry. One false move and I'll pull a gun on him. I hate him almost as much as I hate you."

"That's my girl. I just hope he doesn't pull a gun on you first. I'll check that you're OK when I arrive in Eden tomorrow. I'll be coming as a spirit, so the only way you'll see me is with the spirit detector. If you miss me, I'll touch your mind. If you want me to take you over, you know what to do."

"Yeah. Thanks, Dawn. "

"Phone me before you get on that plane tonight. I'll let you know what I'm planning."

She put the phone down and turned to the others. "It's great to have you back," Mort exclaimed, giving her hug. "Donna was so worried about you last night."

"Not that it dampened her spirits much," Karen murmured, eyeing her tousled hair in the hall mirror. She seemed quite her old self, Dawn thought. Donna's frolics were evidently having a therapeutic effect.

Mort gave Karen a sheepish smile. Seeing it, Dawn was consumed by curiosity, and she glanced from one to the other. "How are you getting on with Donna?"

Mort gave a slight laugh. "Very well. I've never met anyone quite so ... _enthusiastic_. About everything."

"You can say that again!" Karen remarked with some feeling.

Dawn wasn't sure how to respond. "Perhaps I should have a word with her..."

A flicker of amusement crossed Karen's face. "Don't worry, everything's fine."

"We all think she's wonderful," Mort added. "She's transformed all our lives. She really is an angel."

He paused and looked at his visitor thoughtfully. "Let's go into the kitchen and have some breakfast. There's something I want to ask you."

Dawn followed him in, wondering what was on his mind. She hoped Donna hadn't put any ideas into his head about 'marital training'.

"I'm really worried about Donna's safety," he said as he bustled around putting out the breakfast things. "She's told me her dolphin body is defenceless when she's in a trance."

"She's in a protected environment, in Crocodile Bay. There are always guards on duty."

"She says the Watchers could have infiltrated the guards. And if they found out about her fire–"

"Which they haven't."

"Even so," he persisted. "I'm worried. I'm wondering ... if perhaps we could all visit Crocodile Bay. We'd like to meet Donna in the flesh, and it might be helpful from a security angle. As you know, security is my business."

"That would be wonderful, Mort! Of course you can come. You can stay at our house, if you like – provided you and Karen don't mind sharing a room, that is."

Mort glanced at Karen doubtfully. But she didn't seem at all disquieted by the prospect, and smiled back at him. "If we're going to be married, we might as well get used to it. It's not much fun staggering back to a cold bed after Donna's finished with my body, I can tell you. I'd much rather stay with you."

Dawn kept her thoughts to herself and concentrated on her muesli. She hoped her choice of cereal suited Angela. "So when were you thinking of coming, Mort?"

"As soon as possible. You said you were afraid that John Anderson might make some move against you when he finds out that these aliens are friendly, which means that Donna could be at risk tomorrow. I'd like to be at Crocodile Bay then. I'd feel much happier if I was personally guarding her body. I'm scheduled to meet a couple of clients, but I can easily put them off till next week. And Karen and Angela are both free."

Dawn gazed at him thoughtfully. "That's not a bad idea. I'd feel much happier too with you guarding her. Can you handle a gun?" He nodded. "I'll get Rick to organize something for you."

"Thanks. I'll try and arrange a flight for this afternoon. It's Tuesday, so there should be some business class seats free."

Dawn nodded. "Phone me when it's booked, and I'll tell Donna. And I'll tell Rick to personally guard her body today, while she's in her trance."

Mort sat down next to Karen and helped himself to some cereal and milk, and Dawn couldn't help noticing that Karen turned her body fractionally towards him. It was very slight, and she probably didn't even realise that she was doing it, but Dawn wondered how long it would be before she started to have mixed feelings about sharing him with Donna. Hopefully the thrill of participating in those astounding love-goddess kisses would preserve the status quo.

Suddenly the room started to sway, and she had the impression that someone was shaking her by the shoulder. She put down her spoon and finished her mouthful of cereal. "I'm waking up," she announced. "Mort, you'd better come round and hold Angela's body."

"Right," he said, jumping up. He was just in time, for the kitchen scene faded from her vision and she found herself lying on her bed and gazing into Rick's eyes.

For some reason she became acutely aware of her dragon nature. Perhaps it was because she had just met that dragon in space, and she knew that she would shortly be meeting more, or perhaps it was because of what she'd been learning about Donna's youthful passions. Whatever the reason, a volcano seemed to erupt in her belly and travelled rapidly up her throat and into her mouth. Flinging her arms around her husband's neck, she dragged him down onto her, and, placing her lips firmly on his, delivered an absolute scorcher. Something like a bolt of lightning arced from her lips, touching and energising every part of her lover's body and igniting the pleasure centres of his brain, and for a while all thoughts of aliens and John Anderson and the fate of the planet were pushed from her mind.

#  Part 6: Apocalypse

## Forty One

Although Dawn visited Donna that morning in Crocodile Bay to let her know that she was safe and that the aliens were friendly, it was a most unsatisfactory encounter. Donna could only respond by waggling her fins and nodding her beak, and it wasn't until several hours later, in Eden, that they were able to properly discuss Dawn's encounter with the alien fleet and the dragon. As usual, they met up in Donna's room after the temple service, and this time Clara joined them.

"You're certain these aliens are friendly?" Clara asked when Dawn had finished her tale.

"That dragon was genuine, that's for sure. He wouldn't have been able to breathe fire otherwise. I think he was a representative of the galactic federation."

"And you say those wasps deceived COBRA into thinking they were part of that federation?"

"That's right. The dragon told me that the wasps once belonged to the federation, and so they were easily able to copy the federation's ships and pretend to be part of that organisation. Anderson must have got his ideas about the federation from them."

"And by now he knows that you've made contact with the ships and that you've returned safely," Donna added grimly. "Clare will have told him. And the mere fact that you're back will tell him that the aliens are friendly, so he's sure to set in motion whatever he's planning to convince them that he's Earth's representative."

Dawn nodded. "I know."

"Will you take the same precautions as before?" Clara asked. "Restrict the numbers of dolphins in a trance to 100?"

"I don't think so. We've got nothing to fear from the aliens, and I'm sure Anderson doesn't intend to harm the dolphins. To do that would gain him nothing, and it would alienate him from the aliens and everyone else as well. He's aiming to somehow use the Mind for his own purposes, presumably by taking it over, and the more dolphins present in Eden the harder that will be for him. Besides, the aliens want to see my Passion play, and I need the full resources of the Mind for that."

"In which case the only ones at risk are you and Donna, as you're the only ones who can foil his plans."

"That's right. Hopefully he knows nothing about Donna, but to be on the safe side I'd like you to guard her body in Crocodile Bay while she's in her trance. To do that you'll have to avoid eating those psychoactive fish, of course."

"Of course. I'll guard her against an underwater attack, but I won't be able to stop an attack from above the surface."

"You needn't worry about that. Mort will be there, and apparently he's good with guns."

"Mort's coming?" Donna squawked. "To Honiara?"

"Yes," Dawn said heavily, "he's coming to Honiara. And he'll have Karen in tow, so you'll be able to cuddle up to him every evening. Angela's coming as well. He booked the flight this morning, and they're staying at our house."

"Wow! That means that when I take over Karen we'll all be able to have supper together and play Monopoly before we go to bed. There is a double bed in your spare room, isn't there?"

Dawn closed her eyes and groaned. "Do try to curb your enthusiasm, Donna, at least for tonight. I'm very tired and I don't want to be disturbed. Karen's looking pretty shattered too, and I should think Mort's absolutely exhausted. He's not a young man any more. Why don't you have the night off?"

"I suppose I could," Donna replied, disgruntled. Then she brightened. "Tomorrow's Wednesday, isn't it? That's when you and Rick have your candlelit supper and everything. You could cook double portions – I'll help you – and we'll have supper together and play Monopoly and I'll bankrupt you all. And afterwards I can be as romantic as I like, 'cos it's Wednesday." She folded her arms in satisfaction, a happy smile on her face.

"OK," Dawn sighed, accepting the inevitable, "That's what we'll do tomorrow. Assuming Anderson hasn't wiped us all out by then."

"So what precautions are you taking to protect yourselves?" Clara asked, turning the conversation back to important matters. "Apart from getting me and Mort to guard Donna's sleeping body, that is."

"Rick will have boats standing by in Crocodile Bay, like last time, ready to inject the dolphins with a wake-up drug if that becomes necessary. If anything untoward happens Clare will be able to contact him by phone, alternatively I'll nip back in spirit and take over Angela and contact him that way – I'll arrange for her to be at Crocodile Bay with Mort. Karen will remain at my house, guarding my body."

"Meanwhile the aliens will be assembling here," Donna said. "And presumably you'll entertain them with your Passion play."

"Something like that," Dawn agreed. "That's what they're expecting."

"Except that John Anderson will be trying steal your thunder. He'll be putting on some kind of show of his own."

"He'll have to use the resources of the Mind for that, and I've told Clare to make sure he doesn't go into a trance. Provided he remains in the real world, there's nothing he can do. He won't be able to contact either the Mind or the aliens."

Clara nodded slowly, then she frowned. "What are you going tell the dolphin community? They need to be warned. The aliens will be here in 24 hours, and they don't even know they're coming, let alone any of your plans."

"Donna will tell them during the temple service, as she did before. But this time, Donna, you need to let them know that there will be a number of different species, and that I'm going to be performing my Passion play for them. Tell them that the temple forecourt will be packed with visitors from space, so they'll probably have to remain in the temple."

Clara was still looking worried. "What about Jonah? He'll have to be excluded again, I suppose."

"I'm afraid so. We don't know what Anderson might have squirreled away in his brain. Which means he'll have to be isolated from the other dolphins tomorrow, to keep him away from those psychoactive fish."

"I'd better go and tell him," Clara said, jumping up. "He told me he was going to take a walk by the river. I'll join him – unless there's anything else you need to tell me?"

"Just make sure Jonah goes into the isolation tank before feeding time, and that he stays there. It's crucial that he does."

"Don't worry. I know what's at stake." Clara went to the door, then paused. "I won't be here tomorrow either, 'cos I'll be guarding Donna's body along with your Mort. You two watch yourselves – those aliens may not be as benign as you think!"

"One other thing, Clara. I'm thinking of getting Rick to feed the dolphins with extra psychoactive fish, so that they remain in their trance longer, maybe an hour longer. It will give us more time to for my Passion play and to talk to our visitors afterwards, and to cope with any hitches. So don't worry when they don't wake up at the usual time."

"Good idea," Clara said, then hurried out for her tryst with Jonah.

That evening, at around 8 o'clock, Dawn and Rick collected Mort, Karen and Angela from Honiara airport. Clare had phoned earlier from Adelaide to say that she was about to join John Anderson and his Watchers on their chartered flight. Anderson had been greatly buoyed up by Dawn's safe return, she said, and was taking almost 100 Watchers with him to Eden this time. Dawn didn't know whether to be alarmed by that or not.

When the hugs and greetings at the airport were over and Dawn had told them Clare's news, it was Angela who voiced the question that was on all three visitors' minds. "Have you brought Hotpants along?"

"Do you really think I could keep her away?" Dawn replied as she led them out of the airport building towards the car. "She's sitting inside me right now."

"She's unusually well-behaved, then," Karen observed. "She's not clamouring to get into me."

"I had a few words with her this morning. No high jinks, I said, 'cos we all need an early night and plenty of rest."

"She can take over my body as soon as we're in the car," Karen said. "It'll give her the chance for a cuddle on the back seat."

"That's very considerate of you, Karen," Mort murmured. "Don't you want to chat to Rick and Dawn first?"

"My body's absolutely shattered. Donna's welcome to it."

A few minutes later they were driving along the coast road towards the town and Donna was snuggling up to Mort on the back seat and chattering excitedly about all the things they were going to do together during his short stay here. "It's going to be our practice honeymoon," she whispered.

When they arrived home Donna insisted on making everyone cups of tea and handing out biscuits and cakes. She had persuaded Dawn to show her where everything was before they left for the airport, and she wanted to prove to all and sundry what a splendid wife she would be.

When they'd had their tea and biscuits she cleared everything away while Dawn and Rick showed Mort and Angela around the house. That done, she helped Mort carry his bags to his bedroom. He had a double bed, she noted.

"Where's Karen's room?" she asked him.

"She'll be in here with me."

"You mean – you and Karen will be _sleeping_ together?"

Mort stared at her blankly. "We're getting married."

"But ... but ... without _me_?"

"You can't be with me all the time, my dear. Your dolphin body would atrophy."

"But ... it's not _right_."

"Don't be silly. Married couples always sleep together."

She glared at him. "Don't make love to her, that's all. Not when _I'm_ not inside her skin."

He laughed. "Of course I won't. It's you I love, you know that." He folded his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek.

"Well, that's all right then," she said, mollified, and kissed him back. He was obviously sincere in his intentions.

But having recently lost Jonah to Clara's charms, she couldn't help feeling suspicious of Karen – especially as Mort had given no hint that Karen was in any way averse to the idea of spending the entire night in his bed. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just this one night, but it was going to be every night that they were here. Moreover, since Mort was obviously perfectly comfortable with the idea, it seemed almost certain that they would continue to sleep together on their return home to Adelaide.

Mort was gently stroking her back and shoulders, and she put her arms round his neck and squeezed herself to him. Karen could never be a serious contender for his affections, she told herself. She didn't like board games, she wasn't keen on cooking, and, most importantly of all, she would never be able to give him those amazing love-goddess kisses.

The closeness of his body and the thought of those kisses filled her with desire, and she lifted her lips to his. But then she became aware of waves lapping around her sleek grey body and the starlit heavens above, and she realised what a disaster it would be if she suddenly departed this body during the bodice-ripping aftermath of one of those kisses.

"I'm slipping out of my trance," she breathed. "There will be no love-goddess kisses tonight, my darling. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," he murmured, giving her a final squeeze.

Her awareness of her real dolphin body grew stronger, and her control over Karen's human body started to slip away. Mort's image broke up and disappeared, and the last thing she heard was Karen saying, as if from a great distance, "That makes three of us. I'm sorry as well, really sorry. Those kisses of hers..."

As her voice faded away it dawned on Donna that she had _two_ lovers, not one. She had no reason, no reason at all, to feel jealous of lesbian Karen.

## Forty Two

The next morning Dawn took her visitors to Crocodile Bay, to meet Donna in the flesh. Crocodile Bay was an artificial lagoon lying a ten-minute drive to the west of Honiara, and it covered an area of several square miles. It had to be that large, for it was home to over a thousand dolphins as well as being a tourist destination. Paths meandered through the natural bush surrounding the bay to the various piers and viewing platforms that jutted out into the water.

The site opened to the public at 9.00 am, and they were the first visitors. As they drove up to the gates Mort noted the high wire fence and surveillance cameras surrounding the site. These would certainly be enough to deter the casual intruder, but they wouldn't stop a determined attack. Within the enclosure everything appeared calm and peaceful, for no one here knew that an alien armada was hurtling towards Earth.

Things were far from normal in the underwater dolphin world, however. Donna had told the other dolphins, using their whistle language, that she had some very special human visitors, and that on no account was anyone to go near the viewing platform at the visitor centre, because she was going to give a display there. Everyone was most intrigued by this, and all kinds of rumours were flying backwards and forwards.

Right on time, just as the digits on the large clock above the visitor centre reached 9.15, Dawn and the others emerged from the centre and took their seats near the front of the platform, in the shade of some awning. Donna, who had been watching out for them from the middle of the bay, immediately dived deep beneath the surface and streaked in their direction. Just a few metres from the edge of the platform she turned sharply upwards, and, hurling herself high into the air, performed a spectacular somersault. She heard their stunned gasps, and as she descended into the water, rolling her magnificent body over and over, there was no doubting the enthusiasm of their clapping and cheers.

Donna spent the next five minutes showing off her incredible mastery over her aquatic environment. Wild dolphins are good, but GM dolphins, with their near-human brains, are astounding. As the leader of the GM dolphin community she had practised assiduously for years, and now she could perform acrobatic feats that to a human audience would seem impossible.

When she had finished her breath-taking display, she swam over to her visitors and pushed herself up against the edge of the platform so that they could make a fuss of her. But they seemed totally bemused, and sat there gazing at her with awestruck expressions.

Dawn, who was sitting to one side, glanced at Mort and the others and laughed. "She's quite tame," she said. "I promise she won't bite."

To prove her point she jumped up and ran over to the dolphin, kneeling to stroke her beak and pat her head.

"Kiss her, Dad," Angela told her father. "You know that's what she wants."

Mort came forward and knelt down beside the magnificent grey head of the dolphin and did just that. Donna, gazing up at him, couldn't help noticing that his eyes were glistening with damp – though this may have been caused by the spray she had thrown off during her acrobatics.

On the way here, Mort had told Dawn that he wanted more than anything else to go for a ride on Donna's back, and now he stood up and proceeded to strip off his clothes to reveal that he was wearing a swimsuit. He looked very nice in it, Donna thought, even to her dolphin eyes. Dawn told him to jump into the water, and he immediately did so. Realising what he wanted, Donna dropped beneath him and then surfaced, catching him on the lower part of her body, near her tail and forcing him to grab her dorsal fin to stop himself slipping off.

"Tell her when you're ready," Dawn called out to him. Donna felt him wriggle himself into position, wrapping his legs round her. "Hold on to the fin to steady yourself, and don't press your legs into her too hard," Dawn warned him. "It's best to stretch them out across her back, otherwise you might crack a bone."

"OK, I'm ready!" he shouted back.

Donna flapped her tail in a vigorous up-and-down motion, and her body surged forward through the water. In spite of the additional weight of Mort's body, she was able to achieve a respectable speed, and she headed off towards the reef that cut off the bay from the open sea. Two other dolphins joined them, swimming on each side of her, and she recognised Clara and Jonah. They accompanied her as she travelled the length of the reef, then followed as she turned inland to circumnavigate the bay. Although Donna herself couldn't manage more than a steady swim, and anything else would in any case dislodge Mort, they were able to add to the excitement by leaping in the air and performing somersaults and other stunts.

And then she was back at the viewing platform, and Mort slithered off her into the water. Before clambering up the ladder onto the platform he swam around her for a few moments, in his clumsy human way, at the same time trying to stroke her body and pat her beak. "That was wonderful, Donna," he gasped. "The best trip of my life." Then he swam to the ladder at the side of the viewing platform and clambered up it.

It turned out that Angela and Karen had also brought swimsuits along, and they wanted to ride on her too. So, after further warnings from Dawn about not pressing into Donna's body too tightly, she took first Angela for a trip around the bay, and then Karen lowered herself into the water for her turn.

As she watched her, Donna couldn't help remembering Karen's previous visit to the Bay, when she had not wanted anything at all to do with the dolphins. Then she had seemed very prim and uptight, and Donna reflected that the firestorm in her brain a week ago hadn't been such a bad thing. It seemed to have wiped away a veneer of sophistication to reveal her true personality.

Once more Donna sank beneath the surface and rose up beneath her human rider. Copying what the others had done, Karen stretched her legs across Donna's lower back and, holding onto her dorsal fin, wriggled herself into a comfortable position. Unlike the others, though, she stroked Donna's smooth sides with hands and whispered, so quietly that only the dolphin could hear: "I love you, Donna."

Donna flicked her tail and drove herself through the water. Karen's slim body was lighter than the others, and Donna was able to travel quite fast. In fact she went so fast that the spray lashed against Karen's body and she screamed out in excitement, while Clara and Jonah raced alongside, performing their leaps and somersaults. Eventually they were back at the viewing platform, and Karen slid into the water and then swam up to Donna's beak and cuddled it.

"Thanks, Donna," she whispered. "For everything." Then, with a quick kiss on the end of her beak, Karen swam to the ladder at the side of the viewing platform.

Dawn remained at Crocodile Bay with her visitors for another couple of hours. They wandered around the displays in the visitor centre, walked around the bay to watch the dolphins playing, and finally watched the dolphins being fed their psychoactive fish. This turned out to be a very organised affair, as each dolphin had to receive a precisely measured quantity of the fish, and there were a large number of dolphins to feed. Rick had explained that today's dosage was increased, to allow the dolphins to remain longer in their trance. In practice this meant that each dolphin was fed three fish instead of two. When Mort had pointed at this was a very meagre meal for such large animals, Rick had told him that it wasn't their main meal of the day, merely a midday snack.

The entire operation was mechanised, with a large number of feeding tubes leading vertically into the lagoon from a large building at the water's edge in which the fresh fish were stored. The dolphins formed orderly queues at the base of these tubes, each one pushing their snout against a lever to receive its portion of fish. Rick explained that the fish themselves were reared in a large fish farm a little further up the coast.

Well before feeding time Clara and Donna shepherded Jonah into the isolation cage near the medical facilities, then Clara remained until Rick arrived to instruct the person in charge of the feeding arrangements that Jonah was to be fed ordinary fish. She was unable to check whether that command was carried out, but she supposed that Rick would check up on Jonah later, and she would certainly take it upon herself to make an underwater trip to his cage to make sure he wasn't in a trance. Nobody, not even Jonah himself, knew what commands John Anderson might have secreted in his brain.

Crocodile Bay was always closed to visitors during the hottest part of the day, for it was then that the dolphins were in their trance. Dawn had departed with Karen well before midday, for she had to get home and have something to eat before she too went into a trance. Mort and Angela remained on the site, to watch over Donna.

Clara was careful not to eat any of the psychoactive fish herself, instead Rick fed her some ordinary fish from the store. Mort and Angela, who were with him, also threw her some fish, and Rick introduced them to her. Mort patted Clara's head, confessing: "They all look the same to me."

"If you were with them all the time, like I am, you would be able to tell them apart," Rick told him.

"You'd better call Donna over," Mort told him. "We'd never hear the last of it if I stood guard over the wrong dolphin!"

Rick laughed. "Don't worry, Clara will put you right. I've told Donna to make sure she sleeps alongside the viewing platform. You can watch her in comfort from there. You'll be able to sit in the shade." He lowered his voice. "You've got that gun?"

Mort nodded and patted the side of his shorts. "I'll wander over there now with Angela."

Before he left, he glanced down at Clara, who was swallowing the remains of her fish. "We'll see you in a minute, Clara," he called out, and Clara nodded her beak at him in reply.

Mort remained for a moment, watching her. He still couldn't get used to the idea that these creatures understood human speech perfectly. And he certainly couldn't get used to the idea that he was about to marry one of them.

It was about 15 minutes later that Mort realised something was amiss. He was sitting next to Angela under the awning of the viewing platform, sipping a cold drink, with Donna's sleeping body floating nearby. Rick was a couple of hundred metres away, organizing a group of men with boats. They were making preparations in case a phone call came from Clare on the other side of the world to inject the dolphins with wake-up drugs.

He had noticed a movement in the bushes a little way from Rick's party a few minutes earlier, but then a couple of birds had flown out and all was still. But now the bushes were moving again, and he was certain that someone was moving through them.

"Rick!" he yelled, standing up and waving his arms. "In the bushes behind you!"

Rick turned, and at that moment four armed men in combat fatigues and dark visors over their faces emerged from the undergrowth, guns at the ready. They ran forward, fanning out around Rick and his workers.

"Angela, get down!" Mort hissed, throwing himself to the ground and reaching for his gun. He didn't know what he was going to do, but somehow he and Angela had to get off that platform and hide. Then perhaps he might be able to creep around behind the attackers.

"Drop that gun!" The command came from behind him, and Mort glanced round. Another man in fatigues and visor was crouched near the entrance to the centre, pointing a rifle menacingly at him. Mort let go of his weapon and it clattered onto the wooden planking beside him.

"Throw it towards me," the man commanded. Mort did so.

"Good. Now both of you stand up slowly and sit down where you were before, facing away from me and towards the water."

Mort and Angela did as he said and returned to their seats. Angela was shaking slightly and was obviously very frightened, but she managed not to panic. Mort took her hand and patted it reassuringly. 200 metres away Rick and his team were being forced to sit on the ground in the shade of a large tree, some distance from their boats, and Mort could see that several other armed men had appeared and taken up positions further around the lagoon. He counted 16 of them in total.

"What's this about?" he rasped. He was careful not to turn his head to look at the man. "What do you people want?"

"Don't worry," the smooth reply came back. The man had an English accent, Mort noticed. "Behave yourselves and no one gets hurt."

Mort repeated his question. "What do you want?"

"We're here to make sure your dolphins remain in their trance, that's all. To stop them being given wake-up drugs."

"You're Watchers, aren't you," Mort said contemptuously. "You're acting under John Anderson's orders."

The man laughed briefly. "We're not Watchers, we've been hired for this job. We're professionals – so don't try anything. In a couple of hours we'll be gone."

"Don't you realise what's at stake?" Mort asked. "At this moment aliens from across the galaxy are landing on Earth. Anderson wants them to think he's mankind's leader. You're playing into his hands."

"Tell me another!" the man sneered. "You sound like those crazy Watchers yourself. Now just relax. All we want is for those dolphins to enjoy their midday nap, then we collect our money. So let's have a nice clean job with no one hurt, OK?"

Mort sighed and picked up his drink and gazed around the lagoon. The guards dotted around it were all sitting down in whatever shade they could find, and Rick's people looked like they were dozing off on the sand beneath the tree. He could scarcely imagine a more peaceful scene. As the man said, all they had to do was relax and sit out the next two hours.

He wondered what was happening to Donna and Dawn in Eden. He was sure that, whatever it was, it wouldn't be as quiet and relaxing as this.

## Forty Three

About 20 minutes before the ambush at Crocodile Bay, Dawn was hurtling through the night in her red VW Beetle. Below her were the snow-capped peaks of the Tienshan Mountains, and somewhere in the darkness ahead was the valley in which Eden would shortly materialise. She wanted to arrive before that happened, to check up on Anderson and his Watchers. She was certain they were up to something. As always, her satnav delivered her to roughly the right spot, and moments later she was descending towards the grassy area where the small township with its temple and forecourt would shortly appear.

She didn't land, for that could put her in danger, instead she transformed herself into her dragon body and hovered about 80 metres above the ground. Although it was still dark, she could just make out a large group of human spirits standing immediately below. These must be the Watchers, already in their trance. Clare had told her that Anderson was bringing 100 of them here. A little way from them she could make out the hazy glimmer of a real-world lantern that had been set up on a pole. It cast its pale light over the fuzzy outlines of the Watchers' physical bodies, lying on the grass in a state of trance.

Dawn could also make out the ghostly form of a woman standing near the lantern, with a man sitting beside her: Clare and John Anderson, she supposed. Although the imagery was fuzzy, Dawn could tell that Clare was holding Baby and pointing it upwards towards her. Dawn waved, and Clare, who must have been watching her in Baby's screen, waved back and beckoned her down. Reassured by this, Dawn cautiously fluttered to the ground and landed about 30 metres from them.

The spirits of the Watchers saw her descend, but they made no move to approach her. The fuzzy form of John Anderson also remained motionless in his chair. Clare didn't pass him the spirit detector, and he gave no indication that he wanted to see what was showing on its screen.

The sky above the eastern peaks was turning from black to deep blue, signalling the approach of the new day. Dawn glanced around, aware that at any moment the Mind and Eden would spring into existence, together with all of its inhabitants. Sure enough, exactly on cue, the temple forecourt appeared to one side of her, and then the roofs of several houses formed beyond it. Beyond the emerging township, the communal mind would also be conjuring up the countryside and the farms, the castle further up the valley, and, at the head of the valley, glacier and the river Chilik flowing from its base.

Suddenly, in front of her, the great altar materialised, hiding Clare and Anderson from her view. Then a temple wall sprang up right by her, and she jumped back in alarm. If she had been any closer she would have been knocked aside by the structure. She was still in her dragon form, and to avoid any further such surprises she leapt into the air and flew rapidly upwards, clear of the emerging masonry.

The temple roof hadn't yet formed, and she was able to fly over the top of the wall and into the temple interior. The pillars had appeared, and some of the high arches, and she fluttered behind one of these, so that she couldn't be seen by the Watchers on the ground, who were now enclosed by the structure. Peering cautiously round the pillar, she saw that the Watchers had begun spreading out around the great altar. She could also see the ghostly image of Clare, still standing behind it and still illuminated by the lantern.

The place was suddenly thrown into complete darkness. Glancing up, she saw that the roof of the temple had now formed, cutting out the dawn sky. Able now to leave her hiding place without being seen, she glided down towards the Watchers and hovered high above the altar.

Below her, Clare was placing Baby on the ground. Then she picked up something which she appeared to clamp around her ankles. Dawn watched curiously, but she was too high and the imagery was too hazy to see her properly. She glided a little lower, and now she could see that the clamps on Clare's ankles were attached to a thick chain. Clare proceeded to clamp this to her wrists as well, and then she sat down on the ground.

Dawn couldn't believe her eyes. Her first thought was that her brain must be misinterpreting the imagery she was receiving from the real world, for what Clare was doing made no sense at all. What could possibly induce her to shackle herself?

And then something bright and clear started to emerge from Clare's fuzzy head. A spirit! Dawn's dragon heart sank into the pit of her belly. Clare had been possessed, that was why she was acting so strangely! The spirit, Dawn saw, was wearing a golden robe, and it had a crown on its head, and then it turned its head and she had a clear view of its face. It was Jonah!

No, this spirit couldn't possibly be Jonah. Jonah hadn't been fed those psychoactive fish, and in any case Clare must have been possessed _before_ Eden materialised. This had to be Jonah's mentor and look-alike, John Anderson, and he was wearing that crown to signify his power and authority.

She glanced at Anderson's physical body, still sitting motionless in that chair, and it dawned on her that he was in a trance like the other Watchers. The simple act of possessing Clare had allowed him first to deceive Dawn and then to put Clare in chains. Dawn imagined that Anderson had taken control of Clare on the flight here. It would have been easy enough to do, he merely had to slip something into her food or her drink to make her drowsy, and then he could put himself into a trance and invade her.

With Anderson's spirit gone, Clare was now back in control of her body. Dawn watched as she stood up and began tugging desperately at her chains. They were attached to a thick metal stake driven into the ground, and it seemed impossible that she would ever be able to set herself free. Clare seemed to reach that conclusion for herself, and she stopped tugging and instead tried to reach Anderson's seated body, presumably to get the key to the clamps. She stretched out the short length of chain to its fullest extent, and stretched out her arms as well, but the tips of her fingers were several metres from him. This course of action was clearly impossible, and she abandoned the effort and resumed her ineffectual attempts to pull off the chains.

There was nothing Dawn could do to help, for she was an insubstantial spirit and unable to influence real-world objects. Then it occurred to her that she should be able to take over Anderson's sleeping body, in which case she could make it stand up and walk to Clare and, perhaps, unlock her chains.

She was about to swoop down to him when she noticed that the Watchers had formed a semicircle around the great altar, and that they were kneeling in an attitude of prayer. They must, she thought, be praying to the Mind. Contrary to everything that John Anderson had told her and Karen, they must be attempting to take control of it!

She would have to delay any efforts to release Clare. Her most urgent task was to fly onto the altar and take control of the Mind herself, pre-empting these attempts by the Watchers. But just as she was about to do that, a strange brightness appeared in the air in front of the altar and suddenly a second golden altar flickered into existence. The Watchers, she realised with relief, weren't attempting to take over the Mind, instead they were only doing what they always did in their trance gatherings, which was to create their own altar and temple!

Still hovering high above this drama, she glanced around the temple, and sure enough it had subtly changed. The pillars and arches were different, and the murals had changed too. She wondered if there might be something evil about these alterations, but as she looked around it seemed to her that everything was perfectly innocent. It was just that this was no longer her old familiar temple.

She twisted her head upwards and glanced at the ceiling, and this too had changed. Specifically, it was the picture of the heavens painted on it that had changed. Whereas before the stars had made a random pattern, now they formed the distinct image of a human face. And as she gazed the pattern grew clearer, as though the image was still being conjured up, and suddenly she saw whose face it was: John Anderson!

There was a further coalescing of the stars forming the eyes, and now they were clear and bright and perfectly formed. They were strangely piercing, just like the eyes of John Anderson, and they were staring directly down at the great altar.

She returned her gaze to the Watchers' new altar, which was immediately in front of the great altar. This magnificent object was even larger than the great altar, and it was also more ornate, and she couldn't help but admire it. There was a complicated pattern engraved on it, but she was too far above it to make it out clearly, and in any case this altar was still flickering slightly as though it hadn't fully formed.

Then she saw it wasn't just flickering, it was moving around in space. As she watched it slowly moved towards the great altar and began to embrace it, and then it was superimposed on it so that the great altar could no longer be seen. It was as though the great altar of the Mind had been swallowed up!

Dawn stared down aghast, struggling to grasp the implications of what she was seeing. John Anderson hadn't actually taken over the Mind – to that extent he hadn't lied – but he had certainly acted in an underhand way. He had superimposed his Watchers' vision of paradise on the dolphin's Eden, and by swallowing up the great altar in a neurospace structure of his own making he had blocked off her own access to it, ensuring that she wouldn't be able to take over the Mind either. And that meant that she wouldn't be able to perform her Passion play.

But putting a stop to her Passion play was only part of Anderson's strategy. Indeed, when he'd hatched his plan he wouldn't have been aware that this was her intention, and indeed he might not be aware of it now – she was unsure exactly what Clare had told him. His main aim was to ensure that she wouldn't be able to take over the Mind to undo the changes he had made to the temple structure and that pattern of stars in the temple ceiling. The alien visitors, seeing his face in those stars, would undoubtedly recognise him as Earth's leader. Dawn fluttered back up into the shadows near the temple ceiling and wondered what she should do.

Fortunately she still hadn't been spotted, so none of the Watchers knew that she had witnessed these preparations. They believed their deceit had passed unnoticed, which meant that they wouldn't expect any counterattack. She pondered her options. One option was to try to release Clare so that she could inject the Watchers' bodies with wake-up drugs, so ejecting them from their trance and thereby eliminate the false altar and all the other changes to the temple that they had conjured up. A second option was to fly back to Honiara and get Rick to do the same to the dolphins, and so bring this dream and Eden to an end.

Her third option, which she rejected immediately, was to destroy the Watchers' altar with her fire. That would inevitably damage the great altar, and she had no idea what the consequences of that might be. It would, she supposed, damage the Mind, which meant damaging that the physical brains of the dolphin community. The Mind and the community had to be protected at all costs.

And her fourth option, which she also rejected outright, was to kill John Anderson and all the Watchers. That would put an immediate end to all this nonsense. But that seemed altogether too extreme and would in any case contravene what she believed were the dragons' rules of engagement, for they had done nothing so far that posed a threat to her life or the dolphins or, indeed, to the Mind.

The first option was the clear winner: she would try to take over Anderson's body and release Claire. Still keeping to the shadows, she flew around the temple, hugging the walls, until she was above the fuzzy form of his body, seated behind the false altar. The sleeping bodies of the Watchers were lying on the ground round about, and she supposed that somewhere nearby must be bags filled with syringes of wake-up drugs. The Watchers' spirits were still kneeling in a large semicircle at the front of their altar.

She dropped to the ground behind the altar, to Anderson's sleeping form, and entered his skull. She encountered no resistance, for Anderson's spirit was elsewhere, and moments later she was in control of his body.

She didn't immediately open his eyes. She was afraid his spirit might have sensed this invasion of his body, in which case he would return to it and try to eject her. But nothing happened, so she opened them and looked around.

Looking through Anderson's physical eyes she could no longer see the neurospace world of Eden with its temple and altar, instead her only awareness was of the brightening dawn sky, the tree-lined mountain slopes surrounding the valley and the copses and grassy hillocks round about – and, lying on the grass nearby, the sleeping bodies of the Watchers. Clare was sitting mournfully a few metres away, chained by her ankles and wrists to a stout metal post.

Without moving her new body, Dawn surreptitiously moved her hands to the pockets of Anderson's jacket and then his trousers. She was feeling for his keys. Although his body would appear as no more than a diaphanous ghost to the Watchers' spirits, it was possible that any sudden movement might attract their attention. Her probing fingers felt what was obviously a handkerchief and a notebook and pencil, but no keys. She glanced around at the grass near he was sitting, but there were no keys there or any bag or briefcase that might contain them. She glanced across at Clare, who was watching her with some surprise.

"It's me – Dawn," she hissed. "I've taken over Anderson's body. Where's the key to that padlock?"

"I don't know," Clare whispered back. "I never saw it."

"So how can I release you?"

"I don't know. You can't."

"The wake-up drugs – where are they?"

"I don't know. I never saw those either. I don't think they brought any."

"So we can't pull those Watchers out of their trance! Not quickly, at any rate!"

"That damn Anderson has made fools of all of us," Clare muttered bitterly. "He must have guessed you would try to use his body to release me. Your best bet is to get back to Honiara and tell Rick to wake up the dolphins. Bring this fiasco to an end that way. Then tell the aliens to put off their visit till tomorrow."

"I agree. It's the only thing to do. I'll get Rick to contact Dr Song so she knows what's happened to you. I guess she'll fly in some help."

"Yeah, I guess, though it's too late for that. Thanks, Dawn. And good luck."

Dawn withdrew from Anderson's mind and found herself once more in the temple, standing behind the altar next to his ghostly sleeping body. So that she wouldn't be seen by the Watchers, she'd put herself into her human form, and since it was still quite dark she figured that by keeping to the walls she would be able to make her way to the temple entrance without anyone spotting her.

And then she saw someone standing in the shadows by a nearby pillar, watching her. It was John Anderson's spirit, rigged out in that golden robe and crown. She could see him more clearly than before, and she noticed that the stump of his horn, which had been protruding from his forehead when she'd encountered him in Angela's brain, was still there, but it was masked by the crown so that it appeared to be part of that symbol of his authority. She couldn't see his shrivelled wings either, for they were hidden beneath his robe. All evidence of his past relationship with demons had been covered up.

She supposed he had sensed her intrusion into his body but had reckoned that his safest course was to take no action, apart from checking what she was up to. No doubt he had overheard her whispered conversation with Clare, but it would have been fuzzy like everything else in the real world and probably incomprehensible to him.

There was no point trying to hide herself in the shadows now. She instantly turned into a dragon and leapt into the air, and, flapping her wings vigorously, headed out over the false altar and the upturned faces of the Watchers to the temple entrance. Once outside, she transformed herself into her rocket-powered Beetle, pushed her foot down hard on the accelerator, and hurtled southeast into the dawn.

## Forty Four

Donna stood on her balcony, overlooking the temple precincts, and scanned the dawn sky. She was looking for those alien ships, but all she could see were the faint images of fuzzy stars.

She was sure the armada would soon appear, and she couldn't help smiling to herself as she turned away and went back inside. Her dolphin friends would get the surprise of their lives when they saw those gleaming silver vessels descending from the heavens, and an even greater surprise when hundreds of aliens of all shapes and sizes from more than a dozen worlds gathered on the temple forecourt. No one knew what the outcome of this visit would be, but one thing seemed certain: whatever it was, she would play a prominent role.

So what should she wear on this most auspicious of days? Donna went over to her wardrobe and carefully considered the matter. Eventually she decided on her hot red outfit. She wanted to look striking, and in any case this garment was definitely the most appropriate for someone who could turn herself into a red fire-breathing dragon.

She put on the dress and those matching high-heeled shoes, then carefully did her hair and made up her face. Dawn sometimes teased her about the trouble she took over her appearance, but in the last few days those efforts had paid off handsomely. She'd found no difficulty at all in tarting up Karen's good looks, with the result that bagging Mort had been a pushover. He'd even confessed that he'd been unable to believe his luck in landing such a dishy female, which had made Donna feel very pleased with herself.

She had just finished applying some eyeliner when the door burst open and Dawn rushed in. Donna had never seen her so distraught.

"It's a disaster! Anderson's blocked my access to the Mind, so I can't give my puppet show! I flew back to Crocodile Bay, to cancel Eden, but Anderson's people have taken over that too. Poor Rick and Mort and everyone else are being held at gunpoint!"

Mort held at gunpoint? Donna gaped at her, horrified. But she managed not to panic, and she sat Dawn down on the settee and got her to tell the full story.

"Anderson's walked all over us," Dawn concluded, clasping and unclasping her hands fretfully. "I can't get into the Mind, Clare's in chains so she can't get to Anderson's body to force him awake, and Rick and his team can't inject the dolphins with wake-up drugs to close Eden down. I've really blown it this time."

"At least Rick and Mort and the others don't seem to be in any immediate danger," Donna pointed out, trying to calm her, "and I'm sure we can sort out the little difficulty here. After all, we're the most powerful creatures in the universe – or at least in the top one percent of most powerful creatures – so there's no way a pathetic human like Anderson can stop us. How do you know that you can't get into the Mind? I bet you can wriggle your way in somehow. Why don't we go over to the temple now and try?"

"It's a waste of time," Dawn wailed. "I know it is."

"Let's at least try. You might find a way in. And then you'll be able to perform your Passion play, and I'll be on hand to sort out those Watchers if they try anything."

Dawn gave a forlorn nod. "You're right. I ought to try."

"That's the spirit! And if you can't get in, there's a very simple solution. We turn ourselves into fire-breathing dragons and slaughter Anderson and his silly Watchers. When they disappear, their false altar disappears too."

Dawn shook her head. "We can't do that. Our lives aren't actually at risk, nor are the dolphins."

"I'll do the slaughtering if you like." Donna said enthusiastically. "Come on, let's do it!"

"You know we can't kill them unless we're threatened. The rest of the dragon race would disown us. In any case, we might damage the Mind if we use our fire inside the temple – and that means we might harm the minds of all the dolphins."

Donna refused to be discouraged. "Well, let's see what happens when we face up to those Watchers in the temple. With a bit of luck they'll try to kill us, and then there's nothing to stop us wiping them out. We'll drive them out into the forecourt and slaughter them there!"

The two women hurried out outside, crossed the forecourt, and cautiously entered the temple. Although it was still early and barely light, several of the other inhabitants of the town had already arrived and were standing just inside, looking around with bemused expressions at the alterations that John Anderson had made.

Dawn was also bemused as she looked around, though for a different reason. She had expected see the Watchers sitting at the front, but the place was empty.

"They've gone!" she whispered to Donna. "The Watchers have disappeared!"

"They can't have," Donna whispered back. "It's too dark to see properly, they must be hiding somewhere. Clara isn't here to light the candles, so it's easy to hide in the shadows. They're probably in one of the side chapels."

Donna quickly found a couple of candles and lit them, and the two women walked around the side chapels, peering everywhere, but they were deserted. Only the fuzzy images of the Watchers' physical bodies remained, sleeping behind the altar, with Anderson's limp body still propped up in his chair and the hazy form of Clare sitting dolefully on the ground a short distance away.

"Anderson knows you saw everything," Donna said grimly. "He must have guessed that you'd contact Rick to wake up the dolphins, and he knew that when that failed you'd come back here to sort him out. So he and his Watchers have hidden themselves among the ordinary people in the town."

"In which case we'll never be able to find them before the aliens arrive. It's hopeless."

"It isn't hopeless," Donna said stoically. She'd never seen Dawn so dejected. "Let's take a look at that false altar. If we turned ourselves into dragons we might be able to tear it apart, and then you could get to the real altar and take over the Mind."

They walked over to the huge gleaming centrepiece of the temple. Like the true altar, it was made of gold, and it was studded with precious stones. Donna examined it critically. Like all the GM dolphins, her knowledge of metallic structures was derived not from practical experience but from her excellent education.

"Gold's a soft metal," she said. "We should be able to cut it open with our dragon claws. If necessary we could soften it further with a tiny amount of fire."

"It's worth a try," Dawn agreed. "But lay off the fire. I don't know what would happen to the Mind if we damaged the great altar."

Then she added: "You stay in your human form, Donna. We don't want people to know that you can become a dragon too. In any case, you need to tell everyone what's happening."

While Donna watched, Dawn transformed herself and squatted down in front of the false altar. She tapped its gleaming surface with a claw, and a dull thud rang out. It sounded hollow – indeed it had to be hollow, for it was no more than a sarcophagus within which the true altar was entombed.

She raised her right forelimb above her head, extended her claws, and brought her forelimb down as hard as she could, striking the false altar with a vicious blow. A loud _crack_ echoed around the temple, and she gasped with pain. The tip of one of her claws had broken off.

She examined the surface of the altar, where she had struck it. Instead of the deep incision that she was expecting there was just tiny scratch, and beneath the scratch was the sheen of something much darker and stronger than gold.

Dawn turned herself back into her human form and stood up, rubbing her smarting finger. The nail was broken. "It's not gold, it's covered with gold leaf. Whatever's underneath is very, very hard."

Donna's confidence in their ultimate victory was beginning to wane. "So what do we do now? Those aliens could be here at any moment. Somehow we've got to remove those Watchers, or at least get rid of their altar."

"Anderson's thought this out very carefully. He knows all about this temple and what's in it, he implanted the design in Jonah's mind. That's how he's been able to make all these changes to it. Everything we've tried has failed. I should have killed them when I had the chance, when they were all here. I was too squeamish, I can see that now."

"But there must be something we can do. He can't know everything, there must be something he's missed. He's not some all-knowing god. He doesn't know about my powers, for instance."

The inhabitants of Eden were streaming into the temple now, and the front rows were filling up. Some of the Watchers would be among them, but with so many people it was impossible to pick them out in the dim light. Even John Anderson, dressed as he was in that golden robe, could slip in, probably with his crown hidden under his robe.

Helena had arrived and was putting up the hymn numbers. "I'll have to start the service soon," Donna whispered in Dawn's ear. "Isn't there _anything_ we can do to get rid of the Watchers? We need to think laterally."

Dawn sighed. " _Laterally_ is so last century. I don't even know what it means anymore."

"Well, it means approaching the problem from a different direction," Donna told her, reciting what she'd learned. "We've got all those Watchers scattered among the rest of the population. What is there that's different about them, that would allow us to flush them out?"

"The difference, I suppose, is that their physical bodies are human, and everyone else is a dolphin. They live on land and dolphins live in the sea."

Dawn gripped Donna's arm, suddenly excited. "That's it!" she hissed. "We literally flush them out. With water!"

"What?"

"Don't you see? We flood Eden! The dolphins will be OK, 'cos they're perfectly at home in water, and they'll simply take on their normal form. But the humans won't be able to do that, they'll remain as humans, and then they'll be swept away. Or drown. And then the false altar and all the other changes they've made to the temple will disappear."

"But ... but ... how do we flood Eden?"

"It's simple! We use our fire to melt the glacier at the head of the valley. It's part of Eden, so it'll feel our fire. It shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes, and it'll turn to water and engulf the town."

Donna looked doubtful. "Are you sure that would work?"

"Of course it will work. I'm surprised you didn't think of it yourself. You run Bible study classes here – what happened after Eden in the Bible story?"

"Evil arose on the earth, and a flood wiped it out."

"Exactly. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to wipe out evil with a flood. Now, listen carefully..."

## Forty Five

The last people to make their way to the temple service that morning were treated to the sight of two automobiles, one a clunky vintage VW and the other a much swishier Aston Martin, rising up from the temple forecourt into the dawn sky. When they were about one hundred metres above the town there was a loud roar as their engines revved up, fire and black smoke belched from their rears, and they streaked off in opposite directions.

A few seconds later Donna was circling above the fissure in the mountains at the southern end of the valley. It marked the boundary of Eden, and here the river Chilik tumbled through and disappeared into a huge hole. Her job was to block the fissure, so forming a dam to hold back the flood waters: the last thing they wanted was for any hapless dolphins to be swept through here and smashed against the rocks.

Transforming herself into a dragon, she stretched out her wings to keep herself aloft and gulped in air. Then she opened her jaws wide and took aim at a rock face at the edge of the fissure. A huge jet of incandescence roared from her, engulfing the rock. Clouds of steam and smoke billowed from it, there were several loud cracking noises, and suddenly there was an enormous explosion as a huge area of granite split apart and a mass of jagged boulders crashed down into the river below.

Donna quenched her fire and swooped above the smoking wreckage. Dust filled the air, but she could see that rock and debris was strewn everywhere, blocking the river, and as she watched more slabs of rock tumbled down.

However, more rock was needed to create a proper dam, and she turned to the rock face on the opposite side of the fissure. Gulping in more air, she let another huge blast of fire pour out of her, and few moments later the air was filled with loud explosions as more jagged boulders exploded outwards, then the entire rock face started to peel away. She cut her fire, the noise died down, and then there was a huge roar as an avalanche of granite crashed onto the rocks below.

Donna soared above the huge cloud of dust and smoke, waiting for the air to clear. After a couple of minutes she could make out the outline of a huge pile of rubble, stretching right across the fissure to a height of about ten metres, more in places. At its foot, the river was already starting to overflow its banks. Her dam was ready.

Donna hovered above the scene a few minutes more, waiting for the dust to settle. Then she flew all over the scene of destruction, surveying her handiwork. She felt sure that even Noah would be impressed, for without a doubt it would hold back the coming flood. Satisfied, she turned herself back into her human form, encased herself in her car, and flew slowly back up the valley towards the town. There was no point hurrying, or she would arrive before the flood.

Far to the north a billowing white cloud of steam was rising high into the sky, evidence that Dawn was at work melting the massive glacier at the other end of Eden. She wouldn't melt all of it, for it covered a wide area and was more than a kilometre thick in places, but enough to flood the valley to a depth of several metres.

As she continued her journey up the valley, Donna became aware of a low rumbling. It was like the sound of waves crashing on the reef at Crocodile Bay, except it was continuous. Thinking that it must be the alien fleet arriving, she pressed a button on the dashboard and the entire roof of her car slid back, allowing her to survey the sky. There was no sign of any ships. She glanced all around, but everything was still and peaceful.

Mystified, she flew on. The roaring became louder and louder, and then she saw what it was. A wall of water, like a tsunami, was sweeping down the valley. She spotted Dawn's red VW Beetle flying above it, and turned her own vehicle to join her. Together they followed the advancing wall of water as it reached the township, then circled around as it washed over it, swirling through the streets and alleyways and rising up the wall of the houses. This wasn't a physical flood, for like everything else in Eden it existed only in neurospace; Clare, sitting on the grass in the early morning sunlight and gazing at the world through her physical eyes, would be unaware of it.

But to the spirits of the dolphins and the spirits of the Watchers and, if they were watching from space, the spirits of the aliens, it was more real than the ghostly outline of the massive Tienshan mountains surrounding the valley. Some black shapes appeared on the surface of the swirling torrent, and Donna saw that they were dolphins. They frolicked together, enjoying the unexpected deluge, and were soon joined by dozens and then hundreds more. She wondered what these friends of hers were making of this sudden transformation of their dreamworld home.

The water had now reached the tops of the smaller dwellings, so that only their roofs were visible. But the dome of the temple remained above the flood, and she saw that her room, which was on the first floor of a building nearby, had also escaped. The water wasn't even lapping her balcony.

Dawn had miscalculated! She hadn't melted nearly enough of the glacier. The Watchers inside the temple would be protected by its walls from the full force of the advancing wave and so would not be swept away, and since the water level was well below the temple ceiling most would be able to swim to the surface and float there until the water subsided. And any Watcher caught in the flood outside the temple might be able to escape onto a roof.

Sure enough, as she surveyed the scene below, two people did manage to reach a roof and haul themselves onto it. She immediately flew down for a closer look. It was a man and a woman, and they were wet and shivering and they looked terrified.

She flew back to Dawn, and as she drew alongside she signalled her to wind down her window.

"It's a couple of Watchers," she called out, pointing in their direction. "I'll fly down and finish them off, you keep an eye out for any others."

"No! We should check out the altar first. If Anderson's altar has gone, then we've won, and we can spare their lives. Turn yourself into a dolphin and dive into the temple to check."

"Fair enough," Donna called back. "But if that altar's not gone, I'll slaughter any Watchers I find!"

She tilted the nose of her vehicle towards the temple dome and flew down to it. Just before she hit the water above where the temple forecourt would be she transformed herself into her dolphin form and splashed down. The water was freezing cold – it would be, of course, having come from that glacier – but her dolphin body was able to cope with that.

But humans wouldn't cope. No wonder those two who had escaped onto the roof looked frozen! A minute or two more and they would die of hyperthermia. But could spirits die of cold? They would die from lack of oxygen and therefore from drowning in the flood, and they would certainly die from the heat of her fire, but would cold kill them? Well, she would soon find out.

She swam quickly through the cold water to where she knew the temple entrance would be, and with a flick of her tail was through it and into the dark interior. A number of dolphins were swimming and splashing around, but she ignored them and headed straight for the altar.

It was just as Dawn had hoped. The Watchers' false altar had disappeared, leaving the great altar exposed and unharmed. That meant that the Watchers' minds, which were needed to keep their imagery going, were no more. She swam all round the altar, and everything was just as it should be. The she swam up to the surface, below the temple dome, and looked around. There was no sign of any human survivors, so any that hadn't drowned must have succumbed to the cold. She looked up at the ceiling, and this too had been restored: John Anderson's face was no longer displayed in that pattern of stars.

Satisfied, Donna dived back down and swam quickly out of the temple entrance and back to the surface above the forecourt. Transforming herself into her human form, she conjured up her car, then flew back to her companion.

"We've done it!" she called out. "The great altar and everything else is back to normal."

"Great! So there's nothing to stop me now taking over the mind and doing my Passion play."

"Apart from all this water."

"It's already draining away. Look, you can see more of the houses now!"

Donna looked down, and sure enough he water was visibly receding. "So all we do now is wait for the aliens to turn up, and then you can begin your show."

Dawn glanced up. The rising sun was now shining brightly over the top of eastern mountains, and the sky was a brilliant blue, but there was no sign of approaching ships. "I wonder how long they will be."

"My room didn't get flooded, why don't we wait there? I'll make you a nice cup of tea."

Dawn nodded. "We'd better turn into dragons and fly down. I won't be able to land my car on that water, and certainly not on your balcony!"

A few minutes later Donna was busy at her stove. "I wonder what Anderson was planning to do when the aliens arrived. It must have been something pretty impressive."

"Some kind of show, I suppose, to replace my show. It would involve his temple and his altar and his image in the temple ceiling. Now that he's gone, we'll never know."

"We could ask those two Watchers who escaped." Donna carried the tea tray over to the small table, then went over to the window and stared up at the sky. There was still no sign of those ships.

"Those aliens had better hurry up, or it will be too late," she observed. "You won't have enough time for your Passion play before Eden comes to an end."

"Don't worry, you dolphins are in a longer trance today. Had you forgotten? Anyway, I'm sure those aliens know what they're doing. They've been monitoring our telepathic transmissions for years. Perhaps–" Dawn suddenly gasped.

Donna turned to her in alarm. "What's the matter?"

"Something's happening at home! I can feel my body being shaken! Karen must be trying to wake me up!"

"What? You can't possibly go now! Look, they're here!" Donna pointed up at the sky, where a cluster of bright points of light had suddenly appeared. As she watched, the points fanned out across the sky, and she realised they must be approaching Eden very fast indeed. Then they expanded to become gleaming discs, and moments later the sky was filled with a mass of huge flying saucers.

Donna did a quick count. "There are 12 of them. I expect hundreds and hundreds of aliens are spilling out of those portals and rushing to the windows to take a look at us. I bet they didn't expect to see so much water."

But Dawn wasn't listening. "Karen's still trying to wake me up," she wailed. "You'll have to go home, Donna. Go into my body, do anything to stop Karen shaking it. I've got to stay in my trance!"

"OK, OK, I'm on my way. I'll get back as quickly as I can. I don't want to miss anything."

Donna rushed out of her door and clattered down the steps onto the temple forecourt, which was now covered with only a few inches of water, and conjured up her car. Moments later she was rising above the temple, and then she hit the accelerator and with a mighty roar disappeared over the mountain peaks.

Meanwhile Dawn was stumbling towards the temple entrance. The imagery of Eden kept breaking up before her eyes and merging into Karen's face, who was desperately trying to say something to her, and all the while she was having to fight against being pulled back into her physical body. She managed to get through the entrance and into the interior of the temple, but then the imagery of neurospace broke up again.

Mixed in with Karen's face and the ceiling and walls of her bedroom at home was the golden altar, now immediately in front of her. She concentrated hard on it and stumbled towards it, trying desperately to push the bedroom imagery aside. She knew that if she could hold on for a few seconds then this inner battle would be over, for Donna must surely have reached Honiara by now and be swooping down towards the house and Dawn's body.

What on earth could be happening back there? Judging by Karen's desperation, it was something terrible. Whatever it was, Donna would hopefully be able to deal with it. She was certainly resourceful, as she had proved in that battle with the wasps. And what on earth was happening in Crocodile Bay? She had managed to keep the full extent of her concerns from Donna, but she was worried sick about Rick, sat there with a gun trained on him, and also about Mort and Angela, with a gun trained on them too. They all had enough sense not to try anything, so she guessed they were OK.

The temple imagery suddenly stabilized. Donna must have arrived, and had managed to stop Karen from shaking her. With a sigh of relief, Dawn transformed herself into a dragon, leapt into the air, and with a mad flapping of wings fluttered down onto the altar. As she descended onto it she felt herself sucked into it as the Mind accepted her presence and her command over it. And as her consciousness became merged with that of the Mind, the thought came to her that Karen's desperate attempts to wake her must have something to do with the dire situation at Crocodile Bay.

It so happened that at that very moment, at Crocodile Bay, Mort was disturbed by the sound of a chair scraping on the wooden decking behind him. He had been sitting alongside Angela on the viewing platform, half-asleep in the mid-day heat and gazing though half-closed eyes at the still waters of the lagoon, listening to the distant rhythm of the waves crashing against the reef. He opened his eyes wide but didn't turn his head – the armed guard sitting behind him had warned him against that – but he listened intently. He heard the man walk forward, and out of the corner of his eye saw him stand right at the edge of the viewing platform, just inches from the lagoon.

The man stared down at Donna's sleeping body. And then, without any warning and for no apparent reason, he raised his gun, aimed it carefully at Donna's head, and slowly and deliberately squeezed the trigger.

"No!" Mort screamed.

## Forty Six

Donna had no difficulty getting inside Dawn's head and taking over her body. She blinked her eyes a couple of times and Karen's tear-stained face swam into view.

"Dawn! You're awake! It's terrible!"

Donna yawned and rubbed her eyes and shook Dawn's sleep-filled head to clear it. "It's not Dawn, I'm Donna. What on earth's happened?"

"Donna!" Karen almost fell upon her, and clung to her, sobbing. "John Anderson has been here," she wailed. "He's going to kill you!"

"What? You're dreaming! He can't be, he's thousands of miles away, in Eden. And he's dead."

"He isn't dead! He came here on a spirit journey. He invaded my mind, I couldn't stop him. He gave me a picture of the flood you made, and he showed me the Watchers drowning. He's gone crazy, Donna, he's going to kill you!"

"Why do you think he's going to kill me? He doesn't know anything about me, it must be someone else he's after."

"He _does_ know about you," Karen sobbed. "He came into my mind and saw everything. It made him mad. He's going to invade someone at Crocodile Bay and shoot you – he showed me a picture of what he intends to do. It was awful. And afterwards he's coming back here to kill Dawn. There was something horribly evil about him, much worse than those wasps. You've got to stop him, Donna! Go to Crocodile Bay, go now!"

"OK, I'm going. But please don't wake up Dawn. The aliens are here, she has to remain in her trance!"

Karen nodded tearfully, and Donna withdrew from Dawn's body. She remained for a few seconds outside it, watching while Karen's fuzzy form moved away from Dawn's sleeping form sat down on the chair by the bed. Satisfied that she wouldn't try any more of that shaking, she transformed herself into her dragon form, flew through the bedroom wall into the sunlight, then headed across the roofs of Honiara towards Crocodile Bay.

The scene would be forever engraved on Mort's memory. The hot sun was directly overhead, beating down on the lagoon and on the dark shapes of the sleeping dolphins. About 500 metres away lay the line of greenery that marked the opposite shore of the bay, curving round towards the visitor centre and the viewing platform where he was sitting. At the V-shaped neck of the curve of the beach, at the furthest point from the reef and several hundred metres from where Mort was sitting, were Rick and his team together with their guards, sitting in the shade of a couple of large trees.

Then Mort's own guard walked forward to the edge of the viewing platform, raised his rifle to his shoulder, and took aim at Donna's head. "No!" Mort screamed as the man squeezed the trigger. At the same instant the huge grey body of a dolphin rose out of the water and locked its jaws on the man's arm. There was a loud report as the gun went off, and the dolphin fell back into the water, dragging the man beneath the surface.

Mort and Angela leapt to their feet and rushed to the edge of the platform. They stared first at Donna's body – there was no sign of a bullet wound or any blood – and then into the dark swirling water immediately below. The dolphin and its prey had disappeared, but where they had been was a red cloud of blood, spreading slowly up through the water. They continued peering into the depths, and a few moments later they were able to make out the shape of a man's torso floating upwards. Of the attacking dolphin there was no sign.

"Thanks, Clara," Mort whispered at the water. He had no doubt that it was she who had saved the day. It was Clara who had been guarding Donna's sleeping body, and no doubt she would be prowling below it now, watching out for any further trouble.

Rick and the others must have heard the shot and witnessed Clara's attack. Mort glanced in their direction. Several of them were on their feet staring in his direction and gesticulating, and one of the guards was racing along the shore towards the visitor centre and the platform.

Angela suddenly grabbed Mort's arm. "Daddy!" she whispered. "I can feel Donna! She wants to come into me."

"What?" He turned to his daughter in surprise, then folded his arms around her. "Let her in! I'll hold on to you."

Angela closed her eyes, and her body went limp. Moments later she opened them again.

"It's me," Donna whispered, kissing him lightly on the lips. "What's happened?"

He quickly explained.

"John Anderson came here to kill me," she told him, extricating herself from his arms. "Karen managed to warn us. He must have entered that guard's mind and possessed him. He's obviously got considerable spirit powers."

She stepped to the edge of the viewing platform and looked down at the man's torso, which was now floating in an expanding circle of bloody water.

"Wow!" she gasped admiringly. She couldn't have done a better job herself. Both his arms and one of his legs had been torn from his body and were nowhere to be seen, his clothes were in tatters, and his stomach had been ripped open and partially devoured. She'd always wondered what humans tasted like, and made a mental note to ask Clara.

"What the hell's going on?" The guard who had been racing towards them had arrived, breathing heavily and pointing his gun at them. He had removed his visor and was perspiring profusely.

Mort pointed down to the floating body. "A dolphin took him," he said simply.

The guard approached the edge of the platform and gazed down in horror. "Christ!" he muttered. Donna noticed with interest that although he was still perspiring his face had gone quite white.

"Don't stand too close!" Mort warned. "You might be next."

The man jumped back. "I thought those damn dolphins were asleep!"

"They are. One of them was left awake to patrol the lagoon. You'd better tell your men to keep away from the water."

The man grunted something and glanced at his watch. "We're leaving in less than an hour, thank God."

He took a mobile phone from his belt and spoke a name into it. Then he moved a short distance away from Mort and Angela and had a muttered conversation.

"Donna!" Mort whispered urgently. "Look! Your body's waking up!"

Donna stared at her dolphin body, and sure enough it was rolling slightly from side to side and her flippers were moving jerkily. "It's Anderson! He's jumped out of that dead man into me!"

"He'll kill you! You've got to go after him. Now!" Mort put his strong arms round his daughter's body to support her, and once again her eyes closed and she went limp.

A moment later Angela was struggling to free herself. "It's OK, Dad, she's gone."

"Move away from the water," Mort whispered to her. "Don't look at Donna. If that guard follows your gaze he'll see her moving and then he'll think she's the one who killed his friend."

They turned and walked slowly towards the entrance to the visitor centre.

"You two! Where the hell d'you think you're going?" They stopped and turned. The guard was pointing his gun at them and glowering.

Mort shrugged and sat down on a nearby seat facing the guard, and Angela sat down beside him. "We just wanted to get away from the lagoon," he explained. Behind the guard, in the water, he could see that Donna's body had started to edge forward. He had the nasty feeling that Anderson was about to stage an attack on the guard, in order to get his dolphin body shot.

Donna dived straight into her own head. There was a kaleidoscope of shifting shapes and colours, and then the imagery stabilized and she was standing in the cathedral of her mind, staring down the long dark nave towards the stained-glass window and the altar at the far end. Her dolphin eyes were obviously open, for there was a bright image in the window of the blue sky and in the foreground the viewing platform and the guard standing on it with his back to her. And all about her was a sense of evil.

She immediately became a dragon and crouched with her claws outstretched, ready for an attack. There was none, and glancing quickly around she saw that the nave was empty. She had expected that, for Anderson must already have mounted the altar and be inside her, trying to control her unfamiliar dolphin body.

Donna leapt into the air, flapped her wings furiously, and flew down the nave towards the altar. As she approached it, she became aware of Anderson's malign presence. She sensed his raging anger, and his lust for revenge, and permeating these was a sense of unutterable evil. Although she had no personal experience of demons, it struck her that there was something that was more than human in the foul emotions that swept over her.

She dived into the altar and was swallowed up by it, and was at once aware of her body floating in the water, and of her fins and tail moving in jerky spasms. At the same time she felt herself being punched and kicked as Anderson sensed her presence, and then she was pushed upwards as he tried to eject her from the altar.

She extended her claws and struck back furiously, though she could no more 'see' what she was fighting any more than he could 'see' her. They were simply disembodied presences fighting with the force of their imaginations. Donna pictured herself lashing out with her claws and her barbed tail and her vicious jaws, and in a very short while Anderson's blows became weaker and suddenly he was gone and she was in full control of her dolphin body.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Then she closed her eyes and withdrew herself first from her tail and then her fins and then from every other part of herself. Her sense of the water all around grew more distant, and then she was once more in the nave, crouching before the altar. Now the stained-glass window was in darkness, and she peered around in the gloom, searching for her attacker. But there was no sign of him, and all sense of his evil presence had gone.

Her relief was short-lived, for almost immediately a horrifying thought struck her. If Anderson wasn't attacking her, then he must be attacking someone else. She flew out of her head and about 20 metres into the air and gazed around.

The fuzzy images of Mort and Angela were sitting calmly on the viewing platform, and the guard was now also sitting a few metres from them, his gun resting across his lap. Further along the shoreline were Rick and his people, also now sitting down, with their guards seated a little way off. There was no sign of any disturbance at all upon land, and nor was there any in the water. All the dolphins were sleeping peacefully, and with Clara patrolling invisibly below.

So where had Anderson gone? There could only be one place, she realised suddenly: Dawn's house. He wanted to kill Dawn as much as he wanted to kill her. He could do that easily, if he could take over Karen. And from what Karen had told her earlier, he could do that without any difficulty at all.

Kicking herself mentally for being so slow on the uptake, Donna transformed herself into her flying car, roared across the lagoon, and moments later was descending towards the roof of the house. She changed back into a dragon, flew into the house, and quickly located Dawn's bedroom.

She could make out Dawn's body, still lying on the bed, but Karen was nowhere to be seen. Donna charged out through the doorway and into the hall, and immediately spotted her coming out from the kitchen. Although the imagery was fuzzy, she could tell that Karen was holding what looked like a knife. Donna didn't hesitate, but flew straight into her head.

It took a few moments for the shifting shapes and colours to stabilize, and when it did so Donna found herself in the cathedral of Karen's mind, gazing along the nave at the altar and the stained-glass window above it. The image in the window told her that Karen was walking through the bedroom doorway, and then she saw Dawn's helpless body in front of her, lying on the bed.

She sprang up and flapped her wings and hurtled down the nave towards the altar. Karen was striding up to the sleeping body, and now Donna could clearly see the knife. It was one of those ultra-sharp steel knives, and Karen was raising it up to plunge into Dawn's chest. Or perhaps into her throat. Or perhaps both.

Donna could clearly sense Anderson's foul presence. She was aware of his murderous desires and his great satisfaction because in moments the deed would done and nothing could stop him now. She reached the altar just as the image in the window showed that Karen had reached Dawn's bedside and was raising the knife to strike.

It was at that moment that Donna realised she was too late. She would never be able to take over Karen's body in time. She fluttered above the altar, gazing in horror at the image in the stained-glass window. The knife in Karen's hand was plunging down towards Dawn's throat.

## Forty Seven

Dawn opened her eyes and instantly rolled out of the way. The blade buried itself harmlessly in the pillow.

Inside the cathedral of Karen's mind, Donna sensed Anderson's astonishment. She was astonished too, but her reactions were faster. She dived onto the altar, and as she did so she felt Karen's welcoming embrace pulling her down into her mind, and before Anderson could stop her she was jostling him for control.

Suddenly Anderson was fighting back in a furious rage, and it was all she could do to hold her own. Then she sensed Karen join the struggle, with surprising vigour, and the two of the acting together were eventually able to get the better of him. Donna felt him pull away from them, moments later she was in control of Karen's body.

Dawn had grabbed the knife and was sitting up and pointing the blade at her. "It's OK," Donna gasped, collapsing onto the bed beside her. "I've kicked Anderson out, now I'm going after him."

She withdrew herself from Karen's feet and legs and hands and arms, pulling herself back into her head, and then she was a dragon once more, crouching before the altar in the cathedral of Karen's mind.

She peered up the length of the nave, searching for her adversary. She was determined to catch him this time, before he attempted anything else. But there was no sign of him or any sense of his presence, and she realised, to her chagrin, that he had eluded her again.

She immediately flew out of Karen's head, back into the bedroom, to be confronted by the most extraordinary sight. John Anderson was crouching at the foot of the bed, and facing him was a large red dragon. She had never before seen Anderson as a spirit, but it was clearly him, for he looked like Jonah. He was no longer wearing the golden crown that Dawn had described nor a golden robe, instead, he was wearing a white tunic.

But most striking of all was the long sharp horn that protruded from his forehead and the wings that were folded down his back. Dawn had told her that his spirit had a stump of a horn and shrivelled wings, but there was nothing stump-like or shrivelled about them now. He was just like those golden angels that Dawn had seen on the COBRA flying saucer, and that meant only one thing: he was possessed by a demon. He must have called it up and given himself over to its power when he when he realised that his human plans had failed.

Donna felt very glad that she did not have to face the creature that he had become alone. The other dragon was Dawn, she presumed. A quick glance at Dawn's fuzzy body on the bed told her that it was no longer sitting up but had slumped back, unconscious. Karen, unaware of the drama unfolding at the foot of the bed, was leaning over the body, trying to make it comfortable.

Suddenly Anderson leapt up. Confronted by two dragons, Donna expected him to turn tail and fly through the bedroom wall, but he didn't. Instead he transformed himself into a third dragon, though not red but golden, and still with that horn protruded from his head. At once he was lashing out with vicious claws at the dragon facing him, and at the same time swinging his huge barbed tail at Donna.

This must be a false dragon, for a true dragon would have spat fire. Perhaps what possessed him now had once been a true dragon but had fallen. But there was no time to speculate, for a creature such as this could despatch both of his opponents with a couple of well-aimed blows. There wasn't even time to gulp in air and ignite her fires.

She jumped clear of his swinging tail. The other dragon jumped back too, but not fast enough, and one of Anderson's claws connected with the side of its neck, slicing through some scales and drawing blood. Anderson immediately struck again, but this time the other dragon was ready and leapt backwards, out of the way.

At the same moment Donna lunged out at him, slashing down with her claws. She felt them rip open Anderson's side, and he screamed and twisted away. She leapt forward and lashed out again, this time opening up a huge gash in his neck.

Anderson collapsed backwards, squealing in agony. He flailed the air with his claws and swung his tail frantically from side to side, but the other dragon promptly sprang onto it, pinning it down and tearing at it with its jaws.

Instantly Donna jumped onto Anderson's head and started tearing at his neck. He writhed in agony and squealed piteously, but she was without mercy and clamped her jaws tightly about his throat and yanked at it with all her might. She was rewarded with the sound of tearing flesh, and almost at once the squealing died away and then his body went limp. She had completely dissected his neck, severing his head from his body.

Suddenly a round silver disc emerged from the disembodied head. It had leering eyes and a sword-like horn protruding from its nose should be, and insect-like wings that whirred menacingly, and the sense of evil emanating from it was like a foul stench. It was, she knew, a demon. She gulped in air to ignite her fires, and the other dragon did likewise, but the demon knew what was coming and sped away and disappeared through the wall of the bedroom. At once all sense of evil was gone.

With an immense feeling of relief, Donna opened her jaws and shook them vigorously from side to side, scattering bits of golden dragon flesh, then stepped back and surveyed her handiwork. John Anderson was unquestionably dead. But there was no blood, she noticed. Well, there wouldn't be, of course, for he wasn't a true dragon.

With a satisfied grunt, she licked her lips and raised her eyes to the other red dragon. Now that she had time to study the creature's appearance, she could tell that this was not Dawn. And certainly Dawn would have acted more aggressively. Although this dragon hadn't flinched and had immobilized the false dragon's deadly tail, it hadn't gone for the kill, it had left that to her. Dawn wouldn't have hesitated.

The other dragon stared back at her. "I'm not Dawn," it explained apologetically. That, at least, was the interpretation Donna's brain put on the mixture of grunts, snorts, and clicks that came from its jaws.

Dawn had told her about dragons' ability to speak, and in preparation for using her unfamiliar vocal chords Donna cleared her throat, just as Dawn had done. A great cloud of superheated steam peppered with black sooty particles spurted from her nostrils. The other dragon looked impressed.

"Are you the dragon Dawn met in space?" she asked, forming the words carefully. "Zapfyre?"

"I am. And you must be the leader of the dolphins."

She stared at him in surprise. How did he know anything about the GM dolphins, or indeed that its leader was a dragon?

He seemed to understand her puzzlement, for he added: "That was what Dawn's play was about. She showed us the story of you and the dolphins."

Donna's heart leapt within her. She was the star of the show! Wow! Soon she would be a galactic celebrity! Dawn had given no hint that she intended to tell her story, but it was blindingly obvious, now that Donna thought about, that she would tell that story, in this the most important of her Passion plays. Earth had been cut off from the rest of the galaxy, and this was the ideal opportunity to tell the great galactic community about its dramatic entry into the parallel universe of neurospace. It made Donna feel very proud.

And then a ghastly thought struck her. What if Dawn had told them about her and Mort? Details of her love live would be plastered across the universe, and she would never be able to live it down. She would die of embarrassment!

The other dragon seemed to sense her misgivings, for he added: "Mostly it was about the battle with the wasps." She sighed with relief.

"The name's Donna," she told him proudly. "I'm the dragon who slaughtered the wasps and wiped out their queen."

"I'm impressed."

"You're a pretty good dragon, too," Donna said generously. "You saved Dawn's life. Thank you."

"I gathered from Dawn's play that you've had a lot opposition, and that her body might be in danger, so I thought I should check. It was the least I could do."

"So how did you locate her body?" Donna asked him curiously.

She sensed his surprise at her question. "I followed the mental connection. The spirit is joined to the body – unless the connection is severed, as happens on interstellar flights."

"I think I've got a lot to learn," Donna admitted. "Perhaps I'll be able to meet lots of other dragons now, and learn from them."

"Perhaps."

Which was a most unsatisfactory answer. She'd hoped he might be falling over himself to welcome a great warrior like her into the galactic union of peoples and dragons. She would have to try another tack.

"Are there many of us dragons? Genuine fire-breathing dragons, I mean."

"The universe is a big place, it is impossible to know how many there are. But our galaxy is divided into 12 sectors, and there are 12 communities of worlds in this sector, and each community is made up of 12 planets inhabited by intelligent life, and each planet is represented by a single dragon. A ship from each community in our sector of the galaxy has travelled here. So 12 ships have come, and there are 12 dragons to each ship, which makes 144 dragons in total representing this sector. Except that for my ship there are only 11 dragons, making 143 dragons. However, now that we have linked up with Earth, we have our full complement of dragons once more. So for our sector of the galaxy, 144 dragons is the answer, and for the galaxy as a whole there are 1728 dragons."

"I might only be a dolphin, but I can do my sums. I know my 12 times table."

"Most intelligent beings can do their sums," Zapfyre replied mildly. "Understanding the significance of numbers is much harder. What's the significance of the number 12, do you think?"

Donna blinked in surprise at the question. The _significance_ of numbers? This alien obviously had a very unusual slant on things. Or perhaps it was humans with their mechanistic outlook who were unusual. "The number 12? Well, it's a religious kind of number. That is, it's important in the Bible as well as in some other religions."

"12 is the number of perfect government. With you added, our little community of worlds is complete."

"I see," Donna said, nodding her dragon head as if the dragon's words made perfect sense. "But there are _two_ dragons on Earth, me and Dawn. That makes thirteen in total – a most inauspicious number, I suspect."

"Each world can be represented by only one dragon. The number in a community will be 12." The dragon spoke with an air of finality. "And there are 12 communities in our sector, and 12 sectors in our galaxy, and each community as has one representative on the galactic council."

Donna digested all this, and then she asked: "So who will represent Earth in our community? Me or Dawn?"

"We cannot tell. You will know when the time comes."

Donna gazed at the creature in frustration. It was like a Delphic oracle, answering her questions with riddles. Because of some weird notion of perfect government, only one dragon from Earth could join the community? It was crazy. But if only one dragon could represent Earth, then it would have to be Dawn. For she was human.

Although Donna didn't begrudge Dawn this opportunity, she felt very sad that she would have no part in the exciting events that were about to unfold.

"It's really important that the number is exactly 12?" she asked.

"We think it is."

"You _think_ it is? You mean you're not certain?"

"We have few certainties. We have a small number of universal truths that are common to all intelligent species, but that's all."

"You mean universal constants, like the speed of light?"

"I said _truths_ , not _facts_. Don't confuse the two. Facts are to do with the nature of things, truths are to do with their purpose. Facts tell you _how_ , truths tell you _why_. Our quest is not to discover how the universe works, but _why_ it is as it is. It is for this reason we have visited you."

"Oh. We thought it might be because you wanted to see Dawn's Passion play. And because you want us to join this union of yours."

"Don't you understand? That _is_ what we want. Dawn's plays help explain _why_ things are as they are. And of course we want you to join us in our quest, because it's your quest too."

Donna gazed at him sadly. "Humanity's quest, you mean. I don't suppose genetically-modified dolphins like me count for much in the galactic order. I guess you know we're laboratory freaks, created by man for man's benefit. It'll be Dawn, not me, who represents Earth."

"We wouldn't be here if it weren't for you dolphins," Zapfyre replied gently. "Earth is right at the edge of our sector of the galaxy, and without the power of your communal mind we would never have picked up Dawn's Passion play. Of course we want you dolphins to join us."

Donna immediately perked up. Perhaps she would get to represent Earth after all. "That's all right then," she said brightly. "I'm in charge of the dolphin community, so I reckon I can accept your invitation on behalf of everyone else. I'll have to talk it through with the others, of course, but I'm sure I'll be able to convince them. A few good sermons should do the trick. That's the great thing about being the high priest, people think you're infallible." Then she added modestly: "I may not actually be infallible, but I'm usually right."

She sensed amusement flickering through Zapfyre's mind. "You're certainly correct on this occasion: you're not infallible. You see, there is no invitation to join us, you already belong. It's part of your purpose."

"I don't understand."

"Certain species on certain planets belong, others don't. It's as simple as that."

"That doesn't sound very simple to me. How do you recognise those who belong?"

"It's easy. They are able to go on spirit journeys, and they have dragons. Usually just one dragon."

Donna thought about that. Then she asked: "Those giant wasps came here on a spirit journey – did they also have a dragon?"

"They did, many years ago, but their dragon used its fire for its own ends, to gain mastery over others. One day it lost its power, and now they are no longer part of us."

"So you were 12 when they belonged, and then you were 11."

"And soon we will be 12 again."

Donna nodded. Then she asked: "Why haven't you destroyed those wasps? They are very evil."

"We hoped they might change and make us complete again."

"So that's why you left Earth to its own devices for so long? Because you hoped the wasps would make up your full complement of worlds?"

"That was a vain hope," Zapfyre admitted. "We know now that they will never change. But still ... it is a very terrible thing to destroy an entire world. We would find that very difficult. Perhaps when you join us..."

Donna squared her dragon shoulders proudly. "You can leave those wasps to us. Humans are pretty good at killing, but dolphins are brilliant. Plus we're not at all squeamish. You should have been present when those wasps invaded us. There were hundreds of them against one of me, but I wiped out the lot. It was great."

Zapfyre eyed her silently, and she felt his awe.

"Dawn's Passion plays portray her as a very ferocious dragon," the creature murmured. "It seems that you're even better. Or worse, depending on your point of view."

"Better if you're a friend, worse if you're an enemy. We'll make a great addition to your union. You won't know what's hit you."

"Well, I really must be going," Zapfyre said. "I'm missing Dawn's Passion play."

"But you've only just got here," Donna protested. "You've told me hardly anything. Like what are the rules of this union of worlds, how do we get to meet up, what's the food like up there, that kind of thing."

Dawn's body waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry about that. It will all become clear. You'll see."

"But ... but ... how long are you staying? Will I talk to you again?"

"We're leaving immediately after Dawn's performance. As I told you, all will become clear."

"You can't leave just like that! At least tell me one thing, I've got to know, and Dawn needs to know too. Those demons – where are they from, how can we wipe them out? Dawn says they seem to be specially adapted to fight dragons.

"They're as much a mystery to us as they are to you. They come from the black hole at the centre of the galaxy, that's all we know. Since you're such a great dragon, maybe you're the one to take them on. Defeat them, and you really would be a hit."

With those encouraging words, Zapfyre vanished.

Donna glanced around the room. Everything was ghostly to her spirit eyes, but she could make out the bed with Dawn's body lying prone on it, and Karen sitting beside her, watching over her. She would have no knowledge of the battle and subsequent conversation that had taken place in neurospace just a few feet away. The only way to bring her up to date was to use Dawn's body. She really wanted to get back to Crocodile Bay to check the situation there and assure Mort that she was OK, and then she wanted to hurry back to Eden to meet all the aliens, but Karen would never forgive her if she left her out, and that might jeopardise her future happiness.

Flapping her wings, she leapt into the air, swooped over the bed, then plunged into Dawn's skull. A few moments later she opened Dawn's eyes and sat up. The knife that Anderson had used in his attack had disappeared, she noted.

"Dawn!" Karen exclaimed. "Are you OK?"

"It's Donna," she replied. "Everything's fine, Anderson's dead."

"Thank God for that! I was so worried." Flinging her arms round her, Karen burst into tears.

Donna bit her lip in frustration. Earth's future was being determined on the other side of the world, and she had to waste time here comforting Karen. In less than an hour those visitors from the stars would be gone.

As it happened, Karen's tears quickly passed, and she sat upright on the bed and dried her eyes. "I'm sorry about that, Donna. I couldn't help myself. First of all those wasps, and then John Anderson." She shuddered.

Donna took her hand. "That's OK, Karen. It must have been horrible being taken over like that. Anyway, it's all over now."

Karen sat silently for a moment. Then she said, her voice almost a whisper, "I've wanted to talk to you alone, Donna. I hardly ever get the chance."

Donna's heart sank. Karen must be about to make a profession of love for her. Why on earth did humans have to be so complicated?

"I suppose we are rather like ships passing in the night," Donna replied heartily. "I take over your body in the evening, beat Mort at Monopoly and take him to bed, and then I'm off again."

"That's what I want to talk to you about, Donna. I'm really pleased that you and Mort are so happy together, and I really enjoy those kisses of yours and everything, but ... but it doesn't satisfy me. I want something more."

Donna dreaded to think what that 'more' might be. "What about some retail therapy?" she asked hopefully. "I thought human females found shopping very satisfying."

"It used to satisfy me, before ... that business with the wasps. Shopping doesn't seem to matter much now."

"So what do you want, then?" Donna felt her stomach go cold inside as she waited for the answer. Karen was staring down at the floor, twisting her fingers nervously around each other. Finally she took a deep breath and managed to look up. Her eyes were moist, Donna noticed.

"I ... I want a baby," she whispered.

" _What?_ " Donna almost fell off the bed. "A baby? A _baby!_ "

"I'll look after him and everything," Karen blurted out hastily, completely misinterpreting Donna's reaction. "You won't have to change nappies or anything like that. Will you ask Mort for me? Please ask him Donna, he'll listen to you."

## Forty Eight

Donna stared at Karen across the bed, her mind awhirl. This was not the manageable kind of whirl that happens to everyone occasionally, when you batten down the mental hatches for a while and then it's over and life returns to normal. This was an absolute whirlwind of a whirl, with dust and debris and scattered thoughts flying everywhere and all those hatches blown clean off their hinges.

Although Donna had often dreamed of human romance, she had never once considered the biological consequences of that blessed state. This was not due to any ignorance or emotional blockage on her part, for she had on several occasions contemplated the possibility of bearing Jonah's dolphin offspring. But as for bearing Mort's children, for some reason that had never entered her head. Perhaps it was because he already had a grown-up daughter who would soon be embarking on romantic and child-bearing adventures of her own.

But as the flying mental debris began to settle, it struck her as entirely right that this should be the outcome of her union with Mort. She didn't exactly know why she was so certain of the rightness of it, but somehow she was. Perhaps it was akin to that alien dragon somehow _knowing_ that the number of dragons in his little community of worlds had to be 12. To have such an inner assurance was very mystifying, and she wondered if it could be part of her dragonness. Or perhaps it was something that had its origin in the Mind.

She smiled at Karen. "Of course I'll ask Mort," she said. "I'm sure he'll agree."

Tears welled up in Karen's eyes once more, and once more she reached out to Donna and threw her arms round her neck and warm dampness was dribbling everywhere.

"I'm sorry, Donna," she sobbed. "I can't help it. Ever since you destroyed those wasps inside my head I've been so emotional. It's like you burnt out something adult in me and turned me into a teenager again. Emotionally, I mean. And now all I want is a baby."

If Donna had been in her dolphin body she would have tried to comfort Karen by rubbing against her. Instead she did what she knew to be the human equivalent, which was to put her arms round Karen's shoulders and cuddle her. For there were welling up within her some very odd emotions towards Karen. A few weeks ago she hadn't liked her at all, now she was feeling very possessive and very caring towards this human female, like she was her parent or her guardian or perhaps even her guardian angel. And this was in spite of the fact that Karen was much older than she was. It must be because for the past week she had been taking over Karen's body for several hours each day and was beginning to look upon it as her own.

"It's OK," she murmured as she stroked Karen's back and shoulders. "Cry all you want. The thing is, I'd like a baby too."

Karen lifted her head up and smiled at Donna through wet eyes. "You're teasing me. You don't really want a human baby. You want a dolphin pup."

"No, Karen, I don't. You might be surprised to learn that you're not nearly as mixed up inside as I am. I might have a dolphin body, but my desires are entirely human. That's why I've fallen in love with Mort and why I want to share your body with you, and it's why I want a human baby too. The real me is as human as you."

Mort and Angela watched as two trucks drew up near the visitor centre and the armed men piled into them. They were leaving early, before the dolphins had even started to stir. The gruesome death had unnerved several of them, and Rick had managed to persuade them that he had no intention of waking up the dolphins early, and that in any case they would wake up by themselves within the next 30 minutes, so there was no reason for them to stay.

Earlier, they had forced several of Rick's men into one of the boats at gunpoint and had them fish the dead man out of the sea. Clara, wisely, had stayed out of sight. The dismembered body had been dumped by the roadside, and now those able to stomach the sight were heaving it into the back of one of the trucks.

Mort had half-expected them to cut all means of communication from the visitor centre and confiscate everyone's mobile phone, but they hadn't even done that. Perhaps this was because it would be impossible to locate every mobile, or because in this remote and lightly-policed part of the world they would have no difficulty in evading capture. By the time the police arrived they would have left the island in a high-speed boat or perhaps even a helicopter, and with no one hurt and nothing stolen there would be little incentive to pursue them.

The trucks moved away towards the entrance to the site and the open road beyond. Mort glanced in Rick's direction, and he saw that he was already speaking into his wristphone, no doubt to the police. Mort pulled out his mobile, not to contact the police but Karen.

He was worried sick about Donna. He'd hardly been able to take his eyes off her dolphin body ever since Anderson had attacked it, and it hadn't moved or shown any signs of life since Donna's spirit had left it to pursue him. At first Mort had been immensely relieved, but as the minutes passed and Donna didn't return to Angela's body, he'd grown more and more concerned. It was now half an hour since she'd left, and he was very much afraid that she might now be dead.

He spoke Dawn's name into the phone, and her home phone number appeared on the display. He pressed Call.

"Donna's back!" Angela suddenly exclaimed, grabbing his arm.

"Thank God!"

Mort put his arms round her waist, and she closed her eyes and went limp against him. Moments later her eyes opened and Donna glanced quickly around and saw that the armed men had left. She breathed a sigh of relief and cuddled up to him.

"Is my favourite man OK?"

"Are _you_ OK? Did you get Anderson?"

"You bet I did. I tore his throat out and cut of his head. I'll tell you all about it over the meal tonight, it should really whet your appetite. Now I must get back to Eden, my darling biped, before those many-legged aliens depart."

"Is that you, Mort?" The faint voice of Karen sounded from Mort's mobile.

He put the phone to his ear and told her briefly why he'd called. "Donna's just arrived, " he added, "I'll come back to the house when she's gone. I need to talk to her."

"Give her my love. I'm sure she's got lots to tell you. See you soon."

"Karen's remarkably cooperative," he observed as he put the phone away. "She seems very happy with our arrangement."

"Yes. She is. What did you want to talk to me about, Mort?"

"Perhaps we should discuss it later. You want to get back to Eden now."

Donna did indeed want to get back, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. "Tell me quickly."

"Well, I've been sitting here with Angela for over an hour, doing nothing, and I guess she was getting bored. She started pestering me about having a baby."

Donna stared at him in amazement. This was too good to be true.

"She needs to get a boyfriend first," she replied, pretending to misunderstand. "And to marry."

"No, she wants _me_ to have a baby. Or Karen, rather. She said that since Karen is only 30 she _ought_ to have a baby. I told her not to be silly, Karen isn't the kind of person who would want to mess around with babies, and wouldn't a dog be better? But Angela wouldn't budge. She said she would help, 'cos she adores babies, and then she went on and on about how it would be really good for me. Anyway, in the end I agreed that I would talk to you about it. I told her that you were the most important person to me in the world, and that having a baby would affect you as much as anyone else. I thought that would get me off the hook – I hardly think that you would be interested in having a human child."

"Well..." Donna hesitated for a carefully timed amount of time. "I suppose it would be rather nice to have a third person to play games with. Some games are better with three players, you know. Monopoly certainly would be."

He laughed. "There are other rather more weighty considerations than Monopoly to be borne in mind."

She frowned. "I find that hard to believe. Name some."

"There's potty training, buying them clothes, ferrying them around to visit their friends, education, stopping them watching too much television and eating too many sweets, the list goes on and on."

"Those aren't _weighty_! Good grief, Mort, think what other species have to put up with. Predators everywhere, unpredictable food supplies, zero healthcare, not to mention human exploitation. Compared to that, having a human baby is a piece of cake. Let's go for it. In fact, let's have lots of babies. Then we can have whist drives and bridge competitions and play all kinds of interesting games."

He kissed her on the end of her nose. "You're very sweet, and your naivety is charming, but take it from me there are far easier ways of mustering up a few people to play whist or bridge. We could even join a club."

She took his hand and patted it. "It's OK, Mort, I understand. You've had a terrible ordeal with Angela, what with her being abducted and everything, so you really don't want to have any more children. Besides, you're not so young now, you'd find it difficult to cope."

"Of course I can cope! If you must know, I quite like the idea of another child. It's like I said to Angela, Karen isn't the kind of person who would want to have a baby."

She sighed and snuggled up to him. "Perhaps you're right, she wouldn't want one. Still, there would be no harm asking her."

"I couldn't do that. She would feel pressured. She'd go along with the idea just to please me, and that would be awful."

"That's true. Though perhaps you could try a different approach. How about taking her round one of those big stores that sell everything, and by accident go through the baby department. See how she reacts. She might go all doe-eyed and sloppy, and then you've got her."

"Use subterfuge, you mean? The kind of tactics that women use on men?"

"Exactly. I'm sure that's what she'd do to you if she wanted to persuade you to buy her something."

He nodded. "OK, subterfuge it is."

She smiled up at him and nestled her head on his shoulder, and he responded by gently kissing the top of her head. It was a tender gesture, but it was rather lacking in passion. She frowned.

"That's what I like about you, Donna," he was saying. "There's no subterfuge with you, in fact no female guile at all. I guess it's because you're a dolphin. Everything's above-board. If you wanted anything, you'd be straight out with it, whereas most women would be really devious."

Her frown deepened. How on earth could she reply to that without piling on even more female guile, deviousness, and subterfuge. Fortunately he didn't seem to expect her to say anything, instead he went on to ask how she would feel if Karen did in fact want a baby. "It'll be years before it's old enough to play Monopoly."

She pretended to hesitate. "I won't mind," she said finally, "provided you make a big fuss over me. Buy me flowers, that kind of thing. Karen can share them, of course, so it'll be a good investment for you."

"So if she _doesn't_ want a baby, then I needn't make a fuss of you," he countered.

What was the matter with him, she wondered? A few days ago the merest hint that he should make a fuss of her would have brought forth an avalanche of kisses and squeezes and gasps and squeals.

She pinched him firmly on the bottom. Perhaps that would get him going. "No, it doesn't mean you needn't make a fuss of me. It definitely doesn't mean that."

He grabbed her hand to prevent any further pinching. "But that's the logical implication of your words."

"No it isn't. I said that I won't mind if Karen wants a baby, provided you make a big fuss of me. That has no bearing whatsoever on how I'd feel if Karen _doesn't_ want a baby. The fact is that I won't mind that either, _provided_ you make a big fuss of me. Ergo you have to make a big fuss of me whatever she decides."

"You're sounding like a human woman now. Before long you'll be manifesting those other female traits I mentioned."

She sighed, and then she tried to inject an appealing look into her eyes. "Is it so difficult to make a fuss of me, Mort?"

He gazed down at her and smiled. "Yes, of course it is. It's impossible to make a fuss of you – when you're in my daughter's body!"

She stared back at him. She couldn't believe how stupid she'd been. No wonder he was being so undemonstrative.

But then he did give her a little squeeze on the bottom and whispered, imagining perhaps that Angela wouldn't hear: "But just you wait till tonight, when you're in Karen's dishy body..."

## Forty Nine

A few minutes later Donna was descending towards Eden in her James Bond car. Her delight at the prospect of the pleasures awaiting her in Mort's arms quickly gave way to chagrin when she discovered that she had spent so long chatting to that alien dragon and to Karen and finally to Mort that she had missed all the action here. There was no sign of the alien ships, not on the ground nor in the sky. As she screeched to a halt on the damp cobbles of the temple forecourt she heard the temple bell toll. The Mind had sensed that that the dolphins would soon emerge from their trance and that Eden would disappear.

With the flood gone the dolphins had all turned back into their human forms, and a number of them were standing around in the forecourt, chatting excitedly in small groups. They weren't excited at all by the sight of her car arriving, they were too full of all that had happened that morning. She walked over to a friend and asked him if he had seen Dawn's show.

"You missed it, Donna?" he asked, startled. "It was the best ever, an amazing performance, about a fire-breathing dragon and giant wasps and loads of other stuff. It was much longer than any of her other Passion plays. I suppose she did it for those people who came in the flying saucers."

"Did you see any of them? The aliens, I mean."

"We saw their faces in the windows, that's all. Their ships hovered around" – he waved vaguely around at the rooftops – "watching the show. It was great, really great."

"So where's Dawn now?"

The man shrugged. "No idea. Waiting in your room, perhaps?"

Donna glanced up. Sure enough, Dawn was there, standing on the small balcony. They waved to each other, and Donna raced across the forecourt and bounded up the steps.

"What happened?" she gasped when she reached the top.

"Tell me your news first. Are Rick and Mort and the others OK?"

Donna gave her a quick résumé. "I killed John Anderson – it was either him or us. He was possessed by a demon, but the demon got away. One of the aliens, a dragon, came to help me. He was the dragon you met, and he was very nice."

"You got to talk to him?"

"He said they were leaving after your show, and that we – that's humans _and_ dolphins – were going to be part of their community of worlds. But only one dragon can represent Earth, and he didn't know which of us it would be. He said we would know when the time came. Oh, and he told me that demons come from the black hole at the centre of the galaxy. What did the aliens say to you?"

"Nothing at all. I gave my show and then they flew off."

"What? No applause, standing ovations, speeches?"

"I could sense their emotions easily while I was within the Mind: there was pleasure, awe, gratitude, etc. They certainly appreciated it. But no actual contact."

Donna stared at her in amazement. "How weird!"

"Perhaps they thought that their contact with you was sufficient."

"It was nothing much. A five-minute chat, that's all."

"Perhaps that's the way they do things."

"I wouldn't be surprised. Their attitudes to things are quite different from ours. Their big mission isn't to unravel _how_ the universe works, but to discover _why_ things are as they are. It was almost mystical the way he talked – the significance of different numbers, stuff like that. The number 12 is important, which is why only one of us can represent Earth. Then the number of dragons in his little community will be 12, which he said is the number of perfect government. And there are 12 such communities in this sector of the galaxy, and 12 sectors. You get the picture."

Dawn pulled at her hair thoughtfully. "I can see we've got a lot to learn."

"The thing is, how are we going to learn it? When are we going to hear from then again?"

"Perhaps they've left something behind for us."

"One of their portals, you mean? So we can travel to their worlds?"

"That's what I'm wondering. Thirteen years ago those wasps left a portal for COBRA to use, surely these visitors would have done the same for us."

Donna looked at her dubiously. "I didn't see a portal lying around when I flew over Eden a few moments ago."

"If they wanted to leave us anything they would put it in the temple." Dawn stood up. "Let's take a look. We've got a few minutes before Eden disappears."

The two women hurried down the steps and across the forecourt and into the temple. But there was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen in there. They walked by each of the five walls, examining the murals, they glanced into the side chapels, and they walked twice around the great altar.

They stared at each other blankly. "Are you sure you saw nothing unusual when you flew over Eden in your car just now?" Dawn asked.

"Take a look for yourself. While you're doing that, I'll check the chapels again."

Dawn nodded, then transformed herself into a dragon. Flying out of the temple, she ascended above the township, searching below for any sign of a portal or any other unusual feature. Inside the temple, Donna carefully examined each of the five recessed chapels, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. The only unusual feature was the ghostly image of Clare, still sitting near the altar with the prone bodies of the Watchers nearby.

A few minutes later Dawn flew back in and turned herself back into her human form.

"Did you see anything?" Donna asked.

Dawn shook her head. "How about you?"

"Nothing. Apart from Clare. She's still chained up and sitting on the grass in the real world. I forgot to tell Rick to phone Dr Song about her."

Dawn shrugged. "It'll be good for her to suffer a bit. Suffering maketh perfect, as the good book says. She should be grateful to you for prolonging it."

"The trouble is, it's going to take an awful lot of suffering to get rid of all Clare's imperfections. To do any good at all she'll need to be chained up for years."

Dawn stared around gloomily. Surely those aliens had left _something_. Her eyes moved higher and higher up the pentagonal structure, taking in the pillars and their carvings, then the arches, until finally they rested on the pattern of stars on the domed ceiling.

"They're different," she murmured in a puzzled voice.

"What's different?"

"Those stars. Look!"

Donna looked up at the pattern of stars painted on the temple ceiling. Sure enough, they _were_ different. "I bet there's another face hidden there!" she exclaimed. "I bet it's either your face or my face. It's a message, telling us which one is to represent Earth in the galactic federation!"

Dawn stared at her blankly. "But we both look the same. You've got my face."

"No, my _dolphin_ face, Silly!"

Dawn still looked puzzled. "But if it's a message, it can't be from the aliens. That pattern of stars comes from the Mind, like everything else here."

Donna looked crestfallen. "I guess you're right. It was Anderson's face before, which I suppose it had picked up from Jonah's mind. Now it's picking up something else from our minds."

"It doesn't matter whose mind it comes from. The point is that the Mind is immensely powerful, and if it's chosen to display something like that then it's important and we need to pay attention to it."

Donna sat down on a nearby chair and leaned back and squinted up at the ceiling. "I can't make out anything at all in those stars. They're just a scattering of thousands of bright points."

"If we wait until Eden starts to disappear, maybe the stars will thin out and the pattern will be revealed."

They only had a wait a few minutes. The dolphins were emerging from their trance, so the people were vanishing from Eden, and many of the shops and houses in the township had disappeared too. As Dawn and Donna watched, many of the temple murals winked out of existence, and then an entire wall vanished. Soon all that was left was the great altar together with some pillars and the ceiling.

Dawn glanced down at her young protégé, who was staring fixedly up at the ceiling. "Have you spotted anything?"

"The stars are going out – look!"

Dawn looked. Sure enough the stars decorating the ceiling were thinning out, and suddenly she could make out the outline of a face, with the crescent moon suspended above the face like a crown. As she watched, more and more of the tiny golden points winked out, and those that were left formed the mouth, the nose, the eyes, the eyebrows, and the hair.

"Can you tell who it is?" she asked.

"No," Donna replied. "But it certainly isn't John Anderson." Suddenly she wailed: "Oh no, I'm slipping out of my trance! I can feel water all around me!"

Dawn grabbed her shoulder. "Don't leave now! Look, the picture's getting clearer. It's a woman's face, I can tell from the hair. And she's gazing down at the great altar, just like that image of John Anderson's face did."

"It's Karen!" Donna gasped. "It's Karen!"

"You're right! But what on earth is _she_ doing up there?"

## Fifty

Dawn repeated her question. "What on earth is Karen's face doing up there, among the stars? Look, the crescent moon is just above her head, looking like a crown. It's as if she's the queen of heaven!"

There was no reply, and Dawn glanced round. But Donna had vanished, having awoken from her trance and back in her dolphin body in Crocodile Bay. Then the ceiling disappeared too and with it went that image of Karen's face, and moments after that everything else of Eden winked out of existence also. Dawn was left alone, staring at the fuzzy landscape of the real world: a remote valley in the Tienshan Mountains of Kazakhstan.

Not far away were the ghostly bodies of the dead Watchers, lying in rows on the grass, and a short distance from them was the faint image of Clare, sitting on the ground and chained to that post. Although Dawn couldn't see her clearly, the posture of her body suggested that she was utterly dejected. She would of course have seen nothing of the epic events of the last couple of hours, and she would be unaware of Dawn's spirit presence now.

Dawn knew that she ought to return immediately to Honiara, to her body, because she could then get on the phone to Dr Song to organise Clare's rescue, but she was too upset by that image of Karen's face on the temple ceiling. It didn't make any sense at all. She sat down near Clare's fuzzy form and tried to think things out.

She had expected her own face to be revealed in that pattern of stars, or possibly Donna's dolphin face, but certainly not Karen. Never in a thousand years would she have expected that. But Karen _was_ there, and that meant that the Mind had analysed the contents of Donna's mind – for she was the only one of the dolphins who knew Karen – and it had concluded that she would one day be the most important person on this planet.

That would have made some sense a few weeks ago, when Karen was an influential member of the Watchers and determined to play a part in the galactic federation, but not now. Karen was now a rather pathetic soul, dependent on Mort to look after her and content for Donna to occupy her body every evening for fun and games with Mort.

Dawn shook her head in frustration. The more she thought about that face up there in stars, gazing down at the great altar, the more ridiculous it seemed. Well, the answer had to lie somewhere in Donna's brain, for she was the source of that imagery, and so it should be possible to extract it.

Something stirred nearby, and Dawn glanced round. Two of the dead Watchers had come to life and were sitting up. Dawn stared at them, unable to believe her eyes. Then she remembered the two people she had seen clinging to the roof of that house above the floodwaters. They had obviously survived their ordeal, and were now emerging from their trance. She wondered what they would do when they realised that John Anderson and the rest of the Watchers were dead. They might well take revenge on Clare.

It occurred to her that if she acted swiftly, while they were still drowsy, she should be able to take over one of them and effect Clare's release. Clambering to her feet, she transformed herself into her dragon form, then flew into the head of one of them. She sensed his maleness as she entered the cathedral of his mind and gazed down the length of the nave at the clear view of the real world in that stained-glass window. Now she could see clearly the bodies of the Watchers lying all around, and she could see Anderson's body too. Just beyond him was Clare. She had risen to her feet and staring directly at her.

Dawn flapped her wings and flew down the nave towards the altar. Alighting on it, she found, as she had hoped, that she had no difficulty at all in displacing the drowsy Watcher and taking over his body.

"Clare! It's me, Dawn!"

Clare's relief was palpable. She even managed a smile. "What kept you?"

"Oh, this and that. Wiping out the Watchers, entertaining aliens, joining the galactic federation, that kind of thing." She stood up and stepped over the dead bodies to reach open ground, then walked over to Clare. "Let's see if we can unlock those clasps."

Clare glanced doubtfully at Anderson's body. "You searched his pockets before."

Dawn glanced around at the second Watcher, a woman, who was pushing herself to her feet. "Where did John Anderson put his keys?" she called out.

The woman gazed at her blankly. "I don't know," she replied groggily. "Perhaps in his bag." She pointed to a small bag lying on the ground amongst the bodies.

Dawn hadn't noticed the bag before, for it had been hidden by the bodies, and she quickly went over to it and rummaged inside. There were a number of objects inside, including a gun, and then she found what she was looking for.

"A bunch of keys," she called out, holding it up so that Clare could see. "Let's see if one of them fits."

She returned to Clare with the bag and handed her the gun, which Clare promptly pocketed, then she picked a likely-looking key and inserted it in the keyhole of one of the clasps. There was a click, and the clasp snapped open and fell away.

"It's our lucky day!" she murmured, and proceeded to unlock the other three clasps to release the chains.

"I've had better lucky days," Clare muttered, rubbing her wrists and ankles. She glanced round at the second Watcher, who was now picking her way over the bodies towards them. "Are all the rest dead?" she whispered to Dawn.

"I think so."

"Then let's chain this woman up, and the body you're in as well. I'll feel much safer then."

"Good idea." Dawn handed Clare the bunch of keys. They watched the woman as she shuffled sleepily towards them.

"When will everyone else wake up?" the woman asked when she reached them.

"I don't know," Dawn replied. "Come and sit by me."

"OK, Jim." The woman gave her a wan smile and sat down heavily. Dawn immediately reached over and put a clasp round one of her ankles and clamped it shut, then did the same with the other ankle. She repeated this with her own ankles.

The woman stared at the clasps uncomprehendingly. "What are you doing?"

"Chaining us up, of course," Dawn replied cheerfully. "I'm not Jim, you see. I've pulled the same trick on him as Anderson pulled on Clare – I've borrowed his body."

The woman gasped as understanding dawned. "Damn you! You're that Dawn, aren't you?"

"'Fraid so. I'm also afraid that the rest of your people are dead."

The woman glanced around at all the lifeless bodies, and her face turned ashen. "You murderer! You despicable murderer!"

"They drowned in that flood," Dawn replied. "Anyway, I'm not a despicable murderer. If I was I would have killed you and your friend Jim too."

"But you caused the flood. It must have been you!"

"You people tried to set yourselves up as the kings of the earth, the representatives of humanity on the galactic councils. You were trying to take something that was not yours to take, and you paid the price. Just be glad that your life has been spared."

The woman glowered but said nothing.

Clare meanwhile had retrieved her own bag, which had been lying on the ground by Anderson's body, and pulled her mobile phone from it. "I'm going to call Dr Song," she explained.

Dawn clanked her chains. "I can't move. Check my spirit detector first, will you? See that it's OK."

Clare nodded. Baby was still lying in the grass, a few metres away, where it had been placed earlier, and Clare went over to it and picked up.

"It looks OK," she said, turning the screen towards Dawn. It was alight and showed a fuzzy spirit-world image of the world. "It's fine," Dawn confirmed.

Dawn waited while Clare made her call. "They're going to organise a helicopter," Clare announced when she'd finished. "They should be here in about an hour."

"In that case I'll leave you. I need to get back to everyone. Ring me if you want to talk."

"Yeah. Thanks. By the way, Paul and I have been invited to the wedding."

Dawn stared at her blankly. "What wedding?"

"Karen and Mort's wedding, of course. Don't tell me you've forgotten."

"Oh yes. Donna's wedding."

"That damn dolphin – she gets into everything! Anyway, the invitation said they didn't want presents, but we want to give them something. We don't know what."

"No problem. Give them a Monopoly set. A really fancy one."

"Monopoly?" Clare looked bemused. "For a wedding present?"

"They'd be delighted. Their old set is worn out. Donna told me the banknotes are falling to bits."

"I'm not surprised. I've seen her play – she gets very excited."

"She likes to win."

"I've noticed." Clare glanced at the sea of dead bodies. "And woe betide anyone who gets in her way."

Donna floated in the warm waters of Crocodile Bay. She ought to search out Clara and thank her for saving her life, but she was too troubled by that image of Karen set in the stars of the temple ceiling. She just couldn't accept its implications. Incomprehensibly it was Karen, not Donna and not Dawn, who was to be the representative of Earth in the community of stars. The future belonged to her.

Or to be more precise, the Mind had calculated, from the information in Donna's brain, that Karen was to be the future representative of Earth. So what had the Mind seen there that had caused it to come to that extraordinary conclusion? What was there about Karen that Donna had missed? She vainly searched her memories for some snippet of information that might give a clue.

Perhaps it wasn't Karen at all, but someone who looked like Karen. After all, Donna herself looked like Karen when she occupied Karen's body – perhaps this was the Mind's way of saying that she, Donna, was to be the one. No, it couldn't be that, it was too obtuse. If the Mind had intended to portray Donna, it would have done so clearly.

And yet it couldn't possibly be Karen, for that didn't make any sense at all. So why had it displayed her image on the temple ceiling, crowned with the crescent moon? There must be something about her, something locked up in Donna's brain, which had caused it to do that. There were only two things that she knew about Karen that were significant. The first was that she was more than happy for Donna to borrow her body to be with Mort, and the second was that she desperately wanted a baby.

That was it! She wanted to have a baby! That picture in the temple ceiling wasn't Karen at all, it was Karen's baby! Or rather, it was Karen's baby many years from now, when it had grown up. It wouldn't look exactly like Karen, of course, for half of its genes would come from Mort, and it might be a boy and not a girl, but the mind had used the information at its disposal and arrived at the inevitable conclusion: the fruit of Karen's womb would one day be the most important person on this planet.

Full of joy at this stupendous revelation, Donna flicked her tail and surged through the water. Picking up speed, she dived and then leapt into the air and performed a magnificent somersault. For this child was not just Karen's baby or Mort's baby, it was _her_ baby. Not physically hers, of course, but hers in another and far more wonderful sense. It would be her baby in the same marvellous sense that she herself was Dawn's progeny.

Thirteen years ago, on the day of Donna's conception, Dawn had gone on a spirit journey into the womb of Donna's dolphin mother, and there she had breathed the essence of her dragon nature into the genes of that fertilized egg. And now, sometime soon, Donna would repeat that process for the fertilized egg in Karen's body that would become their child, and in so doing she would continue the line of magical beings who were gifted with the power of fire.

That was the message of the image on the temple ceiling. It would not be Dawn or Donna who would one day represent Earth in the galactic councils, it would be this little one.

But how would this child reach the stars without a portal? Donna really couldn't understand why the extra-terrestrials had departed without leaving one. That was the strangest thing of all in this entire weird saga. COBRA had been left a portal by the wasps all those years ago, so surely these aliens, who Dawn had so royally entertained, would have done the same? It was totally mystifying.

But then, out of the blue, something Clare had said during their first encounter in that restaurant in Adelaide sprang into Donna's mind, and the final piece of the jigsaw dropped into place. The alien visitors hadn't given them a portal because there was one here already: the temple!

Clare had suggested that John Anderson had used his knowledge of the COBRA portal to impose its features on the Eden temple, via the information he had secreted in Jonah's brain. The temple was even pentagonal, just like that portal. And when today he had imposed his own image in the pattern of stars on the temple ceiling, he was proclaiming himself to be the one destined to use this gateway to the distant worlds of the galactic federation. That was his great master plan. It was never to take over the Mind, as Dawn had feared, but to use its powers to reach the stars.

But John Anderson had been destroyed, and the Mind had chosen instead to portray in those stars the offspring of Donna's union with Mort and Karen. It meant that one day, many years in the future, this precious child would visit Eden and enter the temple, and the Mind would recognise him and open up to him the gateway to the stars.

At peace at last with herself and the world, Donna basked in the sunlight and gazed lazily at the artificial reef stretched across the mouth of Crocodile Bay, cutting it off from the open sea, and listened to the distant waves crashing against its far side. Several of her fellow dolphins were frolicking nearby, leaping in and out of the water.

They and all the other GM dolphins had been created in the GeneSys laboratories in Honiara. They had been carefully reared and educated by Rick and his staff, and they had been watched over and loved by Dawn. Now they were adult, and soon many of them would be released into the open sea, where they would prosper and multiply and one day fill the oceans with their kind.

It was a breath-taking project, engineered by man to farm the seas. But man had not foreseen that she, Donna, would inherit strange powers from beyond the sky and use those powers to save the planet, and that she would be loved by a man and a woman and bequeath those powers to their child, and that this one would become Earth's galactic ambassador.

She tried to imagine what great adventures awaited her little one on the exotic worlds that circled those distant stars. Perhaps he would be the one to venture into the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy and take on the demons. But whatever might await him there, or indeed anywhere else in the galaxy, defeated even her fertile imagination. Instead her thoughts returned to the immediate future, to her wedding night when, she was sure, Karen would stop using contraceptives. Shortly afterwards, driven by some unearthly instinct, Donna would enter Karen's womb and breath into the new life within her that miraculous dragon fire.

She wondered what Mort and Karen were doing at that moment. No doubt they were shopping. No doubt they were strolling around a large store in town, wandering past some baby clothes, and Karen was loitering and touching them, and, taking his cue from this, Mort was saying how utterly amazing Donna's love-goddess kisses were, so amazing in fact that they _must_ have some ultimate purpose...

