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diplomacy schemes.'
    'Yes, sir.'
    'It was al right when we merely observed the aliens, or made the occasional necessary adjustment to their development. But having to actual y talk to them over supper... wel , that's an entirely different tray of condiments.
    Omega knows where it'll all end.'
    'Will that be all, sir?'
    Yeux waved a weary hand. 'Yes, yes, Captain. I'll pass your report up immediately. No doubt our superiors wil be suitably grateful.'
    'And the subject of the transduction order?'
    Yeux scrutinized the ambitious young man with renewed admiration. 'She had to be kil ed,' he said flatly.
    'To extract the information we needed? Will that be enough?'
    The Almoner Crest refilled his tea glass from the pot on his samovar. 'Enough about what, Captain?'
    'Information on the ex-president, sir. The Doctor.'
    'We'll see,' said the old man and sipped his tea.
    Leela sat back in a chair on the balcony of Andred's quarters and sulked. She longed to get out. She had filled the rooms with plants and flowers until Andred sneezed, but they were only a gesture against the grey view of turrets and towers that the balcony overlooked. It was too cold at the 119th level of the Citadel for the balcony to be open.
    Looking down through the glass partition, you could see the clouds below in the valley between the buildings.
    22
     
    Since K9 was absorbed in some calculation of his own, she flicked idly through a catalogue of ancient weapons that Andred had brought her from the Capitol armoury museum. The Time Lords regarded the weapons as barbaric creations, but she was intrigued by their designs. She had visited the museum once and upset an old man called the Curator by removing a spin-bladed dagger from a display and testing its throwing power. After that, Andred had banned her from handling weapons in the Capitol.
    With no Rodan or Romana to visit, she wondered about visiting the House of RedLooms again. For Andred's sake, she would endure his Cousins for a day and then go off on her own, out into the forest beyond the Family Estate.
    She had done it several times before, even sleeping out several nights and bringing back bunches of plants or animal skins for Andred to see and learn from. He even joined her on one occasion, and they had lain together under the stars that burnt in the ochre sky.
    The Gallifreyan forest was very different from that on the world where she had grown and learnt to hunt. Some trees had leaves like clear water, others like silver. There were flowers that glimmered in the dark like tiny candles.
    Once when she was hunting alone, a forest beast like a striped pig-bear had attacked her and tried to drag her up into a tree. It had torn her arm badly, but she had slain it with her knife and struggled back to the House of RedLooms with its ears as a trophy.
    None of Andred's Cousins knew how to treat the wound, because it refused to heal natural y in a day, the way Gallifreyan injuries do. A Hospitaller-surgeon was summoned from the Capitol, but Leela refused to see him. She said he was not a Doctor at all. Instead, she treated herself with a diffusion of berries and leaves, boiled over an open fire - something which alarmed his Family and the House too.
    'Mistress?' said K9.
    'What is it?'
    'The information that we did not give to Master Andred.'
    'Yes?'
    'The files at the Bureau of Loomographic Records.'
    'Yes?'
    'They have been withdrawn.'
    'You mean someone else is looking at them.'
    'Negative. Withdrawn meaning wiped, erased, destroyed.'
    Leela beat a fist against the side of the chair. 'Then someone else has also made our discovery.'
    'So it would appear.' K9 paused. 'One moment, Mistress.' His ears waggled. Leela could hear a high-speed stream of data warbling inside his computer body.
    'Who are you talking to?' she said.
    The data abruptly stopped. 'Apologies, Mistress.'
    'Who were you talking to, K9?'
    'Myself,' he quipped brightly.
    'We should have told Andred,' she complained. 'We should have told him