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giant golf-ball. The red sun was brilliantly reflected from its metallic surfaces as if it were encrusted with rubies. Roth was now silent, mesmerised by the extraordinary globe.
    The Scavenger’s tentacle had slackened a little and Sarah massaged her wrist and waited with thumping heart, her eyes fixed on an oval opening in the lower side of the sphere from which a ramp led down to the ground.
    After a while, the Scavenger’s relays clattered and it stirred slightly. In a flash, Sarah forgot the agonising pins-and-needles sensation in her hand and the pains throbbing in her bruised and exhausted body: from the dark opening in the huge sphere came a strangely familiar, but not at once recognisable, sound. It was the laboured breathing of some vast nightmarish bellows, and it sent icy shudders through Sarah’s limbs.
    All at once, the gaping oval panel was filled by a squat, lumbering shape like a monstrous puppet. Its domed, reptilian head grew neckless out of massive, hunched shoulders. Each trunk-like arm ended in three sheathed talons and was raised in anticipation towards her. The creature began to lurch down the ramp on thick, stumpy legs, the rubbery folds of its body vibrating with each step.
    Mean eyes burned like two red-hot coals amid the gnarled, tortoise-like features, and puffs of oily vapour issued from the flared nostrils. As it approached her, the creature uttered a raucous gasp of satisfaction, ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaa... The female of the species...’
    The blubbery, gasping voice sent a tingle of recognition through Sarah. ‘Linx...’ she murmured in disbelief, flinching away in disgust at the warm, sickly breath as the creature stood over her. The wobbling folds of its lipless jaws were suddenly drawn back, baring hooked, metallic teeth. Sarah stared transfixed at the ghastly smile while the creature slowly shook its domed head.
    ‘But... but Linx is dead...’ she managed to blurt. ‘You were destroyed... in the Thirteenth Century...’
    The creature continued to shake its head. ‘You may have witnessed the demise of one of our number,’ it gasped,
    ‘but we are many.’ The shrivelled, tortoise face thrust forward, its red piercing eyes boring into her. ‘I am Styr...
    Sontaran Military Assessor.’
     
    Sarah forced herself to stare defiantly back. ‘And what are you assessing?’ she found herself retorting with a contemptuous toss of her head.
    There was a menacing pause and then the creature seized Sarah’s arm in its leathery claw. ‘I shall continue,’
    gasped the wobbling mouth, ‘with you .’
    At that moment Roth, who had been cowering silently at Sarah’s side, sprang up, taking advantage of the loosening of the Scavenger’s tentacle. ‘Not me...’ he shrieked, breaking into a run. ‘Na... na... you won’t hurt me again...’ and he made off towards one of the nearby ravines.
    Styr raised his arm and aimed a small device like a wristwatch, which was incorporated into his sleeve. The fleeing crewman was enveloped in an intense white light and crashed lifeless onto the rocks.
    Sarah found that anger and contempt were beginning to conquer her fear. ‘That was senseless,’ she cried. ‘He was harmless.’
    The Sontaran turned on her with a snort of oily vapour.
    ‘And quite useless,’ he gasped, gripping her arm even more fiercely. ‘He was of no further significance to my programme.’ Sarah tried to wrench herself free, averting her face from the Sontaran’s nauseating breath, but he lifted her roughly against his pulsing, rubbery abdomen.
    ‘Whereas you,’ Styr hissed, ‘you are of much greater value for my purposes.’
    Styr drew a small spherical microphone, attached to a retractable cable, from a battery of strange instruments arrayed round his belt, and without relinquishing his cruel grip on Sarah’s arm, began to gasp excitedly into it,
    ‘Assessment Period Gamma... Solar Interval Eleven...
    Human Female—First Specimen...’ His sparkling eyes glittered