SYNCHRONICITY

A Captain Scarlet Story by Marion Woods

PART ONE - REALITY

Chapter One

Captain Scarlet was in a cheerful mood as he strode along the corridors and up the escalators towards the briefing room for the morning meeting every senior officer on Cloudbase was expected to attend. The sun was shining, although it invariably did on Cloudbase as it hovered at 40,000 feet above the surface of the Earth, free from the vagaries of the weather beneath the rolling cover of sunlit clouds. Everything had been so quiet of late that he had managed to get in his long deferred furlough; he had taken Rhapsody to the Cote d’Azure and they had spent a weekend at Monte Carlo wasting money at the casino. It had been idyllic - just the two of them - alone for five whole days… and nights.

Scarlet hummed as he jumped off the last escalator and grinned at a startled technician who almost dropped the box he was carrying. He was so pleased with life that he even essayed a few dance steps along the corridor and caused Captain Grey, coming from the opposite direction, to scratch his head in bewilderment.

”Hello, Scarlet,” he said to the young Englishman. “You look pleased with yourself. When did you get back from leave?”

“Late yesterday,” Scarlet grinned.

“Good was it?” Grey smiled in response.

“Absolutely bloody marvellous!”

Grey laughed. “Well, you’d better curb your high spirits for the meeting; the old man wasn’t that cheerful yesterday. I just hope he’s in a better mood today.”

“What has upset him?”

Grey rolled his eyes, “Maybe Lieutenant Green forgot to sugar his tea…”

“The colonel doesn’t have sugar in his tea,” Scarlet corrected automatically, although he sensed there was something more in Grey’s warning than he was prepared to say outright. “Has there been a Mysteron threat? I wasn’t told of any when I got back.”

Grey gave a brisk shake of his dark head. “Who ever knows what upsets the colonel?”

Scarlet sobered up with a sigh and thought, I bet Adam does, for one. It was only then that the thought came to him that he hadn’t seen Captain Blue since his return. He‘d been too hyper last night to notice and this morning he’d just assumed his friend would turn up for breakfast, and when he hadn’t, he’d assumed he’d eaten earlier.

The door slid open to admit them to the conference room and Scarlet straightened his peaked cap and marched in behind Grey with no trace of his former exuberance.

The colonel nodded a welcome to them as they took their seats and Scarlet acknowledged the silent welcome from the others around the table: Ochre, fiddling with a pen, Doctor Fawn reading a report on something, Lieutenant Green at the stenograph and Harmony Angel waiting with her usual patience for the meeting to begin. There was no sign of Blue or Magenta. Scarlet placed his diary on the table before him and fished out his biro. The door opened behind him and he turned, expecting to see the two remaining captains. Magenta nodded a brief greeting and apologised for being last. He slid onto the seat next to Scarlet and opened his folder.

“Now that we are all here, we can start,” Colonel White began.

“Captain Blue isn’t here, sir,” Scarlet said.

“Captain Blue is in Italy, Captain, as you would know if you had read the daily log report.”

“I haven’t received one, sir.” Scarlet accepted Grey’s proffered notes with a grateful nod and scanned down the information.

“Captain Blue reports that there is still no sign of Lieutenant Garnet. The ground staff in Naples have searched everywhere she is known to frequent without success. Her family have been contacted but they have not heard from her for several months. She does not contact them very regularly, apparently. The last report we have from her is the message taken by Lieutenant Claret, saying that she had a lead on some kind of scheme to devastate Naples - and the whole surrounding area - a scheme which, she claimed, involved the volcano Vesuvius. It is unfortunate that she was not more specific, and then we might have had some idea, at least, of what she had become involved with.”

“I don’t believe I have met Lieutenant Garnet, Colonel. Is she new?” Scarlet asked.

Colonel White nodded. “She was part of the last cadet intake to receive their commissions. I posted her to Naples, to replace Lieutenant Henna when he moved to Rome.”

Scarlet’s face registered some surprise. Until now, the colonel had always resisted giving female lieutenants independent commands, although in many respects, he expected the Angels to cope with far more dangerous missions than his subordinate officers did. He could remember Captain Blue getting in an awful tizzy when Symphony’s plane had crashed in a desert whilst she was on a routine patrol, whereas Colonel White had merely ordered the usual search patterns and continued with his work schedule. The fact that the colonel had been quite as relieved as Blue when she’d been recovered unharmed, showed that the old man did, in fact, have a ‘soft-spot’ for his female operatives. In itself that might explain his reluctance to give them commands away from the protective arm of Cloudbase. Even so, he must reckon that Lieutenant Garnet was an exceptional candidate to have given her this job, so soon after she received her commission.

White continued, “She’s an intelligent woman who speaks several languages. She has a scientific background - she worked for an electronics company before we recruited her - and she is not given to flights of fancy. I place some consequence on her report, Captain, and I am, naturally, concerned by her disappearance.”

“She’s Italian?”

“Italian-American and a fluent Italian speaker,” the colonel gave a sigh and shook his head. “I am afraid Captain Blue is at a loss to know what else to do.”

Magenta glanced up at the colonel with a hint of concern. “Does he speak Italian?” Colonel White stared at him. “The locals might not take to big, blond Americans asking questions about one of their own - especially if he does it loudly and slowly in English!” Magenta explained.

For once the colonel looked rather at a loss. “I never thought to ask him,” he admitted.

“He speaks a little Italian – but not very much, I’d imagine. His Spanish is much better - he learnt that at school and got plenty of practice with the staff at home.” Scarlet’s information did nothing to lift the overall mood of the meeting. “He also speaks Swedish of course, and…”

“Never mind Captain Blue’s proficiency for languages.” The colonel felt the meeting was in danger of going off at a tangent. “He has the assistance of the base staff in dealing with the locals. The fact remains he has not been able to trace Lieutenant Garnet and she has been missing for over four days now. I fear the worst.”

The atmosphere around the table was one of gloom as they contemplated what might have happened to their young colleague. It was a given that Spectrum personnel were always in some danger, yet every loss, for whatever reason, was always keenly felt.

After a moment’s silence, the colonel went on to the next item on the agenda.

~oo0oo~

Captain Blue sighed and listened to the unintelligible babble of Italian coming from the three men sitting around the desk with him. He understood about one word in ten and was lost as to the direction the conversation was taking. In a sudden pause, he asked, “Sergeant Ruffolo, what is the Commissioner of Police saying now?”

Carlo Ruffolo smiled expansively and spread his hands. “Ah, Capitano Blu, he is saying he can no more have the men to search for Lieutenant Garnet. We cannot make proof she is gone - pouf! - and he is a busy man. I have said he must make the search more - he says I am una nullita - a no-one and you are….” Ruffolo smiled and shrugged, “I cannot make the Inglese for it…”

“Just leave that to my imagination, Carlo,” Blue said with a sigh. “Tell the Commissioner that Spectrum appreciates his help.” He bowed his head towards the belligerent little man across the desk, who, he suspected, knew more English than he would admit to. “We will carry on looking for his proof and when we find it - not if, Carlo, when - I will personally ram his helmet right up his…”

“Capitano!” Ruffolo waved his hands and the outrage on the Commissioner’s face justified Blue’s suspicions.

“Come on, Carlo, we are leaving. Señor, I can honestly say that I can’t wait to get out of here.” Blue was all smiles as he shook the man’s hand and saluted. “You pompous little asshole!” he said genially.

The man stiffened as Blue stalked out, Ruffolo pattering after him. As soon as the door closed they heard a gabble of voluble Italian break out. Blue gave a self-satisfied nod of his head and headed for the exit. At the foot of the stairs the American sighed and glanced down at his fellow Spectrum officer with regret. “I guess I blew that, didn’t I?”

“Si, Capitano.” Ruffolo nodded a little sadly and then added with some spirit, “But let me say it was worth the breath you use for it - you spik only true of him. He spiks more Inglese than he say to. He is not pleased with Spectrum sending an Americano to search also.”

“An Americano who has just antagonised the local police force.” Blue pushed his cap back and rubbed his forehead. He was not usually so short-tempered, but this impasse had lasted three days and he was becoming increasingly worried about Lieutenant Garnet. “Let’s get back to the base and see what the news there is. Perhaps we’ll have the proof or she’ll have called in.”

“By the Grace of The Virgin, she may have,” Ruffolo agreed but without much hope.

They walked through the crowded, narrow streets of Naples and into the modern air-conditioned building that served as Spectrum’s offices. Blue noticed the way people stopped what they were doing or saying as he and Ruffolo walked across the lobby towards the glass-fronted lift. As they recognised the despondency on the faces of the new arrivals, their own faces reflected the disappointment and they turned away to continue their business. Watching the ground floor slip away as the lift glided up to the second storey executive offices, Blue felt as if the emotion was tangible and he was trailing bad news after him as he moved.

Ruffolo interrogated the young Ensign who was acting as Blue’s PA and reported to his downcast superior that there was no news waiting for them. Blue hated the thought of what his next report to Colonel White would contain. He could imagine only too clearly what his superior’s expression would be when he confessed to insulting the Police Commissioner and how even the colonel would have difficulty hiding his concern that Garnet was still missing.

Walking into the commander’s office, with its picture window view over the Bay of Naples, he removed his cap and reached for a jug of iced water thoughtfully left by one of the support staff. He went to sit at the command desk and tried to compose his thoughts before he made his report. Unbidden, the image of Symphony Angel floated into his mind as he sipped his water and he let his thoughts wander between the two women who were constantly on his mind at the moment.

The old man really worries about all the girls we have posted around the World - but then, I guess we all do to some extent. Even the most progressive of modern men can’t help worrying - I know I can’t - but then Karen would argue I’m old-fashioned about such things! Come on, Claudia - give me a clue… You can’t just have vanished without trace, you have to be somewhere. He looked around Garnet’s desk and bit his lip anxiously. If anything’s happened to her the colonel will shy away from giving them command posts again and that’ll stir up a whole heap of resentment. All the girls want to do the same job as the guys, but they don’t always think things through logically and they can be so impulsive… Captain Scarlet’s face hovered before his mind’s eye, wearing an all too familiar stubborn expression. Okay, so Paul can be just as bad at times, Blue admitted to himself with a grin - but that’s different….

~oo0oo~

The hours dragged by and there was still no news of the missing Lieutenant Garnet. Captain Blue was recalled to Cloudbase and after a long conference with Colonel White, he returned to Naples to continue the search, without even having the chance to speak to anyone else.

On the base, people were starting to get edgy. After a period of almost constant Mysteron activity, there had been no threat for almost two months, and the general feeling was that when it came, the next one would be big. Initially, Spectrum had been formed to combat all forms of terrorism, and they were still active in that field, although since the start of the so-called ‘War of Nerves’ with the Mysterons, the elite Cloudbase staff were far less involved with the problem of terrestrial organisations. Occasionally, a Senior Officer would lead an operation or mastermind an investigation, and their individual expertise was always available to their terrestrial colleagues, but their actual physical involvement in these matters was becoming less common, as they began to understand more about the true extent of the Mysterons’ capabilities to attack the Earth.

Rhapsody Angel, cuddled in Captain Scarlet’s arms in the darkest corner of the Promenade Deck on Sunday night, reported that Symphony was becoming almost impossible to live with, and that, if something didn’t happen soon, hostilities would break out in the Amber Room. Scarlet nodded thoughtfully, the atmosphere on the base felt as if there was a storm brewing and if something didn’t happen to release the tension, more people than Symphony would get stir-crazy.

Chapter Two

THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE MYSTERONS. WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR US, EARTHMEN. WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN YOUR UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON OUR MARTIAN COMPLEX AND WE WILL BE REVENGED.

OUR NEXT ACT OF RETALIATION WILL SEE PILLARS OF FIRE DESTROY ALL AROUND THEM WHILST RINGS OF FIRE WILL ENGULF MANY SEAS AND DARKEN ALLTHE SKIES.

Blue’s SPJ landed on Cloudbase and he hurried through to the Conference Room without even stopping to put his head around the Amber Room door to say hello. The place was humming with activity - Magenta was sorting websites and downloading information, Ochre was consulting the reference books Lieutenant Flaxen had carried in from the research library, and she and Lieutenant Green were scanning indexes for further references. Grey and Scarlet were consulting atlases and maps and the colonel was reading the reports produced by his staff. He glanced up and welcomed Blue back. The American saluted and then gave a quick smirk towards Scarlet, who was grinning affably at him, before paying strict attention to the colonel.

“Captain Blue, I think the search for Lieutenant Garnet is likely to tie in with this threat. The general consensus is that the pillars of fire the message refers to are volcanoes and you are aware, of course, that she sent a message about a possible threat to Vesuvius. This is too great a coincidence to ignore and therefore I have recalled you to Cloudbase. Did you make what enquiries you could in Naples about the civil defence arrangements in the event of an eruption?”

“Yes, sir, and I have left Sergeant Ruffolo to continue the enquiries. Naturally, everyone in Naples is well aware of the danger the volcano represents to the area, and even the Police have had to take the warning seriously.” Blue grimaced as he remembered the frosty meeting with the Police Commissioner. He had ordered the man - in slow and loud English - to co-operate with the local Spectrum officers but it had given him less satisfaction than he’d expected.

Colonel White noted the sallow flush on his officer’s face and left it at that. He knew Blue was annoyed by his own handling of the situation, and he felt sure the man had learnt from the incident. “Very well, Captain. I suggest you assist the others with the research.”

Blue gave a grateful smile and sauntered over to join Scarlet and Grey. There was some huddled whispering between the two friends before they settled down to study the maps.

Some time later, Lieutenant Flaxen went over to Captain Magenta and showed him a paragraph in the magazine she was holding, watching as he input the search terms she suggested.

Magenta gave her an approving nod and said, “Colonel, I think we may have something. Lieutenant Flaxen has come across an Italian professor, Francesco Gaspari, who has been working with a Turkish doctor, Mehmet Dincerler, on the movement of tectonic plates in relation to the eruptions of volcanoes.” Everyone stopped what they were doing to listen to Magenta’s explanation. “There is information on the Net about their latest research concerning the monitoring of all active volcanoes. It has long been known that each volcano has its own … signature of vibrations and pulses that seem to predict when an eruption is imminent. Gaspari has been monitoring Vesuvius and Etna for some time now. Last year, however, Gaspari caused something of a stir by announcing he had made a machine that would harness those vibrations and - in some way that is not readily understandable, sir, because it’s written as an equation about two sentences long – he would be able to cancel out the impetus towards eruption. He claims his machine – which is in the prototype stage - would relieve the pressure on the magma chambers for long enough to at least give time for populated areas to be evacuated, or an attempt made to vent the volcano.”

“That sounds promising, Captain,” the colonel agreed. “Especially given that the professor’s activities have been in the same areas as Lieutenant Garnet predicted there might be trouble. Does the site give any more information?”

“Not that one, sir – it’s a learned Journal – but there is a bit of local gossip here, on a different site. Please bear with me a moment, my Italian isn’t that great….” He sat squinting at the screen and finally said, “I think it says: Gaspari has gone off in a… tantrum? – yeah, basically he’s gone off in a huff… because he can’t get the new money he wants from the Italian Authorities to…perfect his…erm… volcano soothing machine?... yeah – volcanic pacifier . The Authorities say it’s too …slim a chance it would work …and they are going to spend their money on… other things.”

“Does anyone else provide an evaluation of the likelihood Gaspari’s machine would work?” Blue asked.

Magenta skimmed the rest of his screen and shook his head. “Everyone says it would be a good thing if it did work – but no-one wants to fund the development, in case it doesn’t. Oh… wait… Gaspari quit his job and has gone off to live in a villa outside Naples, where he plans to develop his machine. Dincerler too, it seems. So someone has put up the cash…”

Colonel White groaned. “I wonder who that could be.”

“The Mysterons, sir?” Lieutenant Green suggested.

“Yes, Lieutenant, that would be my first thought, although it would be a departure for them to be funding research – as far as we know. Certainly it is suspicious given that we have just received a threat which suggests a connection with that area of research.”

“I’d guess that what could be used to slow down an eruption might be switched over to encourage one, without too much difficulty,” Scarlet said, rubbing a hand over his chin. “We have the link to Garnet’s last report right enough.”

“All we have to do now is track down these pillars of fire,” Grey said, nodding.

Blue looked up from the atlas he was holding. “Well, if Gaspari and Dincerler have been monitoring Vesuvius and Etna – I should think it’s obvious. Both of these are active volcanoes close to populated areas, a major eruption by either would be catastrophic for the region. Oh, I know there are others, but these are not that far apart - globally speaking…” he amended as Ochre began to comment.

“They are close to the sea too,” Grey agreed, “but two volcanoes don’t make a ring of fire, Blue.”

“Oh that’s easy – it’s a name used for a chain of volcanoes along the Pacific Rim – they run all along the Indonesian archipelago, through Japan and Russia – across to Alaska and down the San Andreas Fault to South America. You get them on the Mid Atlantic Ridge too – underwater ones,” Blue said matter-of-factly.

Scarlet hid a smile and heard Flaxen change a snigger into a cough.

“And the prize for Extreme Cleverness goes - as usual – to Captain Blue-Stocking…” Ochre teased mildly. He winked at Captain Blue, whose face, as he became acutely conscious that he was guilty of lecturing them all again, was rapidly turning an unflattering shade of red.

“Sorry,” Blue muttered. He ducked his face back to the atlas and studied the map in front of him with unnecessary diligence. When will I learn to keep my mouth shut? he wondered.

Colonel White suppressed his own smile and said, “Well, we have a lead. It seems to suggest that Italy will be the first target - Vesuvius and Etna, twin pillars of fire - and after that demonstration, the Mysterons intend to turn their machine on to Pacific Rim volcanoes - engulfing the seas. I think you had better return to Naples, Captain Blue, with Captain Scarlet and Captain Grey. You may need to take to the water and Grey can be of most use there.” Colonel White glanced at his English captain, who, whilst he remained immune to many human ailments, still suffered from sea-sickness.

“Don’t mind me, Colonel,” Scarlet grinned, “I’ll sit in the back of the boat with a bag over my head, if it will help.”

“Hey, now that’s not an offer you get everyday,” Ochre teased, “Scarlet offering to hide his ugly mug. Just make sure you have enough paper bags along when you cast off!”

Normally the colonel would have frowned at such levity, but it broke the tension in the room to such an extent that he thought it best to just ignore the remark. Instead he said, “Please be ready to leave in an hour, gentlemen, sooner if possible.”

“No problem, Colonel, we could leave immediately,” Scarlet asserted. “Unless you need to get clean linen, Blue?” he smiled.

“Ten minutes, okay?”

“You can have fifteen if you like, it’ll take me that long to get my stuff together,” Grey informed them as they left the conference room. “I’ll take my new aqualungs along. We might get a chance to test them under field conditions.”

Blue cast a pleading glance at Scarlet, who nodded almost imperceptibly and watched as his friend ran along the corridor, taking the first turn to the escalators on a direct course for the Amber Room.

“Oh,” Grey said, a dull flush on his cheeks as understanding dawned. “I see.”

“Some things are more important than clean socks,” Scarlet informed him with a mock solemnity.

“Not for long, they aren’t.” Grey gave a wry grin at his colleague. “Not for a sub-mariner, anyway!”

~oo0oo~

Blue was quiet all the way down to Naples. He was so preoccupied he didn’t even quibble when Scarlet offered to fly and normally he hated being the passenger in any journey. Grey noted it too and took the co-pilot’s seat without being asked, leaving Blue to his wool-gathering.

Settling into his seat, Blue accidentally kicked the holdall on the floor by his feet. Scarlet had chucked his overnight bag at him when he rushed into the hangar, at the last minute, to board the SPJ and he knew, without looking, that his friend had packed clean clothes for him.

Paul was the best friend he had ever had, in fact, he would go so far as to say he was now closer to Paul than to either of his younger brothers, especially given his prolonged absences from the family home over the past decade or so. It was Paul he turned to for help during the frequently turbulent hiatuses in his relationship with Symphony Angel. Symphony was not good at hiding her feelings and her mood swings made for an exciting life at times. He was never quite sure himself, from one day to the next, if he was in favour or not. Paul’s talent for distracting the colonel’s attention from their assignations often provided the much-needed opportunity for him to patch up whatever quarrel they were having this time. He felt sure that without these much-needed trysts, the relationship could have foundered many times over during the past couple of years.

Blue had no illusions that their affair remained the closed secret he would have preferred it to be, but he continued to act as though he believed it was. And he did it so well that, apparently, even Paul thought he was gullible enough to believe his colleagues hadn’t twigged. But this pretence did afford them some privacy in the crowded confines of Cloudbase and it gave his colleagues the satisfaction of congratulating themselves on their perspicacity and indulgence towards the couple. Even Colonel White turned a blind-eye - by and large - to their activities, even though Blue knew the old man was not as clueless as he made out.

He sighed contentedly and relaxed back into his seat as he relived the latest exciting episode of his love life, behind his eyelids.

Scarlet glanced back at his distracted friend and grinned at Grey. “You know, for someone as on the ball as Adam, I genuinely think he doesn’t realise what an open secret it all is!”

Grey shrugged. “There’s none so blind as they that will not see,” he said with some amusement. “Mind you, Symphony’s hardly the most discreet of young women.”

Scarlet gave a non-committal shrug and decided not to press the topic - after all, so far Grey hadn’t cottoned on to his affair with Rhapsody, but Brad wasn’t stupid and he could put one and one together as easily as the next man.

Captain Grey glanced at the Englishman beside him and smiled to himself.

~oo0oo~

Sergeant Ruffolo welcomed them with his usual exuberance. “Capitano Blue, Signores Grey and Scarlet, Buongiorno, benvenuto a Napoli!”

“Hello, Carlo, is there any news about Garnet?” Blue dropped the hand that had been shaking his enthusiastically for several minutes.

“Non, Capitano, we have found nothing.” Ruffolo’s face dropped into an expression of sadness. “Still we look everywhere.”

Scarlet saw an SSC waiting on the tarmac and moved towards it. “Where are we to start, Sergeant Ruffolo?”

“To the base if you wish it, Capitano.”

The three Spectrum officers looked at each other and Grey made the decision, sensing Scarlet and Blue were hesitating because they feared he might feel excluded.

“We’ll go to the base, but via the harbour, Sergeant.”

Blue and Scarlet loitered behind as Ruffolo ushered Grey to the SSC.

“Bloody boats,” Scarlet muttered.

“Did you pack the paper bags?” asked Blue with a wicked grin.

“Very funny, Sinbad, just because you can float about without chucking up every five minutes…”

“What price retrometabolism now?” teased his friend and suddenly sobered, saying, “I wonder if all Mysterons are poor sailors? There’s no water on Mars, after all.”

“Good point,” Scarlet agreed. “But I have to confess, I was always a lousy sailor!”

Blue snapped his fingers. “Damn, another brilliant insight into the nature of the enemy goes down the pan!”

“Karen was in a good mood, I take it?”

“Oh, Karen’s not speaking to me…”

“Why ever not?”

“She was complaining because, in a fit of madness, I had promised to take her to New York this coming weekend, which is my next scheduled downtime. She wants to go shopping -”

“With your money?” quipped Scarlet. Symphony was notorious for always being broke.

“Whatever.” Blue brushed the comment aside. “Well, now I’ve been sent here again so my name is mud.” He didn’t seem too concerned, however.

“Well, I call that unreasonable, Adam.”

Blue gave his slow grin and said with absolute conviction, “Ah, but I can wait till I get back. By then she’ll be feeling guilty and so she’ll want to make it up to me…”

Scarlet roared with laughter, “You old letch...”

“Come on, you two, I want to make sure we can get a boat if we need one.” Grey beckoned them impatiently into the SSC.

~oo0oo~

Once they had chartered a motorboat at the marina and were back at the base, they started studying the movements of Professors Gaspari and Dincerler. Magenta had tracked Gaspari to a rented address on the outskirts of Naples and they drove across the city to the location. They scouted around and found a suitable place to observe the people coming and going from the walled villa.

“We need to see inside the place,” Scarlet commented, bringing his high-powered binoculars down from his blue eyes with a grimace. “Those walls are too high to allow much of a view.”

Blue nodded agreement and suggested, “Perhaps Garnet thought the same? She might be held as a prisoner in there, if Gaspari or Dincerler caught her snooping about. Remember they are working independently now – someone, if not the Mysterons, has bought the rights to that machine. If they can make it work, they’ll make a fortune.”

“You’re not suggesting this is just a case of industrial espionage, are you?” Scarlet asked.

His partner shrugged. “We’re still acting on a hunch. We don’t have proof of Mysteron involvement.”

But Grey was in agreement with Scarlet. “We‘ll need to watch the place round the clock. The three of us doing turn and turn about with… two local agents on each shift. Sound okay?”

“I hate stakeouts,” muttered Scarlet, rebelliously. His dislike of simply waiting for things to happen was well-known. “I’ll agree from tomorrow, but tonight I want to get into that place and look around - for the volcanic pacifier or Garnet - I don’t much mind which we find.”

“We have no proof that Gaspari and Dincerler are Mysterons,” Blue warned him again.

“You disagree, then?”

“I never said that. If those creeps have Garnet…”

Scarlet nodded. “Grey?” he asked the older man. Bradley Holden was the unknown quantity in the partnership. He was an ex-commander in the WASPs and known to be something of a stickler for the rules. Right now it was impossible to read his thoughts from his expression and Scarlet feared they might have problems with him, if he tried to be too rigid in his interpretation of their orders.

“We’ll have to tell the colonel…” Grey began to say.

The others interrupted him…

“Afterwards…”

“That’ll only complicate matters…”

They came to a halt and swapped glances.

Grey grinned. “Now I see why you two exasperate the colonel the way you do! Let’s go for it - if Garnet is in there, I have some pretty powerful points I’d like to raise with Gaspari and Dincerler too.”

They decided to wait until dark, then Blue and Scarlet would scale the walls and attempt to break into the villa. Grey would keep watch and warn them of any danger. However in the brilliant heat of the mid-morning, as the sun beat down on the countryside, they saw a car leave the villa and head towards the city. The villa showed no signs of life and the gate had been closed behind the departing car.

Exchanging silent glances, Blue and Scarlet moved as one towards the walls, circling round away from the road. Grey watched them go with a wry smile; he had no doubt they would achieve an entry into the villa, but he wasn’t as confident as they were that they would find anything useful in the rooms. He held the more pessimistic view that Garnet - if she had ever been here - was well beyond their help now.

Scaling the walls presented little problem, although the top was studded with glass and Scarlet, going up first, cut his hand badly and swore fluently under his breath. Blue, helped over the hazard by his partner, watched as his friend sucked at the blood and then shook his hand as the flesh sealed itself whilst they watched.

It was a strange aspect of retrometabolism that in moments of great stress the process seemed to happen far quicker on these superficial wounds. Blue had once suggested to Doctor Fawn that the process might be linked to adrenalin and earned a gentle, almost patronising smile from Spectrum’s Chief Medical Officer, who had already come to that conclusion. Noticing Blue’s discomfiture, the doctor had reassured him that his confirmation of a theory was always welcome. After all, Blue was often the only witness to the process in the field.

Annoyed by the cut, Scarlet thrust his hand through a pane of glass in the patio doors and opened them. He sucked at the fresh wound and grinned at Blue, who stood shaking his head at such a display of petulance.

They walked into the room, which was sparsely furnished and dusty from long neglect. There were no sounds within the house - no alarms, no movement - and they quickly moved to the door. It opened into a hall, which was cool and dark with a high ceiling. Scarlet jerked a thumb to the left and went right as Blue swerved in the opposite direction. They quickly checked the rooms, all of which were largely as empty and as dusty as the one they had entered through. They met at the foot of the stairs and crept up to the bedrooms. These too were empty, although two rooms held Spartan furniture and the impedimenta of shaving equipment and dirty washing.

Frowning, they stood at the top of the stairs and scanned the high ceiling for signs of an attic. They could see nothing and went down the stairs with an air of defeat.

“We could try the cellars,” Blue muttered, as they stood considering their next move. “An old place like this is bound to have them.”

“It’s an idea. Where do you suggest we look for access?”

“The kitchen, most likely.”

They returned to the back of the house and in the kitchen Scarlet found a narrow door leading down into a dark cellar. The cool air and the slight echo suggested it might be of considerable size. “Mind the stairs,” he warned as he edged into the gloom. He was about a third of the way down when there was a sharp click and a fluorescent light flickered on above them.

He glanced up at Blue, still standing by the doorway. The American grinned and spread his hands like a magician after a successful trick. “Ta-da!”

Scarlet rolled his eyes and finished the descent at speed, Blue close behind.

This time their luck was in - the cellars were the most lived-in rooms in the house. There were work benches, power tools and odd bits of welded metal lying around. Scarlet picked a few up to study them whilst Blue went around looking for possible hiding places. He soon found what he looking for and tugged at a small door, built into the space beneath the stairwell.

“Paul, look!”

Alerted by the sudden anger in Blue’s voice, Scarlet hurried over and peering beyond his kneeling partner, he blinked at the fetid air coming from the cubby-hole. There was a mound of blankets in one corner, a plastic bucket in the other and a jug, with one dirty plate and a wooden spoon beside it, lying discarded in the middle of the floor. Blue crawled inside trying all the time to control his thumping heart. He yanked the blankets back - there was no body beneath them, but he caught a glint of metal and reached out to pick up an unmistakable Spectrum uniform tunic - in a dull blood-red. He held it out towards Scarlet, who pretended not to see how his friend’s strong hand was trembling.

“So she was here,” he said, as the American crawled quickly from the cramped space and momentarily stood with his back against the stairs, fighting off long-buried terrors of his own. “You all right, Adam?” he asked in concern.

“Fine,” Blue nodded, drawing a huge breath. “A little bout of claustrophobia, that’s all.”

“Must be why you’re a pilot and not a sub-mariner then,” Scarlet said genially, to dismiss the topic. He activated his cap mic and reported to Grey, asking him to alert the colonel and the necessary authorities that they had proof that Lieutenant Garnet had been abducted by Gaspari and Dincerler.

“Paul,” Blue said quietly as the comm. link closed, “She hasn’t been in there for some time. The air... it wasn’t right. No-one has been in there recently.”

Scarlet accepted this statement at face value. He could see the fact that Garnet had been held prisoner in this dark and confined space had affected his partner strongly. He‘s really letting his concern for her get to him. Mind you, Scarlet thought, he’s always been over-protective towards the female agents – it drives Karen nuts at times! Makes him very popular though… Pretending not to have noticed Blue’s agitation, he replied briskly, “Then they must have moved her. Let’s hope Ruffolo’s men picked up the car and followed it as they were ordered to. We will find her yet.”

Quickly now, they raced up the stairs and through to the front door. They sprinted to the gate and opened it, waving to Grey to as he sped to collect them in the SPV.

Once inside, they contacted the base and Ruffolo’s excited voice gave them the news that the car had driven through the city and out towards Vesuvius, before turning towards the coast. The professore had left the car and gone into a boathouse and since then, no one had tried to leave - not by land or sea, Ruffolo assured them proudly - he had men watching both exits.

“Give us the GPS reference, Carlo,” Blue ordered, “and we will do the rest. Alert the police and any coastguards that the area will be sealed off by Spectrum in pursuit of our suspects. And have someone bring our motor launch over from the marina,” he added at Grey’s prompting.

“Si, Capitano Blue.” There was a pause and Ruffolo asked, “Shall we find Signorina Garnet, Capitano?”

“We shall do our damnest to find her,” Blue promised. “And a few prayers can’t do anything but help, amigo.”

“And you shall have them, signore. Happily, you shall have them!”

The link closed and Blue sat quietly for a moment. Sensing his friend was still worried about their missing colleague, Scarlet tried to chivvy him out of his introspection. “You’re not very good at Italian, are you? Do you know the difference between amigo and amico?” he teased. “You keep talking to the sergeant in Spanish!”

Blue gave a grin, the colour returning to his face as he regained his usual self-composure. “Habit,” he confessed, “and well, Carlo’s a forgiving sort of guy…”

~oo0oo~

The SPV drew up close to the co-ordinates Ruffolo had given and the three agents prepared to leave the vehicle. As Grey’s elevator seat descended and retracted back to collect Blue, the captain stood frowning and in answer to Scarlet’s questioning, Grey turned his head slightly and put a finger to his lips. “Sssh… Can you hear something?”

Scarlet cocked his head and frowned at Blue as the motor whirred to lower him to the ground. All three of them stood listening intently, for several minutes.

“It’s like a rumbling…” Grey murmured.

Blue’s eyes widened in horror. “I don’t know about hear it, but I can almost feel it through my boots!”

“The eruption machine!” Scarlet gasped. “They must have it in the boathouse.”

Blue turned towards the vastness of the volcano, There was a wisp of white smoke crowning its summit. “I never thought they would try to use it so close…”

“Why should they care?” Scarlet said sourly. “I think the fact they are using it all removes any doubt that they are Mysterons…”

Grey was already on the radio to Cloudbase, alerting the colonel to the situation. Moments later Scarlet and Blue’s epaulettes flashed white and the colonel connected them to the conversation too.

“You must get into the boathouse and stop the experiment. We have contacted other vulcanologists and they are mostly of the opinion that the next time Vesuvius erupts it is likely to be a massive pyroclastic explosion, which would send millions of tons of hot ash and lava into the atmosphere. One expert described it as making the eruption that destroyed Pompeii look like a roman candle. Naples would be obliterated.”

“See Naples and really die,” said Scarlet, pushing his cap back from his forehead.

“That was in extremely bad taste, Captain,” the colonel snapped. “I suggest you save your energy for stopping this scheme in its tracks, not for making facetious comments.”

“S.I.G., sir. Sorry.”

The three officers raced towards the boathouse, their guns in their hands. Grey, slightly behind the other two, watched as they diverged around the building to cover each side and on impulse took the shorter route towards the sea, following Blue. As he neared the boathouse the tremors grew stronger. Rounding the corner, Grey saw Scarlet shoot the lock off the door and kick it open. Both men disappeared into the building.

Grey waited as a back-up and cast anxious glances towards the sea. Racing along the coast, he saw the motor launch they had hired and was quietly satisfied to think they had the means of chasing their quarry, should they attempt that means of escape.

After a few minutes of surprising silence, he walked to the open door and peered in, there was no sign of Scarlet or Blue, but a wooden staircase led down beneath the building - presumably to where the boat was moored. At the far end of the building stood a large, heavy, square metal box. It was definitely the source of the vibrations, although the noise was so low that it was on the edge of human hearing. Grey shivered as even the fillings in his teeth seemed to judder.

Suddenly shots rang out, their noise distorted by the pulsating thump of the machine. From beneath the floorboards, there was the roar of an engine and he swivelled back to the door, to see a powerful speed boat race from beneath the jetty and head out to sea.

Seconds later Blue’s head appeared up the staircase and he called, “Captain, we need to turn this thing off - Scarlet’s unconscious!”

“They’ve headed out to sea, Blue. We should follow them - they might create another machine.”

“They won’t have to - they were loading a second machine when we went down. Obviously, the volcanoes are meant to erupt at the same time,” Blue confirmed as he clambered up to the decking.

“Our launch is on its way, it’ll be here shortly. They won’t get far, Blue.” Grey tried to reassure the younger man, who was looking with bewilderment at the machine. There were no obvious control panels and nothing with a helpful on/off label to suggest a course of action.

Blue put his hands to his head and shouted at himself above the confusing pulse of the vibrations, “Think, you idiot! Concentrate!”

Grey knew what he meant; his own mind was being bludgeoned into a daze by proximity to the machine.

Blue came to a decision. He stood back and pulled out his pistol. Rather than aim at the machine he turned to the power source and blew the junction box off the wall. There was a spurt of flame and an explosion rocked the building on its timber foundations. Thankfully the machine slowed and came to a halt. The relentless rumbling stopped and the Americans exchanged weary smiles. Blue holstered his pistol and scampered back down the stairs, calling for Grey’s help; between them, they hoisted Scarlet back into the boathouse. At the top of the stairs, Blue heaved the inert body over his shoulder in a practised fireman’s lift, as in the corner by the junction box flames had started licking at the wooden building and the amount of smoke was increasing rapidly.

“Should we try to take the machine?” Grey asked dubiously.

“Can you carry it alone?” Blue asked, and as Grey shook his head, he added, “Well, I’ve got my hands full and I don’t propose coming back in here again. Those flames are catching too quickly. The place’ll collapse soon. We’ll have to leave it, maybe they can salvage what’s left when the fire’s out…” He coughed at the acrid smoke.

“No, you’re right, let’s get out of here…” Grey led the way out onto the bright sunshine and Blue carried Scarlet a safe distance from the fire before he laid him on the ground and knelt at his partner’s side.

“Did they shoot him?” Grey asked.

“No, I think it was the machine. He suddenly covered his ears and screamed.” Blue looked anxiously at Scarlet, turning his head to one side as he saw a trickle of blood coming from his ear. “His hearing must be more acute than ours; I think his eardrum has burst.” With a sudden intake of breath, Grey turned away.

Their boat was approaching the coast and slowing to moor alongside the jetty. “Let’s get him on board. We have to chase the speed boat and we can’t leave him here. That place is about to blow,” Grey said curtly.

Blue glanced at the boathouse, now burning fiercely. “Well, of course he’s coming with us,” he replied, grabbing Scarlet’s arms and heaving him over his shoulder once more. “He’ll be fine in no time. We may have to shout at him for a while, though.”

If Grey was surprised at Blue’s casual acceptance of his friend’s condition, he was careful to hide it and he swiftly deduced that familiarity with such incidents no doubt made them seem perfectly normal.

Chapter Three

On board the launch, Grey took the wheel whilst Blue made Scarlet comfortable in the cabin space. They swung out towards the open sea with the radar searching for Gaspari’s boat. In conjunction with the coastguards’ radar reports, Grey tracked the progress of the speed boat. He did some quick calculations and looked with concern towards Blue, who was sitting beside Captain Scarlet’s body.

“There’s a problem,” he said. His compatriot looked up from his partner and cocked his head in query. Grey sighed, “We can’t catch them in this. The speed they’re making, they will reach Sicily before us and probably have time to land as well.”

“Is there anything closer that could slow them down?” Blue asked, dropping the handkerchief he was using to wipe away the trickle of blood from Scarlet’s ears and coming to the wheel of their launch to study the radar screen.

“Not really. The coastguards are too far away and unless we notify the military or the police on Sicily…” He glanced at Blue with some doubt. “Only that could lead to all kinds of problems afterwards.”

Blue twisted his lips in rueful acknowledgement that he had soured relations with the civil authorities, and activated his cap mic to brief the colonel.

“Are you asking for help?” White asked as Blue finished his update.

“I don’t think we have a choice. I checked on the Net before we left Naples and the latest eruption report has Etna on yellow alert - there’s a good deal of activity in the volcano already. It’s a very complex structure - far more so than Vesuvius - with craters and vents all over the summit. Any one of them could blow and that would mean trouble. Looking back at Vesuvius now, there is a definite increase in the smoke over the summit - we cannot be sure how much damage the machine did before we stopped it.”

“How did you stop it?” White asked.

“I…eh, interrupted the power supply.” Blue grimaced at Grey and shrugged.

“Good work, Captain. Is Captain Scarlet with you?”

“Yes sir, but he’s unconscious. I suspect the noise from the machine burst his eardrums. He’ll be okay in a few hours.”

“Very well, Captain, I will order an Angel strike to sink the suspects’ boat.”

Grey interrupted, “Colonel, what if they have Lieutenant Garnet on board? There was definite proof that they had her held prisoner at the villa.”

Blue’s expression showed he had not discounted this fact as he said, with as much reassurance as he could manage, “From what we could see of the boat, as they were preparing to leave with the other machine, there were only the two men - Gaspari and Dincerler - on board.”

“Then we must hope you were right, Captain. Yet whatever the truth may be, I cannot risk allowing them to force Etna to erupt. The Angels will have orders to sink the ship and then I want you and Grey to get the machine back, if at all possible. Maybe we can use it to calm Vesuvius down again. If it is destroyed completely, we’ll just have to pray that you acted quickly enough.”

“S.I.G., Colonel.” Both men acknowledged their orders and the link closed down.

“Diving will be difficult,” Grey said, glancing at his maritime charts. “It’s dangerous water all around here.”

“We might have to use an automated rover,” Blue mused. “But, I agree with the colonel that we need to stop the machine being deployed against Etna, even more than we need to reverse the effect on Vesuvius. There is a chance that volcano won’t blow - but Etna’s already very active.”

They were both aware that they were avoiding the subject uppermost in their minds with this business-like discussion. It was Grey who finally said, “She might not be on board, Adam.”

It was so rare that Grey used anything other than codenames that Blue’s glance showed his surprise. Grey’s face was a picture of restraint, but there was a deep underlying concern in his dark eyes.

Blue nodded curtly, well aware that his own expression was just as revealing. “I hope not, Brad. She doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her. She may not have been in post long, but no-one has anything bad to say about her and she’d turned the unit into one that functions at maximum efficiency. Henna’s a good guy in many ways, but organisation isn’t his strong point. I dread to think what Spectrum Rome will be like in eighteen months from now!”

Grey grinned, “Oh, he’s got Sergeant Ponti to sort that out!”

They both smiled at the memory of the formidable Italian in charge of the administration at the Rome Office.

Movement in the cabin attracted their attention and they turned to see Scarlet sitting up, rubbing his ears with his hands. Blue grinned and went to him, touching his shoulder to attract his attention.

“Adam, I can’t hear anything!” Scarlet shouted, panicking as he saw his friend’s lips moving.

Blue shook his head and found a pen and pad of paper. I think machine burst yr eardrums - he wrote.

Scarlet nodded and shouted, “I can’t hear you!”

Blue started scribbling again and passed the note across to Scarlet: But I can hear you – there’s no need to shout. Scarlet grinned and nodded.

Blue scribbled another note and passed the pad across once more: We’re chasing the Mysterons’ boat & the col. has ordered Angel strike to sink them. Then we’ll dive for 2nd machine. We stopped 1st one O.K. & Vesuvius hasn’t erupted – yet.

Do you feel O.K. to continue or shall we get you airlifted off?

“You do and I’ll never speak to you again…” Scarlet said in a slightly quieter voice.

Blue gave him the thumbs up and fetched him a glass of water.

All three captains went on to the deck at the approach of the Angel Interceptor Jets. Harmony, as Angel Leader, reported their readiness to attack. In close formation, the three shining white jets flew over the area and climbed, their wings glistening in the late afternoon sun against the smouldering bulk of Mount Etna. With lighting precision, Angel Leader banked and led the attack run against the target, which was still moving at speed through the water. As the planes streaked overhead, the boat had made a sharp turn and headed for the shore; at the last minute it swerved again and Harmony’s missile missed. Moments later, Angel Two fired and hit the stern followed by a direct hit from Angel Three. By now, Harmony’s jet had completed its circular flight path and was coming in for a second shot. The boat was no longer moving under its own power, but was being swept on to some jagged rocks by the current. The missile hit the stricken boat dead centre and the noise of the explosions reached the launch as it ploughed onwards. Through their field glasses the three officers could see the boat break apart and slide beneath the waves.

“Good shooting, girls!” Blue exclaimed as the jets swept above them in formation.

“S.I.G., Captain,” Harmony said. “Angel flight returning to base. Good luck with your search.”

“Thanks, Harmony. See you back at base soon, I hope.”

“We’re going to need that luck,” Grey demurred, returning to study the charts in the cabin. “They’ve sunk it in the straits of Messina – notorious for its strong and dangerous currents.” Grey glanced at Captain Blue and chose his words carefully, not wanting to offend his companion. “This isn’t going to be like a gentle swim around the Great Barrier Reef, Blue. I know you’ve had experience diving, but do you think you can manage? We could always ask the colonel to let us call in the WASPs – they have expert divers.”

Blue opened his mouth to reply, but before he could speak, Scarlet said, “Don’t be so superior, Brad. We’ll both manage.”

Surprised, Grey turned and stammered, “Oh, your hearing’s back to normal is it?”

“Not quite, but it is good enough for me to recognise bull-shit when I hear it,” Scarlet grinned and the Americans laughed.

~oo0oo~

Grey had been right about the currents. The water was choppy and the boat bounced around when they anchored, as close to the place where the speed boat had sunk as they could. Scarlet was already looking rather green and he was sitting with his head in his hands as the others checked the diving equipment.

Grey was making last-minute adjustments to the new miniature aqualungs he had designed. “You okay, Captain?” he asked.

Scarlet nodded. “Just let me get in the water. At least if I’m under the sea I can’t be tossed about like this.”

“We have to be careful, Paul. This is a pretty terrible place. Its bad reputation goes back into antiquity,” Blue warned, as he sat at the table connecting the breathing tubes of the conventional tanks together with practiced ease.

“Yes, I am aware that this is a dangerous stretch of water…”

“In legend, this is the site of Scylla and Charybdis,” Blue continued. Concentrating on his task, he failed to see the conspiratorial grins between his colleagues.

“Who and what?” Grey asked innocently. He avoided looking at Scarlet whose shoulders were shaking in silent amusement.

“In Greek mythology, Scylla was a sea nymph, who was changed into a monstrous, gigantic creature with six snake-like heads, each of which had three rows of teeth. All because both she and the witch Circe fell in love with the same guy and Circe thought he liked Scylla better than he did her.”

“Hey,” Grey commented, “I’m sure I’ve dated both of those dames in the past. This Scylla lived here, did she?”

Blue nodded and continued, “And every time a ship passed through the Straits, and came too close to the coast where she lived, each of her heads seized a crew member and bit his head off.”

Scarlet sniggered, “Well, she was probably suffering from terrible PMT – at least, that always seems to be their excuse these days for biting a chap’s head off!”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Grey muttered, as each man fell to a silent reverie of personal experiences. “And what about the other one – Cary something – was that a man-eating she-monster as well?” Grey asked, as much to break a silence which threatened to become prolonged, as to continue their teasing.

“No, Charybdis was a guy who had been turned into a whirlpool. He was on the opposite side of the straits from Scylla. Three times a day he swallowed the waters of the gulf and three times he spewed them back again. Accounts vary as to why he did this, but one story has it that he had stolen Heracles’ cattle and this was his punishment. Whatever the reason, it sure made life difficult for the ancient mariners around here. Any boat that missed Scylla risked being sucked under by Charybdis and if they missed Charybdis they had to risk getting eaten by Scylla. It is the classic no-win scenario.” Blue finished his story and glanced up at his fellow American. He closed his eyes and sighed at his own gullibility as he saw the laughter on his friends’ faces.

“You know, I am so pleased you felt the need to share that with us, Adam.” Grey shook his head with a look of sorrowing pity.

“Yeah, it was wonderful,” Scarlet agreed. “All we need are a few sirens or the odd sea nymph and we can have a real party down there!”

“Okay, okay, you guys, I just thought you might be interested, that’s all!” Blue was used to being set up by Ochre and occasionally, Scarlet too, but it wasn’t often that Grey pulled such a stunt.

“Oh, I was fascinated by every word. I thought you explained it very nicely! ” Scarlet assured him and grinned at his friend. He turned to Grey. “See what I protect you others from by partnering this geek?”

“Took your mind off the sea-sickness though, didn’t I?” Blue said imperturbably. He stood and shoved the air tanks towards Scarlet. “And as I’ve just put your gear together, you had better be nice to me!”

“Too late to demand that now – unless you’ve built in a fault anyway…”

“Paul, that’s not funny,” Blue protested.

“No, you’re right and I apologise. Now I guess I have to squeeze into one of those wetsuits, eh?

Grey nodded. “Unfortunately they are all grey. Not intentional, I assure you…” He was beginning to get the feel of the way these two talked to each other.

“Oh, like we’ll believe that!” Scarlet teased and selected a suit from the pile.

Grey insisted on checking all the equipment Blue had put together before he would even consider permitting them to enter the water. Scarlet raised his eyebrows at his partner, but Blue – as unruffled as ever – merely gave a slight smile and shook his fair head. He was not prepared to get shirty over such a practical action.

Finally satisfied that his colleague had done an excellent job, Grey said, “I’d better go first. Fix the safety lead to the winch, Blue.” He adjusted the flashlight strapped to his wrist and the maritime map secured to his belt. Then he checked the radio was working before he jumped from the side and disappeared beneath the rolling waves.

Scarlet peered over the side and watched the flashlight moving further away. Blue kept a watch on the lead, making sure it played out evenly and didn’t snag. It was already drifting away from the boat.

“Grey to base control, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” Scarlet replied. “What can you see?”

“Not much, there is some wreckage, I believe it has been scattered by the tides already. That’ll mean a large area to be searched.”

“Shall I come and help?” Scarlet asked, making ready to climb over the side of the boat.

“Not yet. I am going to swim towards the shore; some of the wreckage has drifted that way.”

“S.I.G. Be careful,” Scarlet replied as the link went dead. He glanced at Blue who was frowning as he fed out the line. “Is everything okay, Adam?”

Blue nodded curtly, “But there is a strong current pulling towards the shore. It can’t be an easy job down there.”

It was almost half an hour before Grey returned to the boat. Then there was the tedious waiting around as he surfaced until finally the other two leaned over and hauled him out of the choppy water. Grey removed his mask and unhooked his air-tanks.

“There’s a lot of wreckage down there, some of it quite large, but as yet I can see no sign of the duplicate machine. Did it look the same as the one in the boathouse?”

“Much the same, but bigger, I would have said,” Blue said thoughtfully, recalling the machine he had seen being loaded at the boathouse.

“Then I haven’t found it, although, there is a piece that looks promising, but it’s probably engine parts.” He pointed to a square on the map he’d been using.

“It can’t be safe to swim too close to the shoreline, Grey. There must be a real jumble of rocks down there,” Blue commented, as he examined the map after winching the safety-lead back.

“Rocks and caves,” Grey agreed. “Formed by the volcano, I’d imagine. We will have to try to scour them all if the machine doesn’t turn up soon.”

Blue clipped the safety-lead to his belt and adjusted his regulator as he sat on the railings and dropped backwards into the water. Scarlet grimaced; he had wanted to go next, but Adam had been resolute in forbidding it, insisting that they needed to allow time for his ears to recover before risking a dive. And for once he would not be swayed by Scarlet’s arguments about his powers of retrometabolism. So he tried to wait patiently for another couple of hours as Blue, his tour of the seabed over, sat out the decompression time before returning to the surface.

Divested of his air tanks, Blue gave his report and glanced at Scarlet as he shrugged into his own air tanks in preparation for his dive. “The tide is turning, Scarlet. It’s no picnic in there,” he concluded uneasily. Of the three of them, Scarlet was the least experienced diver, although he was fully trained.

“Yeah,” Grey agreed. “Maybe we should wait until tomorrow. The light’s bad enough as it is.”

“I’m going in,” Scarlet said firmly with a shake of his head. He reached for the map Blue had taken with him, glancing at the crossed off areas that had already been searched by the others. He swung his legs over the railings and clipped on the safety lead Blue had discarded. “If the wreckage is already being scattered, the longer we leave it, the worse it will be. I’d hate to have to try to explain to the colonel why we left completing the search until tomorrow.”

“It’s not worth the risks if you can’t see anything when you’re down there,” Grey reasoned.

But Scarlet had already spent too long waiting about for his own satisfaction and he was not going to be dissuaded from some physical activity now. From the corner of his eye he saw someone moving purposefully towards him.

“Wait a minute, Paul…”

Scarlet gave a slight wave and jumped into the water before anyone could stop him.

“Paul!” Blue yelled, but it was too late, Scarlet was out of earshot. He turned to Grey with a look of horror on his face. “I noticed as I came up that part of the security rope was fraying. I guess it must have caught on a rock during one our dives. I was going to replace it… but there wasn’t time. Call him up, Brad, get him back – that rope could give at any moment…”

Grey reached for the radio and began to call. The only response was a burst of static as away towards the shoreline they saw the changing tides crash and spin, forming a wide gaping whirlpool. The boat lurched towards the deadly spiral, and Grey rushed to start the engines as the anchor broke away from the sea bed.

”We must find Scarlet!” Blue yelled, leaning perilously over the side as he heaved at the safety rope in an attempt to draw his partner back to the safety of the vessel. Suddenly the tension on the line broke and he fell backwards across the slippery deck, a length of rope in his hand. Grey steered the boat out of danger and went to assist his stunned colleague.

“What can we do?” Blue asked him.

“Until that whirlpool breaks – not a friggin thing….”

Scarlet enjoyed his swift descent into the water. It was exhilarating. He felt tugging on the safety line, but chose to ignore it – it was probably just Grey or Blue trying to get him to return. His cap mic crackled and he could just make out Grey’s voice, but the words were indistinct. He began to feel the tug of the currents spinning him away from the boat and he reached to grab the safety-lead to slow his descent, only to realise with a sudden terror that it was not there. A quick glance was all that was needed to show him that the length of rope trailing from his belt was no longer attached to the vessel, now some distance away from him. He struggled against the insistent pull of the water and as he made little headway he tried to strike for the surface. He had some success and could see the breaking waves above his head, when, as if from nowhere, a powerful swirl of water, almost hot enough to scald, caught him and dragged him down and inshore once more.

The force began to subside and he felt the beginnings of hope that he could make the surface again. He struck upwards once more. He had hardly begun his ascent when another, stronger wave caught him and spun him around, tumbling him down into the dark depths. A third wave hit him as he managed to regain his balance and this time he could not withstand its drag. He barely saw the rock that struck his back and gashed his thigh. The pain was enough to almost make him lose consciousness and he was crying to himself in trepidation and pain as the last wave caught him and dashed him onto a jagged outcrop of rock. It picked him up, like a dog with a rag-doll and threw him over the pinnacle. He fell into a roaring darkness and welcome oblivion.

~oo0oo~

As soon as the whirlpool began to subside Grey attached the main safety-lead to his belt, and with an additional safety-line clipped alongside, he dived into the water, in an attempt to follow the direction of the ephemeral trail left by Scarlet’s air bubbles. There was no sign of him in the open sea and although Grey swam as hard as he could, in an attempt to reach the rocky shore, the treacherous tides were against him and he found himself forced back to the boat. Finally, exhausted, he allowed Blue to winch him in and collapsed onto the deck, breathless and cold.

With an aching heart, Blue contacted Cloudbase. “Colonel, I have to report that Captain Scarlet has been swept away by the tides around the coastline and we cannot find him. It is believed he may have been swept onto the underwater rocks or into one of the many caves that line this promontory. It is not known if he is alive or dead, sir.”

Chapter Four

Everything ached. His head and his lungs, his legs and his back. He tried opening his eyes and the light hurt them, so with a weak moan he closed them again. After a time a thought throbbed its way into his conscious mind – the light hurt? Under the sea? Curiosity had always been a large part of Scarlet’s character and he opened his eyes once more – gingerly – and tried to focus on the light. He could see a large domed roof, crusted with jagged stalactites of rock, looking, in the hazy half-light, like over-elaborate, fantastical decorations created by an enthusiastic Gothic stonemason.

A voice murmured something and he tried to understand the words. Slowly they began to make sense: “Captain Scarlet, can you hear me? Oh, please be Captain Scarlet. Captain Scarlet…please, please don’t die…”

He turned cautiously towards the voice, identifying it as female and American. A face swam into view and he blinked to sharpen the focus. She was a young woman, with wavy dark hair and large, deep-brown eyes, set in a heart-shaped face. Her eyebrows were heavier than was fashionable, her nose slightly too long and her mouth too wide, which gave the impression that her features were too large for the dainty shape of her face. She was grubby, her face streaked with the trails of tears and the curls of her hair were plastered to her face by the heat of the cave. She was dressed in a black top, torn into jagged edges at the neck and the armholes. As she saw his eyes focus on her, she gave an open and friendly smile, revealing wide-spaced front teeth.

He coughed in the somewhat sulphurous air and tried to move. She laid a grubby hand on his shoulder and said, “I wasn’t sure the stories were true, but it seems they are.” Her voice was low and slightly husky. She saw his confusion and gave a shy smile. “I heard about your… remarkable abilities at the lectures you gave when you visited the training base I was at – in Koala base. You and Captain Blue came there when there was some speculation about a traitor in the ranks, remember? Captain Blue told us about the incident at the London Car-Vu. It seemed too unlikely for words, and I never thought I’d see it in action for myself. You were pretty badly hurt, Captain, but things are healing up – all on their own.”

“Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry – you couldn’t know me from Adam, of course…”

“Adam?” Scarlet murmured, “Oh, yes, I’d know you from Adam.”

She smiled. “I guess it is a silly phrase for a girl to use, at that. My name is Claudia Vecchio – I am Lieutenant Garnet.”

It was some hours before Scarlet felt well enough to begin to make sense of what Garnet had said to him. She had tried to make him comfortable, removing the battered air tanks and unzipping the wetsuit against the oppressive heat, but she advised him not to try to move further, as she feared his back was damaged. He knew it was, from the powerful tingling he was experiencing in his spine. His retrometabolism was working to repair the injuries he had received and it was leaving him with a raging thirst. Garnet was able to trickle some water between his dry lips, carrying it across from a spring welling up from between two rocks in the face mask he’d been wearing. The water tasted sulphurous, but he drank it eagerly nevertheless.

Gradually he was able to sit upright and study the young woman sitting across a narrow, coarse-grained beach of black sand. As well as her torn top, which he now realised was the remnant of her charcoal polo-neck uniform; she was wearing black trousers, also torn off just below the knees. She was barefoot, although he could see her uniform boots dumped against a rock not so far away. She cast him shy glances from time to time and asked if he needed anything. He shook his head and gave a dry smile - she had nothing to offer him even if he had needed anything.

Eventually he asked the obvious question, “Where are we?”

Garnet smiled. “Ah, I have worked that one out. We are in a cave formed by the debris of previous undersea eruptions by Etna. It has trapped a pocket of air and a spring of - almost fresh - water in here. The light comes from that crack in the roof, up there. Don’t ask where that light comes from, because we ought to be under several fathoms of water - at least. We must be very close to the foot of the volcano - this place is so hot.”

“Is there a way out?”

She shook her head, “I can’t find one.”

“How did you get here? I was… swept away from the boat we were in.”

“We?”

“Captains Grey and Blue were with me. We’d been in pursuit of suspected Mysteron agents after they attempted to induce an eruption in Vesuvius.”

“Gaspari and Dincerler,” she nodded her head emphatically. “Did they succeed?”

“No, Blue stopped them.”

She gave a satisfied smile. “I told them they were mad to attempt it. They thought I was joking.”

“How did you get here, Lieutenant?” It seemed possible that she was a Mysteron agent, much as Gaspari and Dincerler had proved to be, although the sixth sense he possessed, that induced nausea in the vicinity of Mysterons, was not reacting to her presence.

“I went to check out Gaspari’s villa - I guess you must’ve seen it? They caught me and shoved in this pokey little cupboard under the cellar stairs. I was there for several days, I guess. They took my radio-cap away, and my Spectrum issue watch. After a few days, they dragged me out and drove down to the boathouse. There was a speed boat at the jetty and they threw me in there and we drove across the bay of Naples. They were planning to set up a machine on Etna - wanted to find a cave or a secluded spot. They were off the boat - looking for a site, I guess, when I managed to slip my bonds and I dived into the sea.” She glanced at Scarlet and shrugged. “I should’ve known better - the tides were too strong and I got caught in a sort of whirlpool that spun me round and dragged me down into a chasm. Then the water changed direction and I was thrown up onto the beach here. It all happened so quickly.”

“Do you mean Gaspari had a third machine?”

Garnet shrugged again. “I don’t know about that, sir. I could only hear so much through the cellar cupboard door and not all of it made sense. There was the Vesuvius machine - set at a frequency they thought would trigger that volcano and an Etna machine at a different frequency to trigger this volcano. There was a suggestion that every volcano would need a machine set at its own frequency. The Etna machine had an internal power source - the Vesuvius one was intended to be used from the boathouse so they never included a power source. But Etna’s machine was much bigger. I can’t tell you much more than that. ”

“We saw them loading a machine into the speed boat when we raided the boathouse. One machine was plugged in and working and the other, they were manhandling onto their speed boat. Could that have been the Etna machine?”

Garnet shrugged, “Might be…”

“We have to find a way out of here. We have to warn Cloudbase…”

“I have been here for some time, Captain and I can’t find an exit - unless you want to risk the sea again.”

“Is there any food here?”

Garnet shook her head. “I suppose you might be able to catch a fish or two, but unless you want to eat them raw…”

“It might come to that, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir, but it hasn’t yet,” she shuddered. “Perhaps Captain Blue and Captain Grey will come looking for you?” There was a pleading note in her voice.

“I am sure they will look, but I doubt if they will ever find us…”

“No, it was a stupid idea really. But when I saw you, I thought you had come looking for me…”

“We were looking for you; it was because of that, that we discovered Gaspari’s plans. Your message and your bravery saved the city.”

She gave a shaky smile. “I am glad the city is safe.” He saw her wipe a tear from her eye with a dirty hand,.

“At-a-girl,” he smiled encouragingly. She looked very vulnerable sitting, hugging her knees, on the black sand. There were unshed tears in her eyes, and impulsively he lifted an arm, wordlessly offering her the comfort of human contact. With a tearful smile she scuttled across and curled up against him. He hugged her as her tears flowed. After a while she slept - a sleep of hunger and exhausted hope. Scarlet’s heart bled for her. She was resourceful and young and, if he couldn’t find a way out, she would surely starve to death and so would he, of course, although - he shuddered at the thought - he would probably revive and starve all over again… getting weaker each time until even his retrometabolism failed.

There had to be a way out.

~oo0oo~

Scarlet dozed off, his head resting back on a rock, with Garnet asleep in the crook of his arm. He wasn’t sure what woke him, but when he did, Garnet was sitting some way off once more.

“How are you feeling, Captain?”

“Much better, although I could do with another drink of that water.” She smiled and fetched him another mask-full. He sipped it and nodded his thanks. “When I am fit enough, we’ll have another look around for a way out,” he said, keeping his tone deliberately business-like as he sensed she now regretted her emotional display.

“There is something I ought to show you, sir, before we try anything,” she said. “I would have told you about it earlier, but you didn’t seem to be fit enough.”

“What is it?” He placed the mask back on the black volcanic sand.

“When I came to, after I’d been swept into the cave, I tried to find a way out. I couldn’t risk the sea again, unlike you, I had no air tanks. I was exploring the back of the cave,” she pointed at a massive rock fall at one end of the beach, “when I could have sworn I heard voices - over there.” She pointed to the other side of the beach, where one enormous boulder lay beneath a hole in the roof where most of the faint light entered the cave. “I shouted but no-one answered and in my eagerness to reach the people, I rushed my climb down the shingle and slipped. Well, I guess I must have passed out again, because by the time I came to and crossed back to the beach and crawled to the rock… the voices had stopped. But, I found something - well, two somethings - that frightened me. I didn’t explore any further after that and I tried to pretend I had imagined it and hoped they would go away. But I have just looked once more and they are still there.”

“You’re not making much sense.”

“Can you walk, sir?”

“Under the circumstances, I think you can call me Paul - if I may call you Claudia?”

She smiled, “Okay, Paul. Can you walk?”

“I think so, if you will lend me a hand.” She helped him to his feet. He staggered for the first few steps and the numbness in his lower back told him he must have broken his spine in that last crashing fall. They made slow progress along the beach, but under a gap in the roof, where some of the hazy light spilled into the cave, Garnet stopped and pointed to a dark mass huddled in the shadow of a jagged rock.

Scarlet went and stooped awkwardly to investigate. There was a body lying partially hidden by the rock. The face turned up towards the roof. His heart jumped with shock and he sank onto his knees as he stared into his own face, cut and bloodied. Once the initial shock had worn off, he realised there was a second body and he crawled across with sinking heart and lifted the tumble of dark hair from the face of Lieutenant Garnet’s double. Once more the possibility that she was a Mysteron resurfaced and once more he chose to trust to his instincts.

He turned to stare at the face of his companion and frowned, “I don’t understand.”

“Me neither,” she confessed. “I thought they must be Mysterons… there were rumours that the doppelganger of one man had been created whilst he was not actually dead.”

“Yes, Major Gravener,” Scarlet agreed. “But he was as good as dead and it was only the prompt and prolonged efforts of two doctors that saved his life. There are no doctors here…” He knew – but he doubted Garnet did - that Mysteron reconstructs often just keeled over once they had accomplished their tasks – or their services were not longer required by their alien masters. In such cases, ordinary weapons could – effectively – kill a Mysteron. He wondered what these two had died of.

“But who are they?” she asked.

“Well, appearances suggest they are you and me, and although logic suggests they cannot be… us, I don’t have a better solution - unless - these two are Mysteron reconstructs tasked with ensuring the volcano erupted.”

She shuddered, “Are you trying to tell me, I am dead, Captain? I don’t feel… dead - do you?”

“No.” He shook his head and said without thought, “And I’ve been dead often enough to know how it feels…” Garnet gave a slight gasp and stiffened as she looked at him. “I can’t remember exactly what Blue says in his story about the Car-Vu. I’m afraid I’ve stopped listening to him - he gets asked to speak about it at every base we go to and he’s devised a little speech that covers the basic events without giving too much away. The fact is, I can not only recover from injuries, Claudia … I can… recover from dying.” She began to cross herself, stopped and looked apologetically at him. He smiled, “Go ahead, it takes an act of faith for me to believe it too.”

Despite her embarrassment, she did cross herself. “This is what the Mysterons did to you?”

“Yes, so you see, I don’t see how that body could be me - not unless it wakes up anytime soon.”

“It hasn’t moved since I found it - which, I estimate, might be as long ago as a couple of days ago, at least.”

“Then it isn’t going to. It happens quicker than that - at least it always has until now…”

“But why is it here - why is my body here too?”

Scarlet shrugged. “Maybe they can tell us something more about themselves…” He steeled himself to examine the lifeless corpses. “Did you examine them?”

She shook her head and bit her lip. “Not once I saw their faces… I turned him over because he was lying on his front, but she was lying looking up at me. I was too frightened… I left them alone.”

He placed his hand on the red tunic of the man’s body; he felt the rough stiffness of the suede. Instantly suspicious, he bent closer in the poor light and examined the area closely - there was no doubt; the tunic showed a bullet hole - an exit wound, he thought it was. This ‘Scarlet’ had been shot - in the back - by a high calibre weapon, right through the heart. It was unlikely that the fall had killed him. With a fearful premonition, he examined the female corpse and found a similar wound close to the heart.

He turned back to Garnet and said quietly, “They have both been shot, very cleanly. Then it is possible they were pushed through that gap by their murderer. What they were doing here, prior to the fall, is anyone’s guess.”

“Who shot them?” she asked. “And why?”

“Good questions and ones for which I have no answer.”

He became conscious of a deep rumbling noise; it had been increasing steadily for some time and now it should be within the limits of her hearing as well. “Do you hear that?”

Garnet concentrated. “Just,” she said.

“That, in case you don’t know it, sounds very like the machine Gaspari and Dincerler were using at Vesuvius. These two may have achieved their mission and started the machine on a pattern to promote an eruption. It is conceivable that a Spectrum officer shot them. Often, when an agent completes a task – or perversely when they fail completely - the Mysterons don’t bother to protect them. In such cases, normal bullets have been sufficient to kill them.”

“But if Spectrum personnel killed them, they won’t continue looking for us,” Garnet wailed. “They’ll assume we’re dead!”

“Captain Blue won’t assume any such thing.” He tried to reassure himself as much as her.

“It still makes it all academic if that’s the case, doesn’t it? Etna erupts and we go with it.” Garnet turned away and walked back to where they had been sitting.

Scarlet watched her go, and swiftly checked the bodies once more. He unwound a rope from around ‘Scarlet’s’ waist and then, on an impulse, checked the man’s pockets. He smiled to discover a chocolate bar in his tunic pocket. It was squashed but edible. He broke off one row of squares and ate them - his retrometabolism needed something to work on - and continued his search. He found a small leather wallet and inside that was a Spectrum pass made out in the identity of Lieutenant Scarlet. On the other side were two small photographs. One showed his parents - with himself and Lieutenant Garnet – standing in what looked like the rose garden at home in Winchester. The other was again of his parents and himself, and an unknown, yet familiar-looking woman and two small children. He studied them in the hazy twilight and, unable to find any convincing solution to how these had been created, he slipped them back into the wallet and poked it into the pouch at the waist of his wet-suit. Then he wandered back to Garnet, holding the bar out to her.

“Where’s that from?”

“Me – I suppose, I mean…” He glanced at the bodies. “I feel sure he would have wanted you to have it,” he smiled. She hesitated, and then took it, eagerly breaking off three squares and cramming them into her mouth.

“That’s all there is, Claudia, so eat it sparingly,” he advised, smiling as she wolfed another row of squares. He admired the willpower that stopped her from eating the rest. “They also had a rope, which might be of some use,” he explained.

“A hover pack would be of even more use,” she tried to joke.

He smiled and nodded. “This is better than nothing. Let me have another rest and we’ll see what we can do.”

~oo0oo~

After many frustrating hours even Scarlet had to admit that there did not seem to be a way out - except through the gap in the roof and they could not reach it. Countless attempts to throw a lasso over a rock and secure it in the upper level proved unsuccessful. Finally he dropped the rope onto the floor and flopped beside the tired Garnet.

“We may have to try the sea…” he said with a grim smile.

She shook her head. “You will have to try the sea, Paul. I don’t have the strength and there is only one set of air tanks anyway. If you get out and… don’t survive, you’d be able to recover enough to let people know where I am and they’d come get me.”

He sighed. She was right, of course, and because she was so weak he knew he would have to do it soon - if she was to be rescued. But he hated the thought of leaving her.

Sensing his reluctance, she leant against his arm and sighed, “I’m not scared, Paul. I had long resigned myself to my death before you came. But I am glad you did come and even if I die before you manage to rescue me, I won’t blame you. I feel privileged to have known you - the great Captain Scarlet!”

He hugged her. “The honour has been mine, Claudia; you’re a pretty special person.”

She broke the last squares of the chocolate in half and offered one portion to him. “Please, share it with me.”

He turned his face to hers and she slipped the square into his mouth, he caught it in his teeth and she smiled as he kissed her grubby fingers. Then he caught her chin in his hand and tilted her head back. He bent his head to hers and kissed her lips, gently sliding the chocolate into her mouth and winking as he pulled away. She blushed and chewed it.

Shortly afterwards she began to drift into sleep and he cradled her against his side, tears pricking at his eyes as he stroked her dark hair. There was nothing he could do, except offer what comfort he could. He knew his turn would come and eventually there would be four bodies in this enclosed world. He closed his eyes and rested his head against hers.

PART TWO - DICHOTOMY

Chapter One

As a consequence of three captains being involved in the Volcano mission - and Captain Scarlet’s consequential disappearance whilst on active duty - everyone was facing additional duty shifts back on Cloudbase. Yet Captain Blue detected nothing but concern for their missing colleague from the personnel that he encountered as he made his way to the Control Room.

Colonel White had decided to debrief Blue and Grey immediately on their return. As he listened to his officers’ reports, he quickly realised that whilst Blue’s report laid the blame for the accident that led to Scarlet’s disappearance on himself, Grey’s report indicated strongly that Blue was no more or less to blame than the rest of them.

Finally satisfied that he knew as much about the whole mission as he ever would do, he dismissed them, but as they reached the door he called out, “Captain Blue, a word if you please.”

Blue returned to stand before the desk, obviously expecting to be reprimanded. The colonel looked at his officer with some concern. He was well aware that Blue tended to assume the responsibility for Scarlet’s ‘mishaps’ a little too readily at times. He suspected the American felt some guilt that his partner was always the one to take the risks – often with fatal consequences. Even knowing the unusual circumstances attached to Captain Scarlet, it would be a natural enough feeling; especially as the two men had become close during the years they had worked together.

“Sit down, Captain.” White invited. “I have heard your reports and drawn my own conclusions – which we do not need to discuss. What we do need to discuss, however, is how we are going to get him back…”

Blue’s relieved grin lit his face and he looked more optimistic than he had since he returned to the base. “Yes sir, Colonel.”

“You believe we can retrieve him?”

“Absolutely - even if the initial accident killed him, he’d revive and he must be holed up somewhere. Whilst I was diving, sir, I saw the entrances to several caves along the foot of the volcano – it is conceivable that there maybe a pocket of air trapped in one. I would like to go back and investigate the possibility. If he is in there, we have to try to get him out, sir.”

“Hmm, well, this time we’ll do it my way, Captain. No sneaking off to… what was it Green told me? – biological research establishments in Maryland...”

Blue squirmed at this reference to the time Scarlet had – apparently -- been thrown out of Spectrum for gambling debts. Determined to discover where his friend had gone, and why his behaviour had been so out-of-character, Blue had left Cloudbase armed with his cheque book and without permission, to try to find his friend and solve the dilemma he was in. The colonel had been surprisingly good-natured about it afterwards - largely because his plan had banked on the fact that Blue would try to help his friend – but Blue knew such incidents of insubordination did not get forgotten.

“Yes sir…” he mumbled.

White’s lips tightened as he fought his smile. “We still need to find the remnants of the volcanic pacifier if possible; I don’t like the idea of its being found by anyone but Spectrum, Captain. We don’t know who was financing the scientist’s research, but the machine’s potential for misuse is too great for us to ignore. However, Spectrum is not really equipped for such a job and I propose to request the assistance of the WASPs in retrieving it. I cannot let Captain Grey handle the matter – he is too well-known by members of the service and it would jeopardise his cover – but you are the next most accomplished diver we have and you also know what they’ll be looking for. Whilst they are scanning the sea bed for the machine, you can look for Captain Scarlet.”

“Yes sir, thank you, Colonel.”

“You will need an assistant, I think. That, in itself, could present a problem. With you and Scarlet away from Cloudbase, I will need all my other senior officers here. I am still not convinced this Mysteron threat is over and done with. I may be a pessimist, but it seems to have been dealt with far too easily. However, there are few Lieutenants with much diving experience, and none of them are entirely familiar with Captain Scarlet’s… abilities. That only leaves the Angels…” White was having a damned hard job not to grin at the expressions flitting across his officer’s face. “I’m not sure if any of them are experienced divers…are you aware if any of them have the necessary skills? Captain Grey speaks very eloquently on the dangerous nature of the tides in that area; it won’t be an easy job.”

“Well sir, I have been giving Symphony some lessons… in diving,” Blue stammered.

The colonel raised his eyebrows. “Have you? That must explain why you two keep having the same furloughs then…” Blue flushed. “Perhaps you had better take her along… to lend a hand.”

“Yes sir, Colonel.”

“You should call Marineville and speak to Commander Shore and ask him for a crew to help with the search… Dismiss, Captain Blue and … good luck with your search.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Chapter Two

Captain Scarlet wasn’t sure what woke him, but he heard voices, in the distance - quite definitely voices. Angry voices… Gently he laid Garnet on the sand and crawled towards the opening in the roof above the dead bodies. The voices became clearer.

“We’ve gone far enough…this is a wild goose chase.” It was a man’s voice, American and vaguely familiar, despite the distortion of the echo.

“Just to the next cave, please? It can’t hurt to try a last one.” A woman’s voice this time, English, by the accent, and less familiar.

“You’re too soft-hearted, Flax,” the man said.

“You wouldn’t want her to die, now would you? Well, would you? Oh no, you wouldn’t! Now, shift that rock - there’s a dear.”

“I am not a dear!”

“How right you are…”

Slowly the rocks above them moved. A few fell onto the sand, crashing onto the narrow beach.

“Watch it!” Scarlet yelled.

“We’ve found them! I told you we would. Scarlet, Garnet! Are you there?”

“Yes, we’re both here, but Garnet is weak. She’ll need help.”

The voices faded slightly although he could tell the female was shouting, “Get ropes, quickly - and a stretcher. Alert medical we have incoming wounded! Yes, we’ve found them both! Tell the colonel!”

Scarlet crawled back to Garnet and shook her awake, encouraging her to crawl towards the hole. “We’ve been rescued, Claudia! Just a little way and they’ll save you.”

Waiting impatiently for their rescuers beneath the hole in the cave roof, he knew there would be questions about the other bodies. Perhaps the rescue squad would know more? After all, he couldn’t be sure that the Mysterons hadn’t been trying to accomplish their threat by an alternative means whilst he’d been incarcerated here. They’d want to use the Mysteron detector on Garnet, sure enough… he glanced at Claudia, there was renewed hope in her tired face and she was staring at the ceiling with wide eyes.

Eventually he saw movement and a rope was dropped into the cave, then a tawny coloured boot appeared and he recognised the strong figure of Captain Ochre and the identity of one voice was resolved.

“Ochre - am I glad to see you!” Scarlet stood to grab the rope Ochre was sliding down.

Captain Ochre turned his dark eyes on him and said coldly, “Well, I guess even I am a better option than dying down here.” He looked at Garnet, who was sitting, trembling, by Scarlet’s feet. His glance at Scarlet was heavy with reproof. “They’re sending a sling; we’ll have you out of here soon enough, Claudia.” He stooped to her side and reached a hand to touch her face. She turned away, alarmed at his familiarity.

Scarlet stared in uncertainty. As far as he knew, Ochre had never met Garnet and here he was addressing her like some long lost friend. Perhaps he knew her from his pre-Spectrum days, but if so, why hadn’t Garnet mentioned it? He waited, watching as unseen people in the cave above sent down a canvas sling. Ochre carried Garnet to it, fastening her in with such a solemn tenderness that it was obvious, even to the bemused Scarlet, that he had deep feelings for her. Both men watched as the sling rose in a series of jerks into the cave above and several pairs of arms bent to assist Garnet to safety.

Once she was safe, Scarlet turned to Ochre and said, “There is something you ought to see, over by the rocks there… I think they may be Mysterons…”

Ochre peered into semi-darkness and squinted. “What exactly am I looking for? There is nothing there, Scarlet.”

Scarlet peered into the gloom. He rubbed his eyes. He knew his night-vision was better than average – another result of his Mysteronisation was enhanced senses – and even he could not see the bodies. He moved a little closer to get a better view of the dark niche and could not prevent a gasp – all he could see was the imprint in the sand where the bodies had been.

Ochre heard the gasp and turned cold eyes on him. “Have you got a problem, Lieutenant?”

Lieutenant? Scarlet’s tired mind reminded him of the identity pass in the name of Lieutenant Scarlet. He’s pretending we’re the people whose bodies we found. Why would he do that, unless this is part of some elaborate hoax? he thought angrily. Damn you, Richard Fraser, just you wait till I get back to base and get some rest – I’ll make you pay for this!

“Mind you, after all of this, you’ll be lucky if White doesn’t bust you down to private,” Ochre continued. He looked up as the rope descended again. “Get up there, if you can, before I change my mind and leave you here.”

Too confused to argue, Scarlet made a stirrup in the rope and slid his foot into it, allowing the unseen officers in the cave above them to pull him upwards. It had been an exhausting regeneration and he was hungry and extremely thirsty. He certainly did not have the strength to shin up the rope unaided. For once, he thought, I might not even protest about Doctor Fawn’s tendency to cosset me when I get back to Cloudbase – right now a long sleep in a comfortable bed seems like a wonderful idea.

A pair of arms grabbed him and heaved him into a cave very similar to the one he had just left. He rolled away from the edge as the rope was thrown down once more and glanced around at the people there. He didn’t recognise most of them, they must be local agents, he thought, but he did know the only woman amongst the group. Lieutenant Flaxen gave him a rueful smile and turned anxious eyes on the emerging Captain Ochre, but before he looked at her, the expression had changed to one of tolerant reproof.

“You okay, Captain?” she asked him in an off-hand tone that belied her previous concern.

“Never better, Flax, how about the Scarlet Pimpernel here?” Ochre scrambled upright and stared with irritation at Scarlet.

Flaxen smiled. “‘That damned elusive Pimpernel’” she quoted with a grin at the American officer. When she looked at Scarlet it was with a much less tolerant gaze. “Well, Lieutenant Scarlet, I guess we can wait until we’re back on Cloudbase before we hear your explanation for all this. You are lucky we carried on looking for you - and you can thank Lieutenant Garnet that we did. If you’d been alone, we’d have gone home hours ago. Can you walk?”

“I think so,” Scarlet muttered sourly. If this was their idea of a joke, he didn’t think much of it.

“Come on, then,” she urged. “I’ve had enough of this place to last me a lifetime.”

He struggled to his feet and stood unsteadily as a tremor rocked the mountain. As he looked downwards, through the roof of the cavern, the distant floor beneath him distorted and shimmered as he heard the powerful pounding of the waves on the shingle beach and the rattle of stones as they were sucked back into the turbulent waters. The air crackled with a static electricity that gave him goosebumps. He blinked in disbelief as, for a split second; he thought he saw Adam, sprawled on the shingle. Before he could draw breath to call to him, the image vanished.

A firm hand grabbed his arm and he turned to see Flaxen‘s face at his side, “Steady Scarlet, you might not survive another fall down there.”

“Thank you, Flaxen,” he stammered. He saw a small frown form between her eyebrows.

Ochre’s voice cut in, “That is Captain Flaxen to you, Lieutenant. And before we go any further, Flax, I think they should both be tested with a Mysteron detector…”

Scarlet turned angry eyes on Ochre – this wasn’t something he should be making a joke about. Garnet had nearly died down there and she’d been through a lot since she disappeared. Even though they knew he would pull through, they ought to be able to see he wasn’t his normal self yet. He liked this prank less and less with every passing minute.

Scarlet was about to argue the point when Flaxen snapped, “Don’t be silly, we haven’t got one with us.” She gave Scarlet a withering glance but her tone softened slightly, “Besides, if they were Mysterons, do you think they’d be looking quite as feeble as they do? Garnet was covered in cuts and bruises and Scarlet looks washed-out. You know a Mysteron never looks like that!”

“We’ve just never seen one look like that,” Ochre argued. “If it was part of their scheming plots they could probably look like death warmed over. I want them tested, Flax, just as soon as we can!”

“Let’s get them back to Cloudbase and sort it out there,” Flaxen sighed. “I don’t like this place, it gives me the creeps.”

“It’s not the place, it’s the company,” Ochre muttered and started his walk across the boulder-strewn cave.

Flaxen stared with some exasperation after the captain. She glanced at Scarlet who was looking in confusion at them both. “Ignore him, Lieutenant. He’s just being his usual grumpy self. Can you walk? Take my arm if you need to…”

Scarlet declined her offer of assistance with some haughtiness and he set off after Ochre, determined to make the journey under his own steam.

As he staggered across to the distant exit, he could see entrances to many more tunnels all around this enormous cavern. There were holes leading into further caves beneath this one and above him the roof was laced with dozens of apertures of various sizes, many opening to a bright, sunlit sky beyond. The light filtered down through them, highlighting the rocks and crevices and throwing grotesque and somehow threatening shadows on the floor and distant walls. Even as they walked, they could feel the ground trembling, and the echoes made by distant rock falls combined with an almost subliminal rumbling to make the heavy, sulphur-drenched atmosphere disturbingly menacing. The air was bitter with the smell of volcanic gases mixed with rotting seaweed… there must have been occasions when even this cavern was under water.

Captain Scarlet shivered despite the excessive heat. The whole place is as unstable as a house of cards, he thought. It won’t take much to make the whole network of caves and tunnels collapse in on itself.

His mind, tired and bemused as it was by his tough recovery, was struggling to make sense of recent events. Either someone had orchestrated a pretty pointless practical joke - and the nature of this joke wasn’t typical of Ochre - or something very strange was happening. He wondered why Ochre was leading the rescue party, where Blue and Grey had gone and why Flaxen was there. If anyone had been with Ochre it ought, by rights, to be Captain Magenta – because those two were as much a team as he and Blue.

As they climbed slowly upwards towards the main exit, he registered the increasingly powerful pulse of the vibrations he had first noticed when he’d been alone with Garnet. The nature of the pulse and the fact that it was rhythmical led him to believe his first deduction had been correct and that this was the signature of a third volcanic pacifier. His alarm increased as neither Ochre nor Flaxen seemed unduly worried by the fact that the machine was working. Given what they had learned about the Mysterons’ threat and Gaspari’s plans, he felt sure an attempt should be made to deactivate it as soon as possible.

“Is someone going to stop that machine?” he asked. It is possible that’s where Blue and Grey are, he thought, rather irritated at being kept in ignorance of events.

Ochre gave a disparaging snort and turned to him, his dark eyes bright with anger, “I thought better of you, Scarlet, I thought you at least had held out against the Agency and their scheming. If I had had my way, when we found out what you were trying to do, I would have left you here to rot!” Flaxen tried to calm him but to no avail. “How dare you involve Claudia in the Agency’s foul schemes? She quit Cloudbase to avoid that filth and you drag her back into the mire!” he railed.

Flaxen laid a restraining hand on Ochre’s arm. “You have no proof he’s with the Agency, you know you don’t! The colonel told us Scarlet was convinced that the machine had to be switched off – he wouldn’t even explain it to White. Now, if he was out to do the Agency’s dirty work, would he have told the colonel where he was going? And, in all honesty, would he have involved Claudia? Well, would he? You’re letting your personal emotions cloud your judgement, Richard…. It’s really not like you.”

Ochre turned away, shaking her hand off. With a sigh she spoke to the mystified Scarlet in a far more conciliatory tone, “Lieutenant, the machine is preventing the biggest eruption forecast in a decade. There is no way any one of the Spectrum personnel down here would let you get within spitting distance of that machine, given your stated aim is to destroy it! We are here to protect lives by protecting that machine. I’d advise you not to pursue it any further and then maybe you’ll have a job at the end of all this.”

“Huh, catch Whitey throwing out another Brit!” Ochre glared across at him. “Personally I would like to see you booted out of the whole organisation, but I suppose the old school tie will come into play again and you’ll get off with another reprimand. You Brits infest the place like ‘roaches.”

“Shut it, Ochre! Or have you forgotten that I’m a Brit too?” Flaxen spoke with considerable vehemence. “You make me sick! All of you Yanks think you are so damned superior and without any good reason too! Just remember what nationality Magenta and Blue are before you cast stones at the English! Sometimes, of all the Americans on the base you are the worst, Richard Fraser!”

“Did I ever tell you how pretty you look when you’re mad at me?” Ochre laughed. “Sorry Audrey, I don’t think of you with the rest of them.”

He strolled on ahead and Scarlet, standing close to Flaxen, heard the sadness in her voice as she murmured, “No, you don’t think of me at all, more’s the pity…”

~oo0oo~

Nothing had become any clearer by the time the SPJ arrived at Cloudbase. Scarlet spent the flight back trying to make sense of the last few hours. Ochre’s belligerence towards him continued and Flaxen was too preoccupied with the plane to curb his antagonism. Garnet was sleeping on the emergency medical bed, an intravenous drip attached to her arm. It was noticeable how frequently Ochre came back to check on her; although how he could possibly know her remained a mystery. Scarlet tried his best to ignore him, consoling himself with the thought that when the colonel debriefed him, he could use the opportunity to complain about his colleague’s erratic behaviour. He rather hoped Doctor Fawn would insist on his remaining in the peace of sickbay for the night, so that apart from his usual visits from Blue and Rhapsody, he needn’t see anyone until he felt better.

The SPJ landed on the hangar nearest to sick bay. Usually, if he was conscious and able, he insisted on walking to his medical check-up, but this time he climbed onto the gurney Fawn had sent with a feeling of relief. He lay back and charted their progress along the corridor by the numbers of ceiling lights that passed overhead. Once in sick bay, Fawn chose to deal with Garnet first, and Scarlet lay quietly, his mind still puzzling on the strangeness of his homecoming. Staring distractedly at the wall of the men’s ward, it gradually dawned on him that the wall calendar was from last year and no one had bothered to update it. He’d have to remember to tease the ultra-efficient Fawn about it later.

That set his mind off on a trail of memories and he recollected an instance - a couple of years ago now – following Black’s return from Mars, when the Mysterons had made an attempt to trick a senior officer into betraying Spectrum. They had tried to make Captain Blue believe that he was being interrogated by Spectrum Intelligence after an unauthorised absence from duty. Blue had grown increasingly suspicious and finally, desperate to avoid the threat of being subjected to a truth serum, he had trusted his hunch that this place was not what it seemed, and thrown himself through the glass of the ‘Control Room’s’ observation tubes. He had only fallen a few tens of feet, landing on a huge screen, where a sky-scape of clouds was being projected to create the illusion of height. Dazed and shaken by his fall, Blue had staggered from the warehouse he was being held in, to discover Scarlet had just arrived in a SPV. His partner had tracked him down, after his disappearance from the waterside restaurant where they’d shared a relaxing off-duty meal. Blue’s coffee had been drugged with a powerful sedative, presumably by a Mysteronised waiter, and the unconscious officer had been spirited away when Scarlet went to collect their coats.

He had been fortunate in picking up the trail quickly and having collected an SPV he’d driven to the semi-derelict warehouse, determined to rescue his friend. Once Blue was safely clear, he had destroyed the fake Cloudbase.

Afterwards, back on the real Cloudbase, he had gone along to sick bay, delighted to be the one doing the visiting, for once. Blue had been tucked up in bed, his dislocated shoulder bandaged against his chest and the wooziness created by the abductors’ sedative quite worn off. Unusually for Adam, he had questioned the decision to destroy the warehouse, arguing that they might have interrogated the men to some advantage. When Scarlet had finally pointed out that once a plan failed, Mysteron agents tended to - quite literally - drop dead as their masters removed their control from the replicas, the invalid had sunk into a moody silence.

The incident had unsettled Blue profoundly and Scarlet could remember the earnest way his partner, in his de-briefing, had explained just how he had become increasingly distrustful of the unfriendly man pestering him to reveal the cipher codes.

It was rare for the Mysterons to repeat a scenario from their ‘war of nerves’, but what if this situation was another such elaborate attempt, this time to get him to reveal classified information - or much worse - to betray him into the Mysterons’ control once more? He vowed to stay alert and on guard until he understood why things seemed so… different.

~oo0oo~

When Fawn arrived to do his medical he was surprisingly off-hand and what was more, he too maintained the pretence of calling him Lieutenant. Scarlet was more irritated than ever and - especially as Fawn usually refused to take part in Ochre’s tricks - he resented that the doctor saw fit to join in now, when his most frequent patient was really not feeling as well as he expected to. After his examination Fawn signed him off-duty for forty-eight hours, telling him to go to his quarters and rest. Scarlet was surprised - it wasn’t like Fawn to pass the opportunity to run tests on his retrometabolism. Too tired, and too offended, to argue, he dressed and left the sick-bay without saying good-bye.

Walking along the corridors he began to wonder if it would not be wise to check where exactly his quarters were supposed to be… as this ‘joke’ seemed to be wide-spread maybe he was being set up for some ‘surprise’ or other. Besides, all this uncertainty was starting to unsettle him.

He wandered into the library and called up the assigned quarters file on the computer – relieved to see his passwords still worked. If he was supposed to be a lieutenant he wouldn’t be entitled to a room on Captain’s Row - as it was called informally – and he couldn’t believe Ochre would have dared to tamper with the base records just for a joke. He punched in his name and code number and was amazed to see that his room was listed as being on the lower deck rather than in the control towers where he expected it to be. With increasing alarm he checked the allocation of rooms on Captain’s Row and found Blue was in his usual room, with Ochre next to him on one side and Grey on the other. Across the corridor where he expected his room to be, sandwiched between Magenta and Fawn, was Captain Flaxen. Good job I didn’t go home then, he thought ruefully. With no heart for this confusion any more, he wandered miserably to his allotted quarters – half expecting Ochre and his co-conspirators to leap out at him when he opened the door.

His password released the lock and cautiously he walked inside. The furniture in the narrow, windowless room was familiar enough. He spent some time wandering around looking for the things he expected to have in his room – and everything was there – although the book on his bedside table was one he remembered reading some time ago. With an air of resolution he turned to his diary - not his duty diary, of which he could find no sign - but the personal one he had started keeping after his encounter with the Mysterons. His mother had given him the diary when he started Spectrum and it was really just a heavy leather-bound book. He had not bothered to write in it until after the events at the Car-Vu, when he found it helped him come to terms with the strange circumstances of his new life. Somehow it formed a kind of compensation for the missing six hours when he could not recall what he had been doing.

The diary was where he kept it and a quick glance at the pages showed he had been writing in it. If this is anything except an elaborate hoax by everyone in Spectrum this will explain it, he thought.

He settled down to read it and after the first few pages he looked up in surprise and disbelief. He didn’t remember writing this and the date given was the same year as the calendar in sick bay. Some incidents were the same as he remembered, but not everything by a long chalk. He switched on the Spectrum computer on his small desk and checked the date on that…. It was last year!

Unnerved, he stooped automatically to the bottom shelf of his bookcase and moved one volume to reveal his malt whisky. He poured himself a small glass and settled down once more with his diary. Several hours later, the whisky was untouched as Scarlet finished the diary entries - which stopped about a week ago. He couldn’t believe what he’d read, but he knew it was his writing and that – however determined he was to play one of his pranks – Ochre would never have stooped to actually violating another person’s privacy.

Once his mind had recovered from its surprise, Scarlet allowed himself to start thinking the unthinkable. Over the years he had seen countless Science Fiction films and TV programmes about alternative realities and pan-dimensional universes, and he was not unaware of the theories the concept had spawned. In fact, it hadn’t been so very long ago that he, Blue and Doctor Fawn had been talking about just such a possibility.

Blue had walked in to the Officer’s Lounge, carrying a magazine and with his habitual courtesy he had returned to the doctor.

“What did you make of it” Fawn had asked. He was paying one of his rare visits – Scarlet suspected it was a way to check up on his recovery after a nasty incident with a chemical spillage.

“He makes it sound… plausible,” Blue had replied. Then, for his partner’s benefit, he had explained that the article in question was by an eccentric physicist exploring the possibilities of parallel universes. “Doc leant me the magazine to read, whilst I was waiting for you to….wake up, yesterday. I hadn’t finished it by the time you surfaced, but I managed to read the rest while I was duty officer last night. It’s quite thought provoking - not only does Professor Coombs believe these alternatives exist, he believes they can be accessed and – possibly – exploited to our advantage.”

“And you think that is plausible?” he had scoffed.

“I have an open mind about it,” Blue had confessed. “It is fascinating to think that there might be countless alternative Worlds out there. Hundreds of Paul Metcalfes, dozens of Cloudbases and regrettably, even a couple of Richard Frasers!”

He remembered how Adam’s laugh had been rather forced – he had been the butt of Captain Ochre’s pranks rather a lot lately. He rather regretted bursting Blue’s enthusiastic bubble, but he had had to say it:

“And hundreds of Captain Blacks?”

The lively, good-natured and largely pointless discussion that had ensued had lasted until suppertime. At the end of it all, Scarlet remained sceptical – especially about the possibility of gaining access to these unlikely Worlds - but here he was in the classic situation of being a stranger in his own life.

Scarlet caught sight of his reflection in the plain wall mirror. “What was it Sherlock Holmes said?” he asked his frowning reflection. “‘When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?’ Well, okay then, Sherlock, let’s put it to the test."

He placed the book on the table and walked to the tiny shower-room. He found a razor blade, steeled himself and made a cut cross the middle finger of his left hand. The stinging pain made him wince and he watched the blood welling up from the deep incision. Seconds later, the bright red blood splattered onto the brilliant-white ceramic sink, and he sucked at his finger before he ran it under the cold water tap for a moment. Then he waited. As he expected it to, the blood stopped flowing almost immediately and the scar tissues formed across the cut. Minutes later the cut was virtually healed. He sat on the bed and stared at his hands.

His entries into the diary had spoken of how the Mysterons had murdered Captain Ochre – Spectrum’s security expert - and his partner, Captain Brown, and how Ochre had subsequently kidnapped the World President. Captain Blue had trailed the fugitive, and his prisoner, to the London Car-Vu where, after a vicious gun battle, Ochre had fallen to the ground. The body had been brought back to Cloudbase – he had flown the plane with Blue and the World President in the passengers’ seats. Ochre had recovered from the fall – Ochre had been restored to Spectrum – Ochre was the one with the ‘gift’ of retrometabolism!

He found it hard to assimilate the information - and impossible to reconcile with the fact that his finger now looked as if it had never been cut. He knew he still retained his retrometabolic skills but he had to come to terms with the fact that - here and now – it seemed as if Ochre shared that accursed gift. Although, he had no proof that this was true, beyond the diary entries. Ever since the start of his retrometabolism he had experienced a feeling of nausea and shakiness in the presence of other Mysteronised objects – like a sixth sense warning him of their presence. It was not always accurate, but given his proximity to the man and the time he had spent in Ochre’s company, he’d have expected some twinge. But he had felt nothing. Perhaps that sense would not function if he was in another dimension?

At least the diary explained why Doctor Fawn had shown no expectation that he would see signs of retrometabolism. Scarlet pulled off the plasters and bandages - which prudence had made him retain - from the cuts and bruises Fawn had dressed. The skin beneath them was unblemished.

He knew who he was and he knew who Garnet had said she was – and he believed her. He had certainly not experienced the dizziness of his ‘sixth sense’, whilst they had been in the cave together. Of the people he had met since his rescue, Ochre, Flaxen, Fawn and everyone else he had met looked and behaved much as he expected them to - or almost. There were subtle differences if you thought about it - Ochre was moodier than expected, stroppy almost and apparently romantically involved with a Lieutenant he shouldn’t even know. Flaxen was a calm, efficient officer, who had flown the SPJ without a qualm. Garnet had been in charge at Naples - that was the same - and he had recruited her help.

There were copious references to her early in the diary, when she must’ve been on Cloudbase. He recalled Ochre’s comment about her leaving to avoid the Agency’s schemes - that rang true at least, even if he didn’t know which schemes she was keen to avoid. He shifted uneasily as he remembered how the diary had spoken of Lieutenant Garnet in glowing terms and, eventually, with much affection. It seemed that his ‘other self’ was very much in love with the young American, so much so that they had become engaged before she left for Naples. It might even explain the impulse he had had to comfort her in such a physical way in the cave, and the pleasure he had taken in kissing her. He thought guiltily of Rhapsody Angel; there was no mention of her in this diary, apart from a few casual remarks about ‘The Angels’ in general and one complaint that she was a snob.

As for himself - Spectrum’s Premier Agent, as the media insisted on referring to him – he was an ordinary Lieutenant. Scarlet frowned, from his reading of the diary; his other self sounded a somewhat self-important man, full of his own concerns and with an arrogant assumption that he knew better than his colleagues. He knew that some people thought of him as pushy, people who didn’t know of his ‘unique’ circumstances, and couldn’t understand why he got assigned to so many missions. He wasn’t unaware of the - not uncommon - belief that he was deliberately hogging the limelight and that Blue was being overlooked because of it. It wasn’t the case, he knew that and so did Blue. He couldn’t find a logical explanation for the situation he was in – or any explanation at all - other than this ‘parallel world’ theory.

What was even more frustrating was that, in situations like these, he invariably turned to Captain Blue and together they’d brainstorm a solution to fit the known facts. Here, he was not sure what to do because it was likely Blue would be as different as everyone else. There were no references at all to Adam and fewer than he’d expected to Captain Blue, even though they seemed to have had some contact during and immediately after the World President’s abduction. From this evidence it would appear that he and Adam were not the good friends they ought to be.

He lay on the narrow bed and stared moodily at the ceiling, his mind reviewing the known facts. Basically, as far as everyone here was concerned, he was not the person he knew he ought to be and no one, except him, was surprised. After a time he sat up, this was getting him nowhere. He glanced at his reflection. The face that looked back was the face he knew, black-haired, blue-eyed, square-jawed, cleft chin - in need of a shave again – but it was looking tired and dispirited.

He stripped and stood for an age under a hot shower, and then he shaved, and brushed his teeth. He felt better physically, looked much better but still felt as confused as ever.

Damn it, he thought, purposely dressing himself in the smartest uniform in the wardrobe. I don’t care if it isn’t the Adam I know it ought to be… I have to talk this through with someone… and it isn’t going to be Ochre!

As he walked along the corridors, he nodded at familiar faces and was largely ignored for his trouble. At the end of ‘Captain’s Row’ he hesitated and sent up a quick plea to the Fates that Blue would be the same. Then he rang the bell and waited.

He could hear movement in the room and shifted from foot to foot as the delay dragged on. He was about to knock when he heard the internal lock being activated and the door started to slide open. His jaw dropped as he saw a tall, blonde woman smiling quizzically at him.

“Captain Blue?” he croaked as his heart sank.

She turned with a languid grace and called, “Adam, honey, it’s for you.”

Scarlet breathed again. He glanced into the room to see the familiar broad-shouldered figure of Captain Blue emerging from the bathroom, buttoning a shirt.

The blond man glanced at the open door with a slight frown, which deepened noticeably as he saw who was waiting to speak to him. His head went back and he drew himself up, with an almost defensive air.

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant Scarlet?” he asked sharply.

“Please, sir, I need to speak to you - privately. If that is convenient,” he added, made acutely aware that he was the subordinate here by Blue’s reaction.

The American shrugged. “Sure, come on in. I’ll see you tomorrow, Heidi.”

The woman, who Scarlet now noticed, was wearing a white medical uniform but extremely impractical shoes, nodded briskly, “And make sure to do those exercises I’ve shown you - or the shoulder muscles will seize up again.” She massaged his right shoulder. “You are a naughty man, Captain, I expect my patients to do as I tell them and to behave themselves. Even I can only do so much for you without your co-operation and I can’t tell Doctor Fawn you are fit for duty unless you exercise.”

Blue grimaced as he tucked the shirt into the top of his denims. “Yeah, well, I can’t promise - but I’ll try to make the time. I have a date tonight.”

“You should not have time for dates if you can’t do my exercises! You are the very limit, Adam!” She stood on tiptoe and kissed the tall man’s cheek. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Oh, it’s just Rhapsody Angel.”

Scarlet froze - Rhapsody! Oh no, please not that!

“That’s the second time this week, isn’t it?” Heidi said with a wink.

“Yeah, she’s on a crusade to get me to take her to Glyndebourne - they’re doing ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ and she wants me to meet her folks there.” Blue gave a heartfelt sigh and assumed an expression of patient suffering.

Heidi laughed, “What it is to be the answer to a maiden’s prayers, eh, Adam?”

Blue sighed again and lowered his blue eyes modestly.

Scarlet watched this by-play in astonishment. Adam never flirted like this and he knew how deeply Rhapsody loathed doing what she called ‘the whole opera-as-a-social-event-scene’.

Well, HIS Rhapsody did… he thought ruefully.

“Well, enjoy yourself and if you can’t be good - be damned careful!”

“Heidi, you know I am always good,” Blue leered as he ushered her out. He turned his back to the closed door and gave an exasperated sigh. “Thank goodness, I thought she would never go. I owe you one for your timely intervention, Scarlet.” He glanced at his visitor and moved away to his desk, to stand looking at him with some wariness.

“Your shoulder is giving you trouble?” Scarlet asked with an assumed air of casualness. Blue did not move like a man in pain, nor was he favouring his ‘injured’ shoulder.

“Yeah, some. I think she enjoys pummelling me too much to let the shoulder actually heal up.”

“Is she new?”

“Heidi? Goodness no, she’s been here for ages - I thought she must’ve got her talons into everyone by now. I guess you’ve been lucky, Lieutenant, if you’ve avoided ‘Heidi, the Hanoverian Crusher’ until now. The Waffen SS would have turned her down for being too brutal.” Blue seemed amused.

“It must be doing you good if it’s hurting that much,” Scarlet suggested cagily.

“That’s what Heidi says…” He waited a moment and then said briskly, “What can I do for you, Lieutenant? I really do have that dinner date.”

“I would like you to listen to what I have to say - without interrupting me – and see what you make of it.”

“Scarlet, if this is about the volcanic pacifier…” Blue snapped.

“No, it isn’t - well not directly,” Scarlet interrupted. “Please Adam; I need your advice…” He cursed himself for using the man’s Christian name, but Blue seemed unperturbed. He gave a brisk nod and sat himself down in a comfortably upholstered armchair but his body language revealed a tension not apparent in his words.

“You have my undivided attention, Metcalfe, at least until I have to change for dinner.”

“Thank you… well it’s like this….”

Chapter Three

By the time Scarlet had finished speaking Blue was leaning forward in his chair with an expression of disbelief on his handsome face. “Have you seen Fawn since you got back from Etna?” he asked making no attempt to hide his scepticism.

“Yes I have, so don’t go making out you think I’m going crazy - although much more of this and I think I will be! “ Scarlet bristled. Then to his surprise, Blue fired off a series of detailed questions which proved that not only had he been listening, but he had cut to the very nub of the problem. Scarlet did his best to answer honestly, knowing better than to bluff Captain Blue. It was reassuring to find that this man’s mind was as sharp as that of the man he knew as Adam Svenson.

Finally the American leant back and dragged a hand through his hair with a gesture so familiar to Scarlet that he had to smile.

“You have to admit it’s hard to believe,” he said. “A parallel existence - another you and another me and,” he spread his hands, “all of this…” Blue sprang up from his chair and began to pace around his quarters.

Feeling drained, Scarlet sat back in the other armchair and let tiredness wash over him. I shouldn’t be feeling like this so long after the accident, he thought. I might have to speak to Doctor Fawn, however risky that seems. But, now he had explained his predicament and his fears and shared the problem, he felt a little better and the fact that it was Adam who had listened was, somehow, comforting - even though he knew this could not be the right Adam.

He was not unduly worried by his companion’s silence. He was used to his friend’s propensity to withdraw into himself when he was wrestling with a knotty problem, and, as he waited for the response, he amused himself by glancing around the room - playing a version of spot the difference…

Real Adam’s room was decorated in a style that Scarlet classified as ‘unpretentious luxury’. Whilst he had retained Cloudbase’s standard issue furniture he had, by the addition of a few select objects, managed to turn his quarters into a personal sanctuary from the sometimes harsh realities of life within Spectrum. But whereas the real room only had few touches of expensive chic, this room was opulent. There were heavy Persian rugs on the floor and a variety of pictures around the walls. Yet there were still enough similarities for Scarlet to feel at home - for instance - the sound system was the same, an expensive example of the engineers’ art with maximum technology tastefully housed in minimalist design. There were scores of books on the crowded bookcase and a sophisticated personal computer on the desk, as well as the Spectrum issue machine. One object conspicuous by its absence in either room was a TV. If Adam watched any broadcasts he did it in the Officers’ Lounge with everyone else. This fact annoyed Symphony immensely, as she openly admitted that she enjoyed watching TV in bed at the end of her shift. Scarlet smiled to himself, he remembered the look of mortified forbearance on Adam’s face as she had continued to complain that she frequently missed her favourite programmes, just because he refused to install a set.

Cheered by this memory of his friends, Scarlet turned his attention to his companion. He was much as expected, although - Scarlet frowned at the pacing man and concentrated - this Adam was ‘sharper’ somehow. As he stared, concentrating only on identifying the differences, he realised, with a slight sense of shock, that the hair style was different. It was the same shade of blond, which Adam always referred to, disparagingly, as straw-coloured, but it was slicked back from his high forehead and emphatic eyebrows. Scarlet hid a grin. Unless he was very much mistaken, this man’s eyebrows had been … shaped.

Captain Blue was wearing a plain white shirt; open at the neck and with the discreet logo of a top designer on the breast pocket. The sleeves were rolled back to his mid fore-arm and his left arm was encircled by a gold wristwatch, rather than the usual Spectrum issue one. As he turned once more, the light caught three plain gold rings on his long fingers. Scarlet was in little doubt that his fingernails would be well-manicured, in that, at least, the tastes of the two coincided. His denim jeans were the latest ‘must-have’ brand and were fastened by a crocodile leather belt - that was, almost certainly, real crocodile. His trainers were the latest word in casual footwear that probably cost more than it was decent to contemplate.

Even accepting he is off-duty, that is pretty dressy, Scarlet mused. He came to the conclusion that, whereas Real Adam took care never to flaunt his wealth, this Adam didn’t even attempt to hide the fact. He wondered if there were any other changes in his friend and examined the man’s face once more as he walked past.

This time Blue noticed his stare and asked, “Is something wrong?”

“No, of course not. I just realised - the scar - it’s not there.”

“What scar?”

“Real Adam, I mean the one I know… I knew…?” Blue waved the confusion away. “He has a scar along his forehead and he wears his hair forward to cover it. You don’t have the scar… did you have plastic surgery on it?”

“I have never had a scar!” Blue replied scathingly, adding, with a note of suspicion in his voice, “Did he say how he got it?”

“Hmmm, he fell down a disused well.”

“He fell down a well?” Blue stopped pacing and stared long and hard at Scarlet before saying with obvious anger, “That is not funny, Metcalfe - you are going too far! “

“He told me himself when I asked him how he came by it. He never went into details, but then he doesn’t discuss personal matters with any willingness.” Scarlet defended himself with some asperity. Why should Blue get so shirty over that long past incident?

“Then you have it wrong - this ‘real Adam’ has tripped up! It was my brother – Peter – who fell into a disused well, not me! He went missing while we were on holiday in the countryside and that is where they eventually found his body - at the bottom of a well. I was nine years old and he was five.” Blue’s eyes narrowed.

“See – it’s happening again!” Scarlet cried. “Things are all skewed! You say it was your brother and not you- but I know it was you! You survived the ordeal and Peter’s now grown up and married with a daughter and another baby expected any day now…”

“Peter survived?” Adam sat on the armchair as if his legs wouldn’t support him any longer. “He was just a little kid.” The light-blue eyes dropped to his hands and he whispered almost to himself, “I still kinda miss not having him around.”

“Adam doesn’t get on with him at all…” Scarlet confided with a rueful smile. “They argue like cat and dog.”

“No, not Pete and me… we never argued.”

“He gets on much better with his sister.”

“I don’t have a sister.”

“Kate,” Scarlet insisted.

The colour had drained from Blue’s face. “Oh my,” he breathed. “Around the time Peter died, my mother lost a baby - a little girl. They called her Kate. It was as if everything went wrong after Pete died.”

“And David?”

“Who?”

“Your kid brother - Davy…”

“Metcalfe, if you’re yanking my chain, you will pay dearly for it!”

Seeing the anger in Blue’s eyes, Scarlet didn’t doubt he meant his threat and he hastened to defend himself. “No, this is the you I know.”

Blue stood and began pacing again, glancing at his visitor every so often. Suddenly he asked, “You claim to have met these people? You know them? “

Scarlet hesitated; he did not want to lie to this man. “Adam has spoken of them and I have met his mother several times and his sister and youngest brother once, in Boston. I haven’t met Peter or his father, but all of the family that I have met have spoken of him. I swear to you - on all I hold dear, I am not lying to you, Captain.”

“You have met my mother? Do you expect me to believe that? My mother died when I was twelve years old – as is well known!” Blue spoke with a suppressed rage and turned away from the surprise and pity in the Englishman’s perceptive blue eyes.

“I did not know, I swear it. She is very much alive – where I come from - and it is not long ago that she visited my parents, at their home.” Scarlet felt a surge of sympathy for the stricken man standing before him, for he knew how close Adam was to his mother - and besides - he liked Sarah Svenson.

“And you? What about your family - are they the same ‘here’? What about your sister and her kids?” Blue had no intention of speaking further on the subject of his family; in fact he regretted showing even so much weakness.

“I don’t have a sister…” Scarlet was conscious of echoing Blue’s declaration of a few minutes ago. He frowned.

“So who did I meet at the commissioning ceremony? She said she was your sister.”

“Well, I can’t tell you her name - as far as I know, I have never had and do not have a sister. I am an only child. It is something I have always envied Adam for – his brothers and sister.” In his mind’s eye he saw the photograph from the other Scarlet’s wallet. Perhaps the unknown woman in that had been his sister?

Blue drew a deep breath and continued his pacing for several minutes. Scarlet sank back into the supportive cushions of the armchair and tried not to show his anxiety that Blue might yet reject his story.

Finally the captain stopped his pacing and said, “All right - I’ll believe you - I must be mental, but I’ll believe you! Somehow it would seem you have been ‘transported’ here from another dimension - a parallel universe - call it what you like. It must have something to do with the caves at Etna - that’s where you first started to notice things were different. What do you propose to do?”

“I hoped you might have an idea about that. But ultimately I want to get myself and Garnet back to the reality we belong in.”

“It is likely that the two of you will die, if you manage to get back there. You have no guarantee that you will be rescued. Given the time since you ‘slipped through’, your friends may have stopped looking.”

Scarlet shook his head. “Adam wouldn’t stop until he found a body.” With a sudden attack of goosebumps he remembered the bodies Garnet had discovered. Would Adam see them and, if so, would he realise they were not him and Garnet? He knew that in his world Blue would be looking for a man in a wet suit, but would it be enough to alert him that all was not as it should be? He had to hope so. He continued aloud, as much to reassure himself as to answer Blue. “He doesn’t give up easily. But I suspect you know that! Besides, neither Garnet or I belong here - in fact I think we may both already be ‘dead’ in this reality.”

Scarlet told the rest of the story about the bodies.

“Murder?” Blue seemed genuinely shocked at the information.

Scarlet shrugged. “There were two dead bodies in that cave before I arrived. All I can tell you is, as we left the cave the bodies vanished. I don’t know why that happened and I don’t pretend to understand what is happening to me now. I know I would like a chance to investigate it further and try to get back to where I belong. All things being equal, I would like the man I do this investigating with to be you – as it would have been. I accept that you may feel I have no right to ask for your help, and no right to call on a friendship which you may not wish to acknowledge. In which case, I would ask only that you respect my confidences and refrain from telling my story to anyone else on the base - for now.”

Blue gave the slightest of smiles. “God, I just don’t understand you Brits – you have such stiff upper lips I wonder you manage to eat at times! “ He looked steadily at the younger man and said, “And yet, you came here, to me, using the emotional rationale that the man you would have turned to - wherever you come from - was me.” The thought seemed to amuse him and he smiled, turning away from the Englishman’s scrutiny. He gave a rueful laugh and continued, with increasing bitterness in his voice.

. “I know people say I am just playing at this job - that I have no real commitment to Spectrum or the fight we are in - but they really know nothing of the choices made by a private individual. I have always been honest about my choice, Scarlet, I do not have to work - I chose to become a test pilot and Spectrum chose to ask me to join them. I do my job the only way I know how – and I am not prepared to be bound by the petty-fogging regulations of a military bureaucracy. If Spectrum really objects, it can dismiss me… who knows - I might even go!” There was a snort of laugher and the expressive eyes flashed towards his frowning guest, as if inviting him to share in the amusement.

Scarlet made no comment and as swiftly as it had appeared the amusement died in Blue’s face. He continued, “If you have found some way through to alternative dimensions - fluke or not - this needs to be investigated.” He could see the relief on Scarlet’s face and his smile returned. “Is there anything else you ought to tell me…Paul?”

Scarlet would have gladly told him everything then, such was his relief at finding an ally in the strange world he found himself inhabiting. Yet something - a small something - warned him that this man was still unknown and - however comforting the illusion of his being Adam Svenson was - he was not the man Paul Metcalfe knew and trusted, for he had been shaped by a different past. His words had the sound of an apologia and did not strike Scarlet as reflecting Real Adam’s thoughts and beliefs.

He drew a deep breath and, making a snap decision, shook his head.

Captain Blue demurred, sensing, perhaps, that the other man was withholding information. Then he gave a slight smile and nodded his head in acceptance. “Have you spoken of this to anyone else, Scarlet?”

“No, although, of course, Lieutenant Garnet knows as much as I do about the situation but I’m sure she is not in any state to be holding forth to anyone on how we got here.”

“Garnet? She’s in sickbay I understand? Hardly in much of a position to help you with your quest to find the way home…” Blue didn’t hide his amusement this time. “Why, do you think, do I have an overwhelming urge to say, ‘I don’t think we’re in Kansas, Toto’?”

Scarlet’s grin was quite as broad. “I know what you mean and now I am back in full uniform I even have the ‘ruby slippers’.” He clicked his heels together and both men laughed in a moment of perfect camaraderie.

The rapprochement was interrupted by a ring of the door bell. Blue glanced at his watch and cursed, “Look at the time … damn it!” He hastened to open the door.

“Hi Sky,” Scarlet recognised Symphony’s voice. “I hope I’m not interrupting?” She walked in anyway, swinging a hairdryer in one hand. She looked searchingly at Scarlet and then acknowledged him with a curt nod. “Would you take a look at my hairdryer? I can’t get it to work and I want to wash my hair before I go on back on duty.” She held it out towards the affronted Blue.

He goggled at her, astounded by her request. “What? You want me to… whatever for?”

“If I take it to maintenance they’ll take weeks to do it. And you are so good with your hands,” she added waspishly.

“Well, yes, I guess I could fix it,” he agreed, choosing to ignore her barbed comment. “But I can’t do it now! I’m supposed to be taking Rhapsody to dinner and I’m late as it is.” He glanced at his other guest and suggested, “Maybe Scarlet could do it for you? Excuse me…” He grabbed a clothes hanger of clothes from the wardrobe and stalked into the bathroom closing the door firmly behind him.

With a shrug, Symphony handed Scarlet the machine. “Can you fix it?”

“I can try.” He sat at the desk and asked, “Screwdrivers?” She shrugged.

She’s doesn’t seem to know her way around this apartment as well as the Karen at home does, he thought, and after a moment’s hesitation, dived into the bottom drawer. Sure enough, there was the set of expensive screwdrivers and the neat array of useful bits and pieces, just as he had expected there would be. It seemed as if this Adam was a much of an inveterate ‘dismantler’ of machines as his counterpart back home It explains why Symphony has come, given that Blue seems to be ‘involved’ with Rhapsody… He grimaced again at the very thought and began to examine the hairdryer whilst Symphony perched on the arm of a chair.

He glanced across at her. If Adam had appeared sharper, Symphony seemed… almost blowsy. She still had the long hair she’d had when she joined Spectrum, and which she had subsequently cut shorter. It was back-combed into a style that he did not think suited her pretty face. She wore a vacant expression and was mechanically chewing gum. The Angel uniform, which had always fitted her like a second skin, now seemed too tight and therefore less attractive, somehow. She bit at a finger nail and hummed to herself. This woman was not much like the Karen he knew, who always took such care over her appearance. Scarlet ducked his head back to the dryer as she sensed his scrutiny and turned towards him. He started to dismantle the plug.

When the doorbell rang Symphony ambled across to open it.

“What are you doing here?” a familiar voice hissed brusquely. Scarlet’s heart thumped uncomfortably as he tried to see past Symphony to the newcomer in the doorway.

“Getting my hairdryer fixed,” Symphony replied slowly, unperturbed by the obvious annoyance in Rhapsody’s voice.

“Well, I am here to collect Adam, so your hairdryer will have to wait! He’s taking me to dinner and he’s late. I do not appreciate having to wait about for my escorts,” she said fretfully as she swept into the room past her vaguely smiling colleague.

Rhapsody’s hair was piled high, the shining copper-coloured hanks interwoven with green ribbon and a diamond-studded comb. She wore a long, shimmering, pale turquoise-green evening dress, with a low neckline and narrow straps, which clung to her slender figure and swirled around her feet in an ocean of movement. It did things to Scarlet’s tormented libido that he didn’t even like to think about.

If I ever get back to the real World I am going to buy my Dianne a dress just like that one… he promised himself.

Ignoring her complaint, Symphony moved across and adjusted the ribbon in her colleague’s hair, twisting a frond around her finger to make it curl, “That’s better, hon,” she said.

Rhapsody brushed her hand away and noticed Scarlet for the first time. He became aware that he was staring, open-mouthed, at her and gave a wry grin. She ignored him and began to complain again. “I swear this place gets more like Clapham Junction Station everyday. Why Adam allows it baffles me.”

Muffled by the closed bathroom door, Scarlet could hear the sound of someone singing in a light tenor. His eyes widened and he tilted his head to hear better - was that Adam?

“He sure sounds in a good mood, anyhow,” Symphony commented blandly, returning to her perch on the armchair.

“The way your smile just beams…

The way you sing off key,

The way you haunt my dreams…

No, no, they can’t take that away from me…” The door opened and Captain Blue came out, changed into a smart evening suit and still singing as he fastened a cuff link. He saw Rhapsody and stopped mid-chorus. “Hi.” His voice took on a suave tone Scarlet had only rarely heard him use and then only sarcastically.

“Hi,” she replied, simpering up at him. “You are so late I came to fetch you - and I find all these people here just ruining our plans.” She slipped her arm through his and steered him towards the door. “Now, where shall we go tonight?”

Symphony watched them depart with a rueful smile. Scarlet, putting the last screw back into the plug, watched her closely. She seemed resigned to their departure. He reached across and plugged the machine in - it whirred into life. “Here you go, Symphony Angel. There was a wire loose in the plug…”

“I know, I loosened it myself, I thought it would give me enough excuse to drop by, but thanks anyway, Paul. They sure make a fine couple, don’t they?” She was still gazing at the open door full of abstraction as she stared after the departed couple.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said waspishly, “They can’t have much in common.”

She turned to him, her hazel eyes sparkling with laughter. “Oh sure they do… money! He’s got it and she wants it. It’s the greatest common denominator in the book!”

“What do you mean?” he glared at her with sudden dislike.

“Only that Dianne is desperate to save her family estate from bankruptcy and Adam - well, he has so much money he doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s willing to make it worth his while to spend some of it on the things she wants,” Symphony winked suggestively.

“There’s a name for women like that,” Scarlet said, profoundly shocked.

“Yeah, and the word you’re looking for is desperate – just as I said.” She saw his disapproval and added with a startling vehemence, “You have no right to judge her so harshly, Lieutenant, you don’t understand half of what goes on around here, so take that look off your face! That’s the worst thing about you, your damned smugness. I don’t suppose you’d accept that, because she’s being leant on by her people to save the day with a rich husband, she has as much right as anyone to try to attract the one man around here who could solve her family’s financial problems at a stroke? I also happen to think she could do a whole heap worse for herself - Adam Svenson’s a nicer guy than most people give him credit for. And he takes good care of his possessions. She would never know whose bed he was in at any given time, but if she could stand that, he wouldn’t make her too miserable and she’d get all the money she wants.”

“I always thought you liked him - don’t you?” he asked, surprised at her cynicism.

Symphony blushed slightly. “Yeah, I guess I do at that,” she admitted. “I think we’ve made a good team when we’ve worked together.” Her attention drifted momentarily and then snapped back. In a sterner tone she added, “Not that it is any of your business, Lieutenant, and it doesn’t mean I am another of the notches on his bedpost!”

“No ma’am,” he agreed. “I just wondered. You seem at home here, somehow.” But not as much as home as I expected you to be….he added to himself.

Symphony drew herself up. “Yeah, well… what happened between me and Old Sky-Blue-Eyes was… nice - while it lasted. But you don’t expect a guy like that to commit to one woman; he’s not capable of it, if you ask me… Mind you,” she mused as if she had forgotten he was listening, “I reckon he’s under some pressure from home as well, right now.”

“In what way?” he asked, managing to suppress his instinct to explain that his Blue was very much a one-woman-man, and just who that one-woman was.

“Oh… it’s just me reading between the lines, but I reckon he’s being told that he’s sown enough wild oats, and that buying into Dianne’s family would give his people the respectability all their money can’t buy!”

“Respectability? I thought they had bucket-loads of the stuff?”

She gave him a pitying glance. “After that last banking scandal, John Svenson was lucky to walk away a free man. Sky was busy distancing himself from the whole confused mess for weeks before the investigation ended!”

“I didn’t think he had anything to do with the family business. Surely the regulations…”

Symphony gave a hearty laugh. “You Brits crease me up! Bleating on about the regulations - when did that make any difference? You’re not going to stop the likes of Adam and Pat from making money any way they know how…”

Scarlet was surprised again at the linking of Blue with Captain Magenta – especially in the field of making money. The Magenta he knew had been a participant in organised, white-collar crime, before he joined Spectrum and he knew Patrick Donaghue had ‘acquired’ a sizeable personal fortune during this time. What had happened to that fortune was something he did not know. Donaghue had been given a ‘pardon’ for his time as a criminal, but whether it had been dependent on his handing over the proceeds of his crimes was a moot point. Either way, he couldn’t see the men he knew joining forces to make money – legitimately or otherwise.

She stood and gave a wry smile. “Thanks for fixing the plug, Scarlet. I’d better get back on duty and you’d better leave too…”

“Right, I can’t stay here whilst he’s out, can I?” he said by way of a reminder to himself. He and the Adam he knew, thought nothing of nipping in and out of each other’s apartments - but this wasn’t the same Adam… indeed, from what he had just heard, it was a very different Captain Blue altogether, in very many ways.

“Not really,” she agreed. “By the way, Lieutenant, the colonel wants to see you – whenever you can spare him the time, of course…”

Chapter Four

Captain Blue watched the elegant silver, yellow and blue submarine glide gracefully into the Naples dockyard. Captain Grey had often rhapsodised over the ‘sublime beauty’ of the Stingray submarines, and now, this close up to one for the first time, he understood what Brad had meant. It was a superb piece of engineering.

He smiled. The crew had made good time and, with luck, they would be able to get their mission underway that afternoon. He strode across to the mooring point and waited for the sub to dock. To his surprise, a hover-bike came out of the conning-tower hatchway and skittered across to land a few yards from him. Blue’s frown lifted as he recognised the aquanaut. The driver alighted and stepped forwards, a grin on his handsome, good-natured face.

“Hello, Captain Blue, how nice to see you again,” he said, his hand extended towards the Spectrum officer. “I haven’t seen you since we both attended the World President’s medal ceremony at Futura. What a week that was, eh? I don’t think I’ve ever drank so many martinis or eaten so many canapés before or since!”

Blue smiled in return and shook the hand warmly. “Hello, Troy! I wasn’t expecting it to be you in command. Aren’t you usually patrolling the Pacific coasts?”

Captain Troy Tempest nodded and gave a shrug. “We are on a routine exercise over here – once every so often they like to keep us on our toes by getting us to dodge the shipping in the northern Atlantic and the Med.” He grinned. “And when Commander Shore said it was you in charge of the mission… well, I had to come, didn’t I? I seem to remember that I promised you a ride in Stingray…several dozen times.” Blue gave an affirming nod and looked beyond his companion to where the submarine now rode at anchor. Tempest followed his gaze and gave a proud wave of his hand towards his vessel. “So here we are - at your service! What are you doing messing about with boats anyway? I thought you Spectrum guys were strictly sky-jockeys?”

Blue’s smile faded. “You were briefed on the mission?”

“Sure, we’re to look for a box of tricks lost in the straits of Messina. What it’s all about they didn’t make too clear, nor why we should expect such an important guy as you to be leading the search.”

Blue shrugged. “I’m no more important than any other colour captain, Troy. I just happen to be one of the two people who saw what the … box of tricks looked like and the other… well, he was lost overboard during our initial search.”

“That’s harsh,” Troy said, his expressive face showing genuine sympathy. “Was he a friend of yours, Adam?”

“He’s my partner and yes, he’s my friend,” Blue nodded. “I want to find him, if I can, while we are looking for the machine.”

“It’s a big area to search for one body.”

“I am betting he is still alive. We saw underwater caves all along the shoreline whilst we were searching beneath the volcano, and I’m hoping he may have found an air pocket in one of those – that whole part of the coast is honeycombed with rocks and tunnels. Besides, his body hasn’t turned up anywhere else,” Blue replied. It was going to be hard explaining much more to Tempest, if he asked.

“Well, I hope you’re right,” Troy said, rather dubiously. He could see that the taller man was pinning a great deal on this hope and he added, “You know, I have been in underwater caves where there have been pockets of air. It’s not impossible, so your pal might have got lucky.”

“Yes, I guess you could call him a lucky guy...”

“Right, well, if you’re hoping to find him alive we had better get started as soon as possible. Come aboard and meet the crew. Lieutenant Sheridan – Phones - is my communications man and he’ll do most of the sonar searching for your machine and Lieutenant Shore – Atlanta, she’s here as one of Stingray’s crew – it’s part of all WASP training – service at sea.”

“Atlanta Shore, the daughter of Marineville’s Commander?” Blue asked. He had heard about the personnel in Marineville’s control tower from Lieutenant Green and Captain Grey, both of whom had served in the WASPs before joining Spectrum. Grey had made the effort to speak to him before he left Cloudbase, bemoaning the fact that he was too well-known in the service to risk going on the mission. Blue rather suspected their recent boat trips and diving experiences had awakened a longing for the sea Grey thought he had under control.

“You’ve met her? Atlanta is a great girl,” Troy said stoutly almost daring to Blue to make something of it.

“No, I haven’t met her, but I know someone who… has connections with Marineville. They have spoken of her – she sounds, as you say - a great girl,” Blue explained reassuringly. Green had been very forthcoming on the relationship between his commander’s daughter and the most celebrated Aquanaut in the service.

By now Phones had extended the walkway to the entry hatch and Blue could walk across to the submarine vessel. He was half way across when an SSC arrived at the dockside and he stopped to watch Ruffolo get out. The Italian waved to him enthusiastically and kissed his fingers towards the passenger seat of the car, from which Blue could just see Symphony emerging. He grinned and continued his way carefully across the wobbly walkway.

Troy had brought his hover-bike back inside and was there to make the introduction. Blue shook hands with Lieutenant Sheridan and received instructions to call him ‘Phones’. “Chances are I wouldn’t know who you meant otherwise, Cap’n,” the man drawled genially.

Blue had never spent much time below the Mason-Dixon Line, but there was no mistaking Sheridan’s accent for anything but a Dixie drawl. He acknowledged the instruction with a polite smile. The discipline amongst the WASP personnel seemed far more easy-going than that expected by Spectrum – he wondered how Green tolerated it – but then, the colonel always seemed more lenient with the young West Indian than with his other ex-military personnel, just as he frequently made allowances for his non-military officers.

Lieutenant Atlanta Shore was a petite brunette with a round face, wide mouth and sparkling eyes. She gave Blue an appraising stare, her eyes travelling up the whole length of him until she met his amused glance; Blue was several inches taller than Tempest, who was in turn taller than Phones. Atlanta blushed prettily and said, “You’ll have to be careful Captain Blue, or I’m afraid you’ll keep banging your head on the ceiling.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, Lieutenant.”

They turned towards the hatchway at the sound of another voice, “Give a girl a hand here, Blue. I’m not sure how I’m going to get down there with all this stuff to carry.” Blue grimaced and spun on his heel to assist Symphony. She handed him two kit bags – both hers, he noted ruefully – and then waited to be lifted down. She put her hands on his shoulders and slid off the hatchway so that she came to rest close to him, her hands around his neck. She smiled up at him as he frowned warningly at her. Then she turned to the watching WASP officers with a bright smile, extending her slim hand to Troy saying, “Captain Tempest, what a pleasure to meet you. I have read so much about your exploits.”

Troy, slightly dazzled by her smile, took her hand and shook it. “Thank you, erm…”

“Symphony Angel. Didn’t Captain Blue tell you I was coming?” she gave him a glance from beneath her lashes and added, “He never remembers the important things.”

Blue grimaced. He realised that she still hadn’t forgiven him for not taking her on the shopping trip to New York and that this was how she had chosen to make him pay for it. Well, so be it, as long as she didn’t allow her retribution to get in the way of her work.

However, he thought with a mischievous glee, Karen hasn’t whiled away the hours of the dogwatch in the control room, listening to Green’s stories of life at Marineville, and she is so intent on making an impression that, for once, she’s neglected to weigh up her entire audience.

Blue had seen the possessive jealousy fire-up in Atlanta’s eyes as Symphony flirted with Captain Tempest and he knew that, for once, Symphony wasn’t going to get it all her own way.

~oo0oo~

Before he obeyed the colonel’s instructions and made his report, Scarlet returned to sickbay and asked to see Garnet. He needed to clear some points before he submitted himself to Colonel White’s incisive questioning, and anyway, he was still unsure about what he was supposed to have been doing at Etna. It was possible that Garnet might have learned more about their situation and he felt an obscure need to confirm that he wasn’t imagining all this in the first place. Fawn glanced up from his pile of papers and nodded absently. “If she’s awake you can, but not for long. And any upsetting her and you will find yourself on another charge, Lieutenant.”

“Understood, Doctor.” He was now so wary of what to expect from these people, that almost nothing could surprise him any longer. As he wandered to the room Fawn indicated, he reminded himself to get a look at his service record. That might explain why everyone expected him to be in trouble all the time.

He pushed the door open and peered in. Garnet was lying back on a bank of pillows still looking pale and tired, but better than she had done. She turned her eyes towards the door and gave a genuine smile when she saw him.

“Paul, how nice to see you - come on in.” She patted the bed beside her, offering him a seat.

Not wanting their conversation to be overheard, he sat close to her and took her outstretched hand in his, patting it gently. “Hello, Claudia. How are you feeling?”

“Much, much better, thanks to you. You saved my life down there, Paul. I’ll never forget it.”

“We saved each other… if you hadn’t been there, I might still be lying in a tangled heap of air tanks and broken bones.” He smiled at her. “I don’t want to rush you, Claudia, but I need to know - if you realise what’s happened to us?”

She blushed unhappily. “Is there an ‘us’ for things to happen to?”

He gave her an uncertain look and continued, “I’ve been looking around Cloudbase and speaking to some people… things are not as they should be, Claudia…”

“I know… but perhaps if you can talk to the colonel again, he’ll see the validity of the concerns you have about the volcanic pacifier…”

“Claudia?”

“Yes, Paul?”

“I am talking about what happened in the cave… how you came to be trapped there and how I got swept in by the whirlpool. You do remember, don’t you? Please try to remember, it is important!”

A look of relief came over her face and she gave a shaky smile. “Thank God you remember it to! Everyone’s been talking about how we’d been trying to stop a project to prevent Etna erupting,” she lowered her dark eyes. “And Captain Ochre seems to think he and I have been ... intimate friends. Yet, the nurses have been speaking of you and me… as a couple… and I thought I was losing my mind!”

“Did you know Captain Ochre - before you met him in the cave?”

“I don’t think so…” Garnet’s frown deepened. She shook her head, “I must’ve got concussed; my memory’s all over the place, but I am sure I would remember something like that. At one point I thought… you and I… well, I thought… but we haven’t been and we aren’t now – are we?”

“I thought the same for awhile,” he smiled at her. “I can assure you – nothing happened between us. I think I know what might be happening. It’s a long story, listen carefully and if anyone comes in, I’ll change the subject…”

For the second time that day, Scarlet recited his theories concerning what had happened. Garnet listened intently, frowning with concentration. Several times she shook her dark head and almost began to argue with him, only to stop and bite her lip, waving a distracted hand for him to continue.

“So, you see, Claudia, we have to get out of this place and try to find our way back to the cave in Etna and continue our search for a way home,” he concluded.

There was a long silence, and as he watched her eyes filled with tears, one of which stole down her pale cheek. “You mean… leave here and go back to where we are most definitely going to die?” she whispered.

“We won’t die, Claudia. Our own Captain Blue won’t give up on finding me - we’ll be rescued by our own people.” He tried to reassure her seeing that she was genuinely frightened of the suggestion.

“He might find you, Paul, but me…? I wouldn’t have survived there for much longer. These are our own people too. Our friends and colleagues, they don’t want to harm us. Is it so wrong for us to stay here?” Her voice was trembling and the tears really started to flow. Scarlet cursed his own insensitivity. Claudia had been through a lot lately, and the fact that she had held her nerve as well as she had, spoke volumes for her strength of mind and character. However, he could see that he wasn’t exactly helping.

There was no point pressing for her agreement and if Fawn heard her crying he might ban further visits. He reached and took her hand. “Rest now,” he said, softly. “Don’t worry about it - leave all the arrangements to me. I will find a way to solve the problem.”

He sat quietly as her sobs turned to sniffs and she dabbed at her red eyes with tissues. She was trying to regain her composure, he could see that, and he smiled in encouragement at her.

Suddenly she asked in a small and still uncertain voice, “How will we get home, Captain?”

“If there’s a way, it lies at Etna and this Blue will help us find it.”

She turned to look at him with some alarm, “Do you trust him?”

“I have trusted him with my life more times than I can count…” he tried to reassure her.

“No,” she surprised Scarlet by saying thoughtfully. “If what you believe has happened is true, then this is a different Captain Blue and not a man you can trust. The nurses gossip all the time and he is one of their favourite topics. They tell me that no woman is safe from him; he seems to be working his way through the female staff list. At least, they hope so - most of them are still waiting their turn!” She gave a speculative grin, her dark eyebrows arching over her brown eyes. “They also say that he and Captain Magenta run the base as if it is their personal fiefdom…”

“Do they indeed?” Scarlet frowned. Here was unwelcome confirmation of his worst fears about the differing circumstances he was discovering about the base. “Perhaps it is time I paid a visit to Colonel White. Get plenty of rest, Lieutenant, and don’t worry – everything will all come right in its own good time.”

“Yes, I am sure it will,” she smiled again and squeezed his hand.

Ruefully, he kissed her cheek and left. He knew she would do her best, but it did not look as if he would be able to rely on much useful support there for sometime yet.

~oo0oo~

Scarlet strode purposefully to the Control Room. There were things he needed to know and would only find out there. Passing a technician he knew well by sight, he gave the man a cheerful nod of acknowledgement only to receive a dismissive stare in return. It dawned on him that he was starting to dislike this new life. Okay, since his Mysteronisation he had deliberately withdrawn from associating with the majority of the personnel on Cloudbase and had consequently ceased to be a contender in any Mr. Popularity contest, but everyone was invariably polite if - he grimaced – often somewhat over-awed by his presence. But, here there was a definite feeling of animosity towards him and he had no idea why. His diary had not spoken of events before the first Mysteron attack and since then, he could see nothing to account for his obvious unpopularity. Maybe – he blushed at the thought – maybe this Scarlet was just an unpleasant character?

The automatic door before him snapped open, revealing the nerve centre of Cloudbase – the Control Room. In contrast to so much of the base, where the necessarily small windows only let in a glimmer of the sunlight outside, and many interior rooms never saw the sun at all, but only light refracted by a relay of mirrors to give the impression of daylight - this room was naturally light and airy. Beyond the colonel’s circular desk, one of the observation tubes stretched out into the infinite blueness of the clear sky. Stepping into them was as close to walking in the air as any human was ever likely to get. The transparent banks of computers winked their subtle red and green lights as they performed the incessant adjustments needed to keep this floating miracle safe and inhabitable. It was always an impressive sight, however familiar you were with it, and Scarlet’s heart lifted, as it always did, when he entered the room. This was one of his favourite places on the base. It was, he liked to think, the very heart of Spectrum.

At the end of the automatic walkway was the colonel’s desk and sitting at it the familiar figure of Colonel White, as upright and authoritative as ever. Scarlet sighed with relief - that was a tonic to his battered mind right now. Moving towards the desk, he glanced towards the long computer control desk, as was his habit, and nearly fell off the end of the walkway in surprise. Sitting in the communications chair was a dark-skinned figure, clad as he expected in the familiar rich green, but as the face turned to acknowledge his arrival he saw it was a woman!

His attention snapped back to the colonel as his commander asked, “Lieutenant Scarlet? How are you feeling?”

His salute was scrappy as his mind tried to come to terms with this latest shock. “I am fine, sir…” He glanced at Lieutenant Green again and muttered, “At least I was…”

“I was expecting you to come straight to report to me when Doctor Fawn released you,” the Colonel said evenly. “I accept that you might have felt the need to… freshen up… but I would not have expected you to go to speak with Captain Blue. I wanted to hear your explanation of what happened at Mount Etna, Lieutenant, if you have one, that is.”

“My apologies, sir. I needed to try to understand something that happened down there and I find myself a little…disorientated at present. I would like to speak to you - about several matters. In private if I may?”

Colonel White gave a curt nod, and pressed two buttons on his desk. A stool rose from the floor, followed moments later by the Perspex privacy curtain that descended and snapped around the desk to create a secure and soundproof environment.

Scarlet perched on the stool and studied his Commander–in-Chief. He looked and sounded the same as the real colonel, although on closer inspection, his face showed the strain of his responsibilities far more than he expected. There were deep lines between the man’s brows and his blue eyes had a patina of wariness. Scarlet knew enough now to know that he must be careful because it seemed that the differences in these people were not always immediately apparent.

It was the colonel who broke the silence. “What have you to report, Paul? There is still a good deal of confusion around at present. Tell me; was our intelligence correct in thinking that Etna is one of their targets? So far, we have been successful at stopping the Agency damaging the volcanic pacifier. Surely your examination of the situation must’ve proved to you that it is in our interest to keep the machine functioning? I remain to be convinced by your vague argument that the machine is dangerous, Paul, and I hope you did not do anything down there that you will come to regret.”

“The volcanic pacifier was still operating when we left,” Scarlet said cagily. “Captain Flaxen made it clear it was our job to protect it. Yet I have a distinct impression that its use was as likely to cause the eruption, as to subdue it…”

“I should imagine that is possible, although I doubt the local Agency operatives have the technical skills to alter the machine. As neither Blue nor Magenta have left Cloudbase recently, I think we can assume that that has not happened. I imagine they are the only two who might have the technical skills to tamper with the machine. Maybe our source can investigate if that has been discussed between them.” He made a note on a single sheet of paper. Glancing up he added, “I had heard there were rumours that you and Lieutenant Garnet were to be… eliminated. I am pleased to see that it is not the case.”

Scarlet drew a sharp breath in alarm. This was the first time anyone had made any reference, however oblique, to the bodies in the cave. It threw a new light on the situation and might prove dangerous. “May I ask how you heard we were to be eliminated, sir?”

“Through Lieutenant Cerise, of course - he is proving an invaluable source of information.”

“Cerise, oh yes, of course.” The Cerise he knew was a gangly, bronzed, young Australian, taller even than Captain Blue. One lazy, off-duty afternoon on Cloudbase Scarlet recalled finding the pair of them talking interminably about surfing. He had quickly found the subject soporific, and wandered off alone. Blue turned up hours later when their duty shift started and, even then, he had still been full of the topic.

It was rare for Captain Blue to be so garrulous and, quite frankly, if all he could talk about was surfing – Scarlet preferred him taciturn. He had ruefully considered that, if even such a short exposure to the conversation of Lieutenant Cerise had this effect on his partner; it would not be long before he was going to start wishing the youngster had been posted elsewhere. Scarlet had been relieved when the Australian was moved into the IT directorate Captain Magenta headed and onto a shift pattern that meant he was rarely around when he and Blue were off duty.

Presumably Cerise was employed on similar tasks here…

He decided it was time to try and find out more about this Agency people kept referring to in terms of such disapproval. And, if possible, just what Blue and Magenta were up to together here…

“Is there something wrong, Captain?” White asked, his body tensing with uncertainty at his officer’s pre-occupation.

Scarlet’s head snapped up. “You called me Captain!”

“Force of habit, I’m afraid,” White sighed. “Although I assure you, Paul, when I have rooted out this canker in Spectrum, I will ensure you are reinstated with all your seniority.”

“So, I was a captain, and now I’m a lieutenant. What on earth did I do to get cashiered?” he muttered more to himself than to his companion.

“Are you all right, Paul?” The colonel’s continued use of his Christian name was confusing Scarlet even more – Colonel White was always so formal towards his officers.

“Things are slightly… hazy, sir. I must have lost some of my memory in the accident.”

White relaxed a little. “What is it you are ‘hazy’ about exactly?”

“You could start with who, what, when and where, and there is one big gap on the whole topic of why,” Scarlet admitted with an apologetic smile.

Colonel White frowned at him. “Do you remember anything?”

“Not much, sir, to be honest.”

“Did you report this memory loss to Doctor Fawn?”

“No, sir, I wasn’t really aware then that I had lost my memory… I remember the recent past, very clearly.”

“Well, do you remember how Ochre kidnapped the World President a couple of years ago and how Captain Blue rescued him, shooting Ochre in the process?” White said with some irritation.

“Vividly, sir,” Scarlet reassured him.

“And how Blue was awarded the Valour Star by the grateful President and how since then, he has been - let us say ‘a law unto himself’?”

“It’s coming back to me as you speak…” Scarlet said with a sigh. Yet that hardly makes him ‘a law unto himself’.

Captain Blue had been awarded the medal for conspicuous bravery by the grateful World President, much against his wishes, and the fact still caused him a great deal of embarrassment. Colonel White had insisted he go to Futura for the award ceremony and Blue had spent a week there, enduring parties and receptions and making the acquaintance of the only other recipient of the award -so far – Captain Troy Tempest of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol. On his return to Cloudbase, Blue had only reluctantly displayed the medal to his admiring friends, feeling, that by accepting the award he was somehow celebrating the fact that he had shot Captain Scarlet. As soon as he decently could, he had buried the award at the bottom of his desk and only ever wore it when etiquette demanded a full dress uniform.

Scarlet glanced up from his musing to see Colonel White watching him with narrowed eyes, in which the suspicion was growing stronger. He gave an apologetic shrug and waited for the colonel to begin again.

Colonel White continued his explanation. “With a grateful World President in his pocket - and his maternal Uncle now the World Senator with responsibility for defence procurement – Captain Blue was in an ideal position to… make use of Spectrum for his own financial ends. On his return to Cloudbase, he joined Magenta’s Agency. They make a formidable partnership, one which combines Blue’s influence with Magenta’s criminal connections and… muscle. I had hoped at one time that Svenson would hold out against the Agency, but it was always a slim chance once it became known that his father’s company was laundering the gang’s money.”

By now Scarlet’s face must have shown the astonishment he was long past even trying to hide. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that the Magenta here would have lapsed back into his old ways, given that these personalities seemed so much more …undisciplined… than the people he knew. Yet his mind could hardly conceive of an Adam Svenson who not only condoned, but participated in, organised crime.

Watching the young man carefully, White continued, “Whatever scam they organise – even when we have proof that they were involved, no-one will move against them – they are effectively above the law. I have tried innumerable times to have them both dismissed from Spectrum – at the very least - but it has all been in vain. Blue simply calls in favours from his Uncle or if that fails, from the President. Recently, they have been using the powers invested in Spectrum to extort money from the individual Governments around the World…”

“A protection racket! You’re telling me Captain Blue is running a protection racket?”

“Blue and Magenta in tandem. Why should that surprise you?” The colonel’s suspicion was obvious now. “Your original mission to Etna was to ensure that none of their operatives gained access to the volcanic pacifier machine during its installation. Surely you remember how Cerise warned us that they had sent a message to the Italian Government, threatening that unless they met their financial demand, the machine would be turned off and the volcano left to erupt?”

Scarlet, trying to assimilate the information, could only give a weak nod of his head.

White sighed, his frustration over-riding his suspicions. “If only the courts had accepted our proof that their money is being laundered though the SvenCorp banking organisation, we might have been able to, at least, restrict their activities. It was a complete travesty of justice that John Svenson walked a free man from that trial.”

Scarlet pushed his hand through his dark hair, dislodging his cap in the process. “Symphony implied the family were… less than scrupulously honest,” he muttered in agreement with the colonel’s analysis.

“So, you have been speaking to Symphony Angel?” Colonel White raised an eyebrow interrogatively.

“She came to Blue’s quarters,” he explained.

“I sent her, to find out just what you were doing there,” White snapped.

Scarlet shook his head in confusion and shrugged at his commanding officer, “Sir?”

“You should have come straight to me, Paul. I don’t know what good you thought you’d achieve by talking to Blue – of all people.”

Scarlet flushed as the thought of what he had revealed to Captain Blue hit him like a sledgehammer. “Oh sh….shoot! I may have put my size ten feet right in the muck, sir!”

“You had better explain yourself, Paul,” White was his usual peremptory self again and his suspicions were growing.

“Well, I will try, sir, but I don’t think you’re going to find it very easy to believe.” Once more Scarlet explained his theory concerning the situation he found himself in, although, as yet, he revealed nothing to the colonel that he had not already told the apparently sympathetic Captain Blue.

“Lieutenant Scarlet, have you gone completely mad?” Colonel White was aghast at what he was hearing and he looked at the young man with every sign of annoyance – as if he now felt he was the butt of some preposterous practical joke.

“No, sir, at least I hope not. Believe me; I would like nothing better than to find myself waking up in the Officers’ Lounge, with Blue laughing at me for having dozed off. But everything is odd and rearranged – and now Lieutenant Green is a woman!” he wailed.

“What should she be?” White asked in surprise.

“A man – Seymour Griffiths – he came to Spectrum from the WASPs. It should be Seymour at the controls, not some dolly-bird!”

“I’ll tell her that, Serena will appreciate the irony of it!” The colonel’s voice was edged with a harsh irony. “She did come from Marineville, as the best computer operative they ever had – I was damn lucky to get her. Serena Seymour-Griffiths is an invaluable member of my command, Scarlet.”

“I’m sure she is, sir… I never meant to suggest otherwise. But how can you explain the fact that I know with absolute certainty, that Lieutenant Green is a man? And why do I expect Blue to be both my partner and my friend – except - that in my reality Blue and I are partners, as well as good friends! It never occurred to me for a second that he would be involved in criminal activities and… treason.” He looked in helpless confusion at his commander. “How could such men ever be accepted into Spectrum? This cannot be the same organisation as I know…”

White returned his stare with intense scrutiny. “And exactly what sort of organisation do you know, Scarlet?”

Realising that he was in danger of making the colonel angry and mistrustful, Scarlet calmed down and forced himself to give a measured run-down of the situation he had left. He took pains to emphasise the fact that his mission - given to him by his Colonel White - had been to destroy the pacifiers, as they were the subject of a Mysteron threat.

At the end of his explanation, Colonel White drew a deep breath and looked rather sharply at the intense young man sitting before him. Scarlet’s face showed nothing but an earnest desire to be believed and to understand what had happened.

Charles Grey hardly knew what to believe. He had known Paul Metcalfe from his earliest youth – and it was becoming increasingly apparent to him that this individual was not that man. Even his closest friends would have to admit that Metcalfe was an arrogant man. As the only son of a family with a long tradition of high military command, he’d excelled in his chosen profession as a WAAF officer, yet had found it more difficult than he’d expected to adapt to the low-key hierarchy of Spectrum. Colonel White had never underestimated just how great a risk they had taken in creating an organisation staffed with people from both military and civilian backgrounds, and, in his bleakest hours, he had to admit to himself that it had not been a one-hundred percent success. Now this - stranger - spoke of an organisation where the venture had succeeded and against all odds, five men – at the pinnacle of their varied professions – lived and worked together, bound by friendly rivalries, implicit trust and undivided loyalty to their commander.

A veritable paradise, White mused, but is it a fool’s paradise? Metcalfe does not look deranged. I have to make up my mind – do I trust this man and can I believe the unlikely tale of the events that had led to his being here? He glanced at him once more.

Scarlet had not spoken for some time now. His darkly handsome face remained carefully neutral, showing no sign of the inner turmoil he was experiencing. He knew that if he failed to convince the colonel – he would be condemned to incarceration, interrogation and, once they discovered his retrometabolism, possible death. He doubted that even Captain Blue would be able to help him – always assuming that the man here had any intention of keeping his promise. The awful realisation hit him that if he had condemned himself, he had, by implication, also condemned Garnet. He raised his hand to his forehead and brushed his short fringe back. The sigh that accompanied the action trembled on the edge of weeping. He squared his shoulders and clamped down on his inappropriate emotions. This regeneration had left him very weak and badly shaken.

Ironically, it was that show of such human emotion that swung the colonel’s decision in his favour as he decided to rely on his instincts and accept this unlikely visitor from another world, at least, until he was proven to be a threat. He drew a deep breath, “It was against my better judgement that both Donaghue and Svenson were accepted into Spectrum. There was less reason to deny Svenson a commission – he is at least a damn good pilot and not as tarnished by his father’s business shenanigans as you might expect - I did hope he might prove an asset to the service. But Donaghue,” he shook his head in exasperation, “what had he to recommend him? I see now that it was a set-up to give organised crime a foothold at the very inception of Spectrum. World Senator Thomas Ellis – Svenson’s uncle – argued that his criminal past should be overlooked as both his computer talents, and his insight into organised crime, could be useful to an organisation such as ours. Our original brief was to counter terrorism and its unlawful off-shoots – that’s the same, I take it?” Scarlet nodded.

White continued, “Ellis used the only arguments that could possibly justify Donaghue’s inclusion and he managed to convince the World President to grant a pardon and Donaghue was shoe-horned in. Once here, he set about perverting the whole ethos of Spectrum. It began slowly enough and many of my senior officers resisted it – including Captain Blue - but once they had drawn SvenCorp into their orbit, they had their hold over Svenson. It was after the first Mysteron attack that he joined the Agency –I don’t know if that was willingly or not. I have to say, objectively, they make a great team – they don’t miss much and Magenta is absolutely ruthless in dealing with any opposition.”

Captain Scarlet listened open-mouthed to this. He knew all about Captain Magenta’s shady past – well, as much as anyone knew, Pat was quite open about it, if asked - but he also knew that Magenta had made a determined decision to leave that life behind him. He had, necessarily, retained a certain… hardness; but it was normally buried under his boundlessly enthusiastic good-temper. It had not been easy for him to gain the acceptance of his colleagues – Captain Ochre being his sternest critic – but gradually even the former World Police Commissioner came to recognize that Patrick Donaghue had reformed – and now the pair were almost as fixed a partnership as Blue and himself.

White stood and moved away from his desk slightly, to stare out of the Control Room through the clear observation tube into the never-ending sky-scape beyond. “You asked what you had done to be demoted to Lieutenant, well, I can tell you – nothing. You were accused of an assault on a young female technician… but there was no proof beyond her statement. I was positive she’d been persuaded to make the claim by Magenta, or one of his henchmen. They were most displeased when you refused to join their ‘agency’ and they insisted you were tried for the alleged crime, and they wanted you dismissed from Spectrum. But, for once, President Younger stood firm with me, I suspect he was being lobbied by other interests, probably your Father. It was agreed that you should be demoted to Lieutenant and denied your seniority. It was all I could do in the face of the whispering campaign they used against you all over the base.”

“Did everyone get invited to join the ‘agency’?” Scarlet asked feeling anger welling up inside him as he listened to this tale of corruption and deceit. At least it explains my unpopularity, he thought.

“Not everyone, but all of the senior captains and most of the colour lieutenants on Cloudbase were invited,” White revealed with a sigh. “The band of Refuseniks is a small but select one. You, me, of course, Symphony and Ochre, a few colour lieutenants, including Green and Garnet and Cerise - who works as our spy in the Agency and supplies much of our information.” It was too late to hide Cerise’s importance now, he realised with a fatalistic sigh.

“The other Angels?”

White shook his head. “Melody and Harmony have been convinced it is in their interests to join and Destiny does what the others do. Rhapsody is too busy chasing after Blue’s millions to care what is happening elsewhere,” his voice sounded tired.

“You say Captain Ochre is one of the Refuseniks? I find that rather hard to believe given that he was so unpleasant to me when we met at Etna. I take it all of the Refuseniks do know each other? And yet, I would not expect the Ochre I know to join in with any kind of criminal activity – he was a policeman and he’s the most honest man I have ever met, if you ignore the odd illicit betting incident – but then again, he and Magenta are as much good friends as Blue and I…” Scarlet was too pre-occupied with this conundrum to notice the colonel’s eyebrows rise in sceptical surprise. “Are you sure he is loyal to Spectrum?” he concluded in some confusion.

“Oh, they wanted Ochre – very much indeed - but the main problem is his intense hatred of Captain Blue.”

“Whatever for? I know Blue saved Ochre from the control of the Mysterons.”

“Well, that’s just it. Ochre cannot accept his ‘invulnerability’, he hates his life and he blames Blue for his fate.” White sat down again and sighed. “Mind you, he isn’t friendly with Paul either, but that’s a different story.”

He glanced at the bemused young man opposite. He was still having trouble coming to terms with what he had been told, but he could see no reason why his officer should want to spin a web of such palpable lies. Whatever the truth of the situation, Scarlet obviously believed his story to be genuine and he would play along for now, whilst making sure his agents kept a close watch on the young man.

“It might be best that you know the whole situation, so I will have to tell you about Claudia Vecchio. She and Captain Ochre knew each other before they joined Spectrum. Indeed, they were engaged and lived together in Chicago, which is one of the reasons she accepted a commission with us. After his ‘death’, Claudia could not accept what had happened to him and she broke it off. As if that wasn’t enough for Ochre to contend with on top of his Mysteronisation, it was not long afterwards that she started ‘dating’ you… I mean Paul Metcalfe of course. Ochre doesn’t know if he should blame her rejection of him on his fate, or on her preference for Paul. Either way he has found it hard to deal with the loss of the woman he loved. ”

Scarlet heaved a sigh and pulled a face. “Oh boy – it sounds like an episode of Peyton Place. I always thought my colonel was too severe in his insistence that his officers’ friendships remain on a platonic level – but maybe the old man is right after all?” He glanced up with a horrified expression. “I am sorry,” he apologised. “No offence meant, sir.”

White grimaced. “I’ve been called worse, so I expect your colonel has too. Maybe I should ask you for some pointers as to how he manages to control so many egoists and their rampant libidos?”

“Why did Symphony refuse to join the Agency?” Scarlet asked, hurriedly changing the subject.

“She’s an ex-USS agent who worked for me before Spectrum was started. And,” White said with a gleam of his dry humour, “I suspect she discovered that her relationship with Blue was not an exclusive one… not on his side of it anyway. Hell hath no fury…”

“Like Symphony with a grievance,” Scarlet finished for him and nodded. “In that much at least she is consistent in both Worlds.”

White gave a silent chuckle and a not too disapproving glance at the younger man. “Can you shed any light on what has happened to ‘our’ Scarlet and Garnet, Captain?” he asked with some hesitation.

Scarlet drew a sharp breath and told the story of the bodies in the cave. He saw the colonel’s expression harden as he heard him out in stony-faced silence. As he came to the end of his tale, White’s pale face showed considerable pain.

“They were both dead?”

“Yes sir, Garnet and … Scarlet.” He shrugged and sighed, things were getting too complex for words.

“He is my wife’s nephew; did you know that?” Colonel White asked bluntly.

“No, sir! I mean I am not my colonel’s nephew!”

“My wife is his father’s step-sister. I watched him grow from a boy…”

Scarlet shuddered; the idea of growing up with an Uncle Charlie who was Colonel White was mind-boggling. “I am sorry, sir. This must be a shock for you.”

“His family will be devastated. I am not looking forward to telling them.”

“You accept that what I have told you is the truth?” The hope in his voice made White smile.

“I see no alternative but to believe you, Captain Scarlet. What you have told me about the murders ties in with the report I had from Cerise too closely for me to doubt that you saw the bodies exactly as you said you did.”

“Did Cerise say who was supposed to have killed them?”

The colonel nodded. “Captain Magenta has plenty of hit-men at his disposal - some of them in Spectrum. It was one of those - Sergeant Ruffolo - from the Naples branch where Garnet worked.”

Scarlet groaned. He wanted more than ever to get out of this frustrating world and back to the everyday irritations of his own reality. Never again, he vowed, would he complain about the annoying characteristics of his friends and colleagues.

Colonel White applied his mind to the problem. He had a young man, who although he looked like his officer, claimed he was not. If this was the truth, then he and his companion ought to be returned to their own reality with all despatch, before Blue and Magenta found some devious way of exploiting the couple or their … inter-dimensional portal. He shuddered at his own choice of words – it was hard enough to come to terms with what had happened without making it sound like something from a second-rate Sci-Fi movie – but he had no other terminology to describe the situation.

Scarlet too was considering his situation and reviewing the mistakes he had made since his arrival. Going to Captain Blue seemed to have been a major error on his part, although anyone who had seen the misery on Adam Svenson’s face as he spoke of his dead mother and brother would have been hard pressed to imagine him as a hardened gangster with no principles. Surely, the Adam here couldn’t be so different from his counterpart in the real world?

He glanced at the older man and seeing his distinguished face set in an expression of sadness, he spared a thought for this man who had lost a favoured nephew and wondered if this colonel had any family of his own… his cousins! He speculated about his father’s half-sister the colonel had married… a woman who, like the sister Blue said he had, did not exist in his own dimension.

The colonel looked up and caught the young man’s eye. “We have to see about getting you back to your own home, Captain. There will be people worrying about you, I expect.”

”Yes, sir, there will be.” Impulsively he reached across for the colonel’s arm and laid his hand on it. “I just want to let you know, how sorry I am about…Paul and Claudia …”

“Understood, Captain,” White nodded and changed the subject brusquely. “Although, in all honesty, I can’t even understand how you managed to survive the initial fall through the water to the cave, let alone how you came to be here.”

Conscious that he needed to be honest with the colonel, Scarlet replied, “Well, you see, Colonel…” and as dispassionately as he could he told the colonel the story of the events concerning the World President the way they had happened to him. White listened with growing surprise as Scarlet revealed his history.

“Are you telling me, Captain Scarlet that you – you have the same ability as Captain Ochre? You can survive any injury?”

“I have the ability to retrometabolise and my body can recover from most injuries. As far as I know, I have not lost the ability in this reality. Although so far it has not been put to any great test,” he added reflectively. “All I can say, in support of my claim, is that I can’t even show you the bruises I had… it’s been long enough for them to clear up. But if you ask Garnet, she can tell you that the fall broke my back, as far as I could tell, anyway.”

“Did you tell Blue this?” White asked urgently.

Scarlet shook his dark head. “I must’ve had some of my wits about me, after all. Something made me stop before I had gone that far.”

“Well, we must be thankful for that, at least. Heaven knows what the Agency would try to make you do if they knew.”

Chapter Five

There had always been parts of the lower decks of Cloudbase given over to recreational facilities and now, as part of an uneasy truce, the colonel had reluctantly acquiesced to the creation of several restaurants, bars and ‘lounges’, administered by the Agency and allowed to provide the staff with expensive alcohol, cigarettes, the opportunity to gamble and the dubious joys of ‘negotiable affection’.

It was in one of these restaurants that Blue wined and dined Rhapsody Angel, and then they strolled along the wide corridor towards the most luxurious of the Agency bars. The young Englishwoman cast scornful glances at the group of provocatively clad young ladies who were strolling aimlessly up and down the thoroughfare and, a good many of whom, called friendly greetings at her escort. Blue seemed to know several by name and was completely unabashed by his companion’s obvious revulsion.

Dianne Simms was out of her depth and she knew it. Her upbringing had been a sheltered one, far from the harshness of the reality of life on the inner city streets of mid-twenty-first century London. She knew such women existed, was fairly sure that some of the elegant creatures she had met at cocktail parties and social functions were - more or less - involved in the same trade, but at the other end of the scale of financial rewards. Her father had been involved in a sordid scandal when she was in her teens and her parents had separated for a time, until Lord Robert had convinced his aristocratic wife to return to the family fold for the sake of appearances. Now Lady Susan lived in the country and rarely came to London, where her husband pursued his diplomatic career and kept a ‘companion’ younger than his daughter.

Only one thing united her parents these days – the need to save the family estate from being repossessed by an implacable bank - and they both urged Dianne to find a husband with the resources to accomplish this laudable aim. If she was unable to do this on Cloudbase, they were insistent that she return to London and try her fortune amongst the wealthy young men of the City firms. It was not something she wanted to do, and the thought of it made her feel as if she was no more than a commodity for her parents to barter to the highest bidder. It was the main reason why she was so assiduously, if anxiously, encouraging Blue to provide her with a way out of her dilemma.

She glanced up at her companion as he strolled beside her with an arrogantly casual air. In his favour, she reasoned, he was both good-looking and good company. His family had money to burn and he spent it freely when he wanted to. He regularly bought her presents, the value of which astounded her, and he seemed happy to indulge her. Against that, he was totally self-centred, dedicated to his own pleasures and had the morals of an alley cat. She was not so naïve as to believe marriage would change him. She was not even sure that she cared whether it would or not. But sleeping with Adam would be… much less of a bind … than sleeping with some unknown chinless wonder from the City, with less money and all the personality of a stale biscuit. Besides, she believed that, after the obligatory production of a couple of blonde-haired, blue-eyed babies – what her father always called ‘the heir and the spare’ - Adam would be more than willing to let her retire to the country, much as her mother had done, whilst he pursued his own …eclectic pleasures.

As they entered the plush lounge-bar, the waiter led them to a central table and brought a bottle of champagne without being asked. Blue poured two flutes of the fizzing liquid, winked his eye and tipped his glass against hers,

“Here’s looking at you, Kid,” he smiled, in the worst impression of Humphrey Bogart she had ever heard. He drained his glass and filled it again, encouraging her to do the same.

As she sipped her second glass of champagne, he chattered on about inconsequential matters, whilst all the time he was checking the other occupants of the room. He is rather good at making it look natural, the only thing is he forgets I know when he is doing it, because I can do it too, she thought scathingly. I wonder who he’s looking for.

Blue had finally found his target. At a table set back amongst the heavy drapes and subdued lighting across from the door, he saw Captain Magenta accompanied by a young blonde and a bottle of bourbon. He smiled at Dianne and said, “I am sorry, sweetheart, will you be okay for a time? I have to speak to Magenta, something’s come up and he ought to know about it. I promise I will make it up to you… later.” He tipped her chin upwards and kissed her lips gently.

In your dreams you will! she thought as she smiled with fluttering eyelashes at him. “Well, all right then, but don’t be too long, Adam dear,” she said with a pout.

He kissed her again as he prepared to leave the table, “Order what you want and charge it to me.”

Sure, she thought, just like those girls out there probably do! But she just waved coyly at him as he strolled across the lounge.

~oo0oo~

Captain Magenta had seen his partner come in with Rhapsody Angel and he watched them billing and cooing at each other with a superior distain. Svenson irritated him, but deep within himself, Donaghue was honest enough to admit that he envied the easy-going, amoral sonofabitch.  Svenson had always had money and treated it with an apparently careless contempt that he could not emulate. He knew that money would always be his master, whereas Svenson was undoubtedly the master of his money.  

Patrick Donaghue knew he was good at his job – in fact - he was good at both of them.  Spectrum was a far more efficient organisation thanks to his computer skills and, in addition, the Syndicate’s Agency offshoot was now making more money than all of their terrestrial operations put together, a fact which meant he now had more power than ever amongst the secretive cabal who ran the Syndicate. Perversely, he was also far more vulnerable to treachery amongst his peers than he had ever been before. He did not have the traditional power-base of the other bosses, and if he failed to improve on his results he would not last long amongst the elite of the Syndicate.

His parents had emigrated from Ireland to New York when he was still a toddler and he had grown up in the bustling city.  Naturally intelligent, he had done well at school, earning a place at Yale University to study computers – honing a skill he had developed since boyhood. 

He was a passionate young man – idealistic and liberal in his beliefs.  An early brush with the law - during protests against Bereznian human rights violations - had earned him a prison sentence, yet though he considered that almost as a badge of honour; he had vowed never to return to the institution.  His expertise with computers meant that he was finally able to get a job – any kind of police record was still a barrier to employment - and he settled for a lowly job in the financial sector, which had quickly exhausted his interest and taken on the aspect of mundane drudgery.  More as a way of alleviating his boredom, he had devised programs to siphon funds and cover his tracks; he had broken encryptions and just occasionally, illicitly re-written programmes – more to improve systems than to undermine them.

Then his family had got into trouble with a loan shark.  He’d raged against them for even considering the loan in the first place, but on discovering the extent of their indebtedness, he had realised he could not cover their liabilities himself.  Days of feverish attempts to get the cash legitimately had failed and as the deadline approached he had taken the decision to implement one of his test programs.  One evening under the pretext of working late, he had entered the program into the system and watched as the money slid through the complex barricades of numbered accounts he had set up. 

He paid the loan shark the next day.

Then he waited – waited for the knock on the door, waited for the summons to the central office, waited to lose everything - including his freedom.

Nothing happened.  The program, once installed, functioned perfectly and remained undetected. The money piled up in his account.  Whole new worlds opened up before his eyes… decent clothes, nice cars, select apartments and pretty girls on his arm.

He soon attracted the attention of the local crime syndicate and – after some initial reluctance on his part – pocketed his ideals and joined them.  Within two years, he was running one of the biggest syndicates – and doing it well. 

He considered himself a businessman and when he had heard through his government contacts about the proposal to create Spectrum, he had instantly seen the possibilities.  It was not a job he could afford to leave to others – it had to be handled with ‘tact’.  So he had decided to join the organisation himself and set up the systems properly.  It hadn’t taken too much hard work to arrange for his politicians to get him a ‘pardon’ and he had joined Spectrum shortly afterwards. 

As it had been when he joined the syndicate – it was a whole new world to conquer and he revelled in it.  Once he had total command of the powerful computer system, he had begun to undermine the colonel’s discipline and introduce the scams that now provided the ‘entertainments’ for the staff.

It had been a majority vote of the Syndicate that decided to draw the powerful SvenCorp organisation into their orbit. Although Donaghue had been providing Senator Ellis with ‘perks’ for some years, he had deliberately steered clear of the senator’s brother-in law - the formidable John Svenson – whose financial chicanery within the letter of the law, was a source of inspiration to the younger man. He had agreed to the plan with reservations, especially when he found that he was expected to work with Svenson’s son – a man whose reputation as a wastrel was in sharp contrast to his father’s.

When Blue had joined him, he had initially despised him seeing - as many did - the playboy lifestyle and boyish good looks as the sum of the character he had to deal with.  But not for long. Although Svenson frequently goaded and tormented him, he had to admit the man had brains and a gift for making money. To his surprise, they doubled the Agency profits within months as the money simply rolled in.

It was a real shame that every time he saw the ponce he just wanted to throttle him. But both men had soon developed a wary respect for each other’s abilities; Magenta had learnt never to underestimate this foppish dandy and Blue had witnessed too many examples of Magenta’s unrelenting ambition and unforgiving brutality to risk pushing the other man too far.

Now Magenta watched his partner approach with a cynical expression on his dark features. There could hardly be two men more physically disparate than these two. Blue was the taller by a couple of inches and of a broader build, his shock of blond hair and smoky-blue eyes contrasted with the abundant, sleek black hair and intense dark-hazel-brown eyes of the older Irish-American, whilst his regular, clean-cut features and tanned skin made Magenta’s complexion look pale and his high-bridged nose hooked.

“Evening, Pat,” he drawled lazily, spinning a chair towards the table and sitting astride it, leaning with his forearms on the back as he gazed across the table at the bored blonde sitting by his partner.

Seeing the direction of Blue’s eyes and the blush mounting on the girl’s cheeks Magenta growled, “Go powder your nose,” and the young woman obediently scuttled away, but not without giving the newcomer a shy smile under her lashes as she squeezed past him. Blue watched her walk away with a calculating smile.

“Don’t you ever think of anything else?”

He turned back to the man opposite and accepted a glass of bourbon from the bottle between them. “Not often…and not for long,” he admitted. “She’s new.” He nodded after the young woman.

“Uh-huh, and for once you can wait your turn,” Magenta snarled grumpily.

Blue laughed, “Oh I have my hands full with her ladyship…”

“Haven’t you had her yet?” taunted Magenta adding as if in sympathy, “You must be losing your touch.”

Blue turned his gaze on to him, his eyes icy with disdain. “The day I do that, Padraig, you can shoot me.”

Magenta squirmed – Blue knew how that name annoyed him. “The pleasure will be all mine, Mister Svenson. And I just hope she’s worth it - but I doubt that – all Brits are frigid anyway.”

“Boy, have you been dating the wrong girls,” Blue responded, filling his glass again. “Be nice to her ladyship, my friend – or I won’t invite you to the wedding.”

Magenta gave a snort of laughter, “You cannot be serious?”

“Wheels within wheels, Paddy-boy,” Blue drawled.

Magenta’s dark eyes flashed with irritation, but he needed Blue too much to allow a breach with the annoying sonofabitch.

Blue watched closely for a long minute and saw the flush on his partner’s sallow cheeks. He was adept at pushing Donaghue to the brink of anger and then backing off, and every time he played the game he pushed that little bit further and that little bit harder. “But enough of this witty repartee, Padraig, I want to know what you know about the return of Scarlet and Garnet. Just what has gone wrong with your foolproof plan? And, when you have told me all there is for me to know, I will tell you something that will make your Irish eyes smile like a million dollars in gold….”

~oo0oo~

Across the plush lounge Rhapsody Angel was still alone at her table and she beckoned the waiter to bring her another bottle of champagne. She was getting angry now and when the man placed a fresh bottle before her she snapped at him and waved him away. Turning to look across the room she could see her escort sitting at the table with Captain Magenta, the fair head bent towards the dark as he listened to whatever Magenta was saying. How could he be such a … peasant as to leave her whilst he plotted with Magenta? By rights, after the time and energy she had put into making him like her, he should have been dancing attendance on her and dropping subtle hints about a future commitment. Instead, he was wasting time, spending their precious hours together with Patrick Donaghue! Men, she fumed. You can’t trust them!

She filled her glass again, sloshing at least half the bottle over the table in the process. Then, fired by her righteous anger, she stood and made her way unsteadily towards the pair of them. As she reached the table next to theirs she almost lost her balance and grabbed a chair for support. She sat down heavily and gulped at her wine. Snatches of their conversation wafted back to her.

“And you believed him, Svenson? You know what a tricky customer Scarlet can be – they might be up to another of their ineffectual plots aimed at destabilising our control.”

“That was my first thought, right enough. But he came to me: Mr Holier-Than-Thou-Metcalfe came asking my help! He genuinely seemed to think we were still friends – as if I am ever likely to forget, or forgive, the things he said to me when we formed our little partnership, Padraig. I don’t believe he knew how things stood around here. Maybe he got a bump on the head and has lost the plot – but he seemed coherent enough. Besides, you told me Ruffolo would ‘deal’ with them at Etna, and Metcalfe said there were two dead bodies there, which looked identical to him and Garnet. And that these bodies vanished when Ochre and his team of interfering do-gooders arrived. At the very least, you should send Ruffolo down to check if the bodies are still in the cave.”

“If Ruffolo has been lying to me about doing the job properly he won’t live to regret it,” Magenta said sharply. “I will not tolerate being lied to.”

“Forget it, Padraig; no-one would dare lie to you.”

Magenta gave a snort. “No-one has ever tried to do it twice, that’s a truth.” He twirled the liquid in his glass and drank it in one gulp. “I will send someone to check – not Ruffolo though. Now, you thought we might make use of this ‘portal’ - if it exists, which I still say is a pretty big ‘if’ – what did you have in mind?”

“If I really need to spell it out you’ve had too many bourbons, me boyo.” Blue leant back, putting his hands behind his head and grinning impishly. “What if it not only opens the possibility of moving between dimensions but also through time? That would give us the possibility of whole new worlds to conquer…the final frontier, indeed.”

“It is not me who’s drunk…” Magenta taunted. “You’ve been watching too many re-runs of Quantum Leap.”

“Theoretically, if it moves between dimensions it should also open the time continuum,” Blue said reasonably, ignoring the jibe.

“I love it when you talk dirty.” Magenta couldn’t resist needling his partner. Blue gave him a belittling grimace.

Magenta sighed. “Okay, Svenson, just to please you, we’ll take a look at Mr Metcalfe’s fantastical portal. Oh, and by the way,” he added with considerable satisfaction, as he watched the final collapse of the unsteady Rhapsody Angel, “I think your date’s so drunk, that she’s just passed out.”

Blue swore. This was really not his day.

Chapter Six

Stingray cruised back and forth across the choppy waters of the Straits of Medina, with Captain Tempest and Phones Sheridan at the controls. In the passenger bay, Atlanta Shore and Symphony Angel were, surprisingly, gossiping like old friends whilst Atlanta painted the Angel pilot’s fingernails in a selection of the latest fashionable colours.

Captain Blue was leaning on the rail that edged the forward command section, scanning the horizon with a powerful pair of binoculars. In theory he was looking for wreckage of Gaspari and Dincerler’s boat or the volcanic pacifier, but in reality he was hoping against hope for some indication that Scarlet had survived his fatal dive. His body will do, he thought miserably. He was sure that, even if Scarlet hadn’t recovered from a watery death due to the prevailing conditions, back on Cloudbase Doctor Fawn would be able to kick start his retrometabolic process and they would get him back. He was desperately trying to ignore the nagging logic in the back of his mind that kept repeating the possibility that a dead Scarlet might be trapped beneath these treacherous waters, his corpse a banquet for the local crabs and lobsters.

Now I know why I don’t like seafood, Blue thought distractedly.

“One more sweep ought to do it, Skipper,” Phones drawled. “By then we’ll have as good a picture of the seabed as we’re going to get.”

“Have you been able to identify any anomalies?” Blue asked.

“It’s hard to say, Cap’n,” Phones said reluctantly. “The coast around here is a mass of boulders and outcrops. It’s like the Rocky Mountains down there…”

Tempest turned to his friend. He was still concerned at Blue’s continuing insistence that they would find Captain Scarlet alive. “If anyone can find what we’re looking for, Phones can. Stingray is equipped with latest equipment. It is more sensitive than anything you would get on a navy ship, but even so, not even Stingray can detect a heartbeat down there, Adam.”

Blue sought reassurance. “But you said there were caverns… under the surface?”

“Oh sure, Cap’n Blue,” Phones agreed. “The whole side of the coast is honeycombed with ’em.”

“And you’ve had experience of underwater caves with air pockets in them, haven’t you, Troy?”

“Well, yes… it has happened. But those caves have to be the exceptions to the rule…”

“If there is one, Scarlet will have found it,” Blue said firmly and closed the conversation by lifting the binoculars to his eyes again.

The two WASP officers exchanged doubtful glances.

An hour later all of the crew were studying the detailed 3-D sonar maps Phones had produced.

“The co-ordinates supplied by Harmony Angel indicate that the boat sank here…” Symphony pointed at an area on the map with a frosted-pink fingernail.

“And from what you can remember of where you and Grey searched… the wreckage covers this area, all leading towards this stretch of coastline.” Troy ran his finger along the jagged indents of the map. “It would seem the best place for us to start searching. Any ideas about how you would like to play this one, Adam?”

Blue ran his fingers through his hair and leant back in his chair. He had been considering this matter for some time. “I was hoping that maybe you and Phones would search for the wreckage whilst I tried to get into one of those caverns…”

To his surprise both Troy and Symphony said, “No!” simultaneously.

“I can’t agree to that,” Tempest said with a bright smile at the pretty Spectrum pilot, whose face was rapidly turning bright red. “If you are planning to do anything so hazardous, one of us should really go with you.”

“And I can’t agree to that,” Blue sighed. He couldn’t take the risk of someone outside of Spectrum learning about Scarlet’s retrometabolism – however trustworthy a guy he might be.

“This is my ship, I am in command, Captain, and if you want to go searching near the rocks, you will not go alone – so make your mind up to that fact.” Tempest’s dark eyebrows sank in a frown.

“For reasons I cannot elaborate…” Blue began his customary explanation for non-Spectrum personnel.

“No,” Tempest interrupted firmly.

“Captain Blue, I have to agree with Captain Tempest here,” Symphony said. Overcoming both her embarrassment and her determination to be severe with her errant boyfriend she continued, “If he says it is too dangerous for you to go alone, I should come with you…”

This time it was Captain Tempest and Captain Blue who rejected the suggestion in unison.

“Certainly not,” Tempest smiled at her. “I know Adam’s a good diver, I’ve seen him, but I don’t know how competent you are, Symphony, and I am not prepared to let you take unnecessary risks.”

“I am pretty good,” she asserted.

“But inexperienced,” Blue reasoned. “I’d only end up watching out for you and that would waste the limited time I have underwater.”

“So, I’m a waste of time now, am I?” she bridled even though she knew she was being unreasonable.

“Please, Karen, not now.” There was real steel in his voice, despite the polite words.

Atlanta gave a derisive snort and placed a sympathetic hand on Symphony’s arm. Her next words came as something as a surprise to all three men present. “I hate to say it, Honey, but they’re right. Even I wouldn’t volunteer to go out there right now.”

Symphony’s expression showed just how betrayed she was feeling, but she said nothing and contented herself with fuming in silence – for now.

As the silence deepened, Phones spoke up. “Well, it seems to me that if we’re hoping to find Cap’n Scarlet, that search had better be our priority, so Troy and Cap’n Blue had better go together and I’ll do the investigation of the wreckage site. Atlanta and Miss Symphony can man Stingray and maintain radio contact.”

“Absolutely…” Tempest agreed.

“There are reasons why…” Blue began one final attempt to divert the aquanauts from searching for Scarlet.

“Take it or leave it, Captain. We go together or you don’t go at all. I am serious. I’ll have you charged with mutiny and slammed in the brig.” Troy was only partly teasing as he stood and stretched. “We’ll take Stingray down and closer to the site, to avoid the tedious decompression time. Do you have all the necessary gear, Captain, or can we supply you with anything?”

“No, I have all the things I’ll need, thanks.” Blue was not pleased, but he knew this was probably the only logical way to proceed. “Let’s get out there as soon as we can.”

~oo0oo~

Captain Ochre slammed down his beer glass and threw some coins on the bar. He was sick of the taste of the damn stuff – and as watered down as it was, the chance of it making him even remotely tipsy was slight. He turned to leave and saw Scarlet sitting at a table watching him intently. Annoyed and not a little self-pitying, he walked across and said fiercely, “What are you looking at, Metcalfe?”

Scarlet shrugged. “A man in need of a decent drink, I’d say. I have some Scotch whisky… if you are interested.”

“If you bought it from these crooks, it is probably watered down paint thinner.”

“No, this was a birthday present from my father – a man who knows his single malts as well as you know misery.”

Ochre bristled and glared at the Englishman. “Watch it, I am still the superior officer,” he growled.

“And I can drink you under the table any time you want to try.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Sure – come with me and we’ll see who collapses first.”

Ochre gave a mocking smile. “Maybe you haven’t heard, Metcalfe, but I can drink any stuff I want for as long as I want and I don’t even get tipsy. You’d lose.”

Scarlet shrugged again. “If you’re too frightened to try…”

Ochre grabbed him by the padded collar of his tunic and hauled him upright. “Okay, Limey… lead on.”

Scarlet shrugged his hands away and led the way back to his corridor, Ochre walking just behind him and not speaking even in reply to his opening gambits. Eventually he gave up and walked in silence too.

In his quarters, Scarlet fished out one of the whisky bottles his father had sent him. He always sent three, every December – one for his birthday, Christmas and the New Year - knowing his son often enjoyed a slug of whisky before turning in. He found two small tumblers, uncorked the bottle and offered it to Ochre, who poured himself a generous measure and sniffed it appreciatively. Scarlet fought to curb the smile that rose to his lips; the Ochre from his world liked his whisky too.

The colonel was very strict about enforcing the regulations forbidding alcohol on the base and he only made an exception for these bottles - which Scarlet was sure he knew about - because he trusted his officer to behave sensibly with them. One of the perks with retrometabolism was the inability to get really drunk – alcohol had only the minutest of effects on his body and before it could become a problem, his immune system cut in and wiped it out of his blood stream. It was great for parties and, on the rare occasions he and his friends actually got to a party, he was always the designated driver.

He poured himself an equally generous slug and tilted his glass in Ochre’s direction, “Slainte Mhor,” he said with a wry grin.

“Cheers,” Ochre said, speaking for the first time since they left the bar. He tipped the glass back and drained it.

Scarlet matched him and emptied his glass, although he thought it a waste of good malt to drink it like that. He pushed the bottle across, inviting his guest to help himself. Ochre filled his glass again, but this time he sipped at it and Scarlet followed suit. They went on this way until the bottle was three-quarters empty. Ochre eyed Scarlet in some doubt; he expected the guy to be showing signs of drunkenness by now, but the Englishman remained as relaxed and coherent as he was himself.

Scarlet returned the stare with a wry grimace and said, “I have another bottle… but it’s the last one, I’m afraid.”

Ochre put the glass back on the table and said curtly, “Okay – what the hell is going on here? What have you done to this stuff?”

“Nothing. It’s the finest single malt – you saw me break the seal on the bottle. Doesn’t it taste right? You’re used to Bourbon, I know, but you’ve always appreciated a good malt before.”

“Before? I have never drunk malt with you until now,” Ochre protested. “In fact I’ve never drunk anything with you before… not even Bourbon.”

“Well, strictly speaking, you are right, I guess. But I have had the odd wee dram with Richard Fraser before now. In fact, on your last birthday I gave you a bottle of the stuff…”

Ochre stood and stared down. “You have never given me anything, Metcalfe – in fact you only take things from me!”

Scarlet shrugged and emptied his glass, “You mean Claudia? You may not want to believe this, but she means nothing to me. I have been involved with another woman for some time now…”

Ochre’s punch landed squarely on Scarlet’s jaw, taking him by surprise, lifting him off his seat and sending him toppling backwards over the chair.

“What do you mean – another woman? Are you two-timing Claudia? If you have done anything to hurt her, I’ll thrash you within an inch of your miserable life, you bastard!” He advanced with every intention of carrying out his threat and stood towering over Scarlet who was struggling to his feet.

Well aware of just how much force to expect from the beating Ochre was threatening him with, Scarlet braced himself. His own strength had been enhanced since his Mysteronisation and every time he retrometabolised his stamina returned unimpaired. He flinched as the first strike landed on him and each subsequent one, yet he refused to defend himself. He felt sure that Ochre would only believe his story if he had seen the proof for himself.

“Calm down, if you will just hear me out…” he panted as he winced under the power of the blows.

“Fight me, you craven coward!”

“No,” Scarlet mumbled through cut and bruised lips.

With a scream of frustrated rage, Ochre spun away, dropping his head into his hands and drawing in great gulps of air. However angry he was he could not continue to thrash this man who refused to make even the smallest attempt to defend himself. He was well aware of his ability to kill him with his bare hands, if he wished.

Thankful that he had not misjudged his opponent and that the men in both realities shared a fundamental decency, Scarlet manipulated his aching jaw and waggled a loose tooth with his tongue. “Feeling better?” he asked walking to the bathroom sink and filling and refilling a glass with water, which he drank in great draughts.

Ochre’s head came up and he turned to look at his opponent, surprised he was still standing at all. He had not pulled any of his punches. As he stared at Scarlet he could see the swelling go down on his lips and the bruise around his eye fade through yellow to the normal skin tone.

“What the hell…?” Ochre’s face was a picture of confused surprise as his hand went automatically to his holster. He drew his pistol and pointed it at Scarlet. “You are a Mysteron!” Scarlet struck out, knocking the gun from his visitor’s hand, sending it spinning across the narrow room. Ochre dived for it, but he was no match for Scarlet in a fair fight and found himself quickly subdued.

“Listen to me, Ochre,” Scarlet panted, twisting the American’s arm higher behind his back. “I am no more a Mysteron than you are.”

He pushed the man away and picked up the gun, throwing it with some contempt across the table so that Ochre could pick it up if he wished.

“I don’t understand…”

“I tried to tell you, but you had... different priorities. And, may I just say, that if you try that again I will defend myself and you won’t know what’s hit you, Fraser. I have always been the better soldier – and you know it.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Paul Metcalfe… sit down and I will try to explain.”

With a sigh, Scarlet began to go through his remarkable story yet again. I ought to get a tape recorder and just let them listen to that…. he thought ruefully.

As his story came to its conclusion, he glanced across at the silent Ochre to see that the man was crying. His dark head was buried on his arms, resting on the tabletop. He hadn’t expected this kind of reaction. He had seen the scepticism on the American’s face as his tale unrolled, but still, he had turned away with considerate tact as he began to speak about finding the bodies of Lieutenants Scarlet and Garnet. The unnatural silence only gradually dawned on him and now, as he turned, he could see Ochre’s shoulders shaking.

At a loss, he poured another glass of malt and placed it by the man’s head. If it had been the real Adam this upset, he would have put an arm around him – but he had never been that close to Ochre and he didn’t know if this mercurial man would appreciate it – in either dimension. He patted his shoulder vaguely and moved away to allow him some privacy. Whatever he thought of this Ochre and his persistent antagonism, the man had obviously been deeply in love with Lieutenant Garnet, and he couldn’t help feeling sympathy with his shock and misery at hearing of her death. He must have believed he had saved her when they discovered the cave, and maybe even losing her to Lieutenant Scarlet was preferable to a World without her at all. He felt that way about Dianne.

Eventually Ochre regained his composure and muttered with some embarrassment, ‘I apologise.”

“Don’t. I am truly sorry about Claudia – but whatever happened between the three of you was nothing to do with me - you do see that, I hope?”

Ochre shrugged. “She couldn’t cope with all the implications of what happened at the Car-Vu – I’m not sure I can myself even now -so why should I blame her?”

Scarlet sat opposite and poured himself another drink. “I’ve had it easier than you on the whole, I think, and even I feel like howling sometimes. I was not involved with anyone when it happened to me, and I was fortunate enough that when I did fall in love, she reciprocated my feelings, despite my … condition.”

“Then she must be an exceptional woman.”

“Yes, I happen to think she is.”

“And Garnet, the woman we brought out of the cavern with you?”

“The first time I met her was when we were marooned in that cave and - if it helps any – she has never met the Captain Ochre in our World and never been stationed on Cloudbase, either.”

“You are sure they were dead? You couldn’t be mistaken?” Ochre pleaded.

“No, Rick, no mistake. I’m sorry.”

Ochre nodded. He drew a deep breath and said, “What do you propose to do? I take it you are not planning to stay here?”

“I am no expert, Rick, but everything I do know suggests it would not be a good idea. Besides, I have to get back to… my duties – and my friends.”

“Am I one of them?”

“For my part, I have always considered you a friend – but I guess it is fair to say we have not always seen eye-to-eye,” Scarlet smiled. “You can be an annoying practical joker at times – and frankly - at first I thought all this was one of your pranks.”

Ochre grimaced. “Oh, I’ve had my moments. But I don’t feel much like joking these days.” There was a prolonged silence which was broken by his sudden desolate cry: “How do you bear it?”

Scarlet shrugged. “What choice does either of us have? It was hard to get used to, I felt like an outsider, a freak. But it seems I was luckier than you have been, I had - I have - good friends. I owe them more than I can ever repay. Without Adam and Dianne and the others, I would feel much as you do, believe me.”

“Adam? You mean Blue? He’s the man who got me into this nightmare!”

“That is where we see it differently,” Scarlet mused. “To me, he is the man who released me from a possible eternity as the slave of the Mysterons. He would say he was merely doing his duty – which is also true – but I see myself fortunate that he had the strength of character to shoot his friend when he had to. Above all, once I was fully recovered he believed in my redemption – when others doubted. We are partners, we work closely together and he has never faltered in his support, or his friendship.”

Ochre gave a sceptical look at the Englishman opposite and saw nothing but honesty in his expression. “And Dianne is the woman you love?” he asked quietly.

Scarlet nodded. “She’s my hope for the future and my sanctuary from the horrors of the present,” he said simply.

“They must be very different to the people we have here,” Ochre spat. “Those two are a waste of space.”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly. From the little I have been able to discover, circumstances have just made them react in different ways to similar problems.” Ochre’s sceptical expression returned, but Scarlet pressed on positively. “You have friends here – people willing to support and… care for you – if only you would let them,” he reasoned, remembering the look on Flaxen’s face as she had watched Ochre climb from the cave.

The American gave a vehement shake of his dark head. “Nah, most of the people here have been corrupted or were corrupt anyway. I wouldn’t let them near me.”

“Most, not all,” Scarlet replied significantly.

“The colonel means well, but he hasn’t got the authority to stop the Agency. Whenever we think we have struck home, Magenta’s hit-squads move in or Blue calls in the big guns. After all, his Uncle is a World Senator and the World President is so grateful that he pulled him off the Car-Vu, he won’t hear a word against him!” Ochre shook his head despondently. “Symphony’s okay – the best of the Angels, anyway – she’s a bright girl under all that dumb-show. Her big weakness is Blue. God knows why, but she cares for that creep.”

“Yes, I thought as much. It seems to be universal truth,” Scarlet smiled.

“Your Symphony does too, eh? Poor kid.”

“Not at all – she runs rings around him most of the time,” Scarlet’s tone was affectionate as he thought of his friends. “They make a damn-near-perfect couple – it’s so sweet it’s nauseating.”

Ochre gave a snort of laugher. “No wonder you were confused. Blue is a sleaze-ball! You cannot trust him on anything.”

“Unfortunately before I knew all of this, I told him what had happened…”

“You did what?”

“I went to ask his help, as I would have asked the Adam I know.”

“Holy shit!”

“Quite. It was fortunate that I had the nous not to tell him everything. He doesn’t know about my retrometabolism. ”

“You had the what?” Ochre frowned.

Scarlet blinked in surprise. Adam had quickly grown accustomed to his use of British-English – and indeed his own speech was occasionally peppered with words and phrases that had caught his fancy. “The common sense,” he explained with a sigh.

“Does anyone else know?”

“Only Colonel White. Oh, and my Lieutenant Garnet, of course. She may have spoken to Doctor Fawn, but I haven’t.”

“If the colonel knows then, it’s my guess that Symphony will know,” Ochre said confidently. “He confides in her, far more than he does in me. And if Blue knows, the chances are Magenta also knows, at least as much as Blue wants to tell him. You have made a dangerous mistake.”

“Then I must live with the consequences and attempt to ensure whatever they plan to do goes awry.” Scarlet studied Ochre and added, “Can I rely on your help, Rick?”

Ochre nodded. “Of course, all the more if it shafts Blue and Magenta!”

Scarlet smiled and passed the malt across once more. It was probably as much enthusiasm as he was going to get from his companion. Now all that remained to be done was to find a way for him and Garnet to get home.

Child’s play, really, he thought ironically as he drowned his fears in a large malt whisky.

PART THREE – IDENTITY CRISIS

Chapter One

THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE MYSTERONS. WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR US, EARTHMEN. WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN YOUR UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON OUR MARTIAN COMPLEX AND WE WILL BE REVENGED.

OUR NEXT ACT OF RETALIATION WILL SEE PILLARS OF FIRE DESTROY ALL AROUND THEM WHILST RINGS OF FIRE WILL ENGULF MANY SEAS AND DARKEN ALL THE SKIES.

Scarlet woke with a start and tugged at his earlobes, believing his ears were deceiving him – or maybe that he was dreaming. Moments later the yellow alert signal flashed and he knew that the threat had been for real. He glanced at the bedside clock which showed 4:27. Wonderful, he thought. At least the last time I heard that threat I was wide-awake and ready for action. He dragged himself out of bed and groped about for his clothes. A glance in the mirror showed him he needed a shave and he was thankful he had showered before he turned in last night. He zipped up the tunic and stamped his feet into his boots, then left the room and, momentarily disorientated, wondered which way was quickest for the Conference Room.

Along the corridor other officers were starting to emerge, still dozy with sleep, and slowly he realised he might not be expected in the conference room. He was not one of the colour captains after all. He wondered where his station was and was on the verge of turning back to his quarters with the intention of checking the duty roster when a gentle voice with the unmistakable lilt of the West Indies came over the tannoy.

“Lieutenant Scarlet, please report to the Conference Room immediately.”

He was the last to arrive. A quick glance around the room showed him Magenta and Blue side by side at a distance from Ochre and Flaxen, whilst Grey hovered uncertainly between the couples and Colonel White murmured to Symphony Angel. Lieutenant Green gave him a cheerful smile as he sidled in and he blushed as he returned it. Her face broke into a broad grin as she said, “All present and correct, Colonel.”

Blue looked across at him and gave the slightest of nods, whilst Magenta stared at him with a calculating expression. Scarlet guessed that Blue had told him something about his claims to be from a different reality – although, meeting the shrewd dark eyes of the Irish-American, he found himself echoing Ochre’s hope that Blue had kept some of it back, as insurance against the ruthless nature of his ally.

There seemed to be nothing of the genial Patrick Donaghue he knew in the brooding figure across the room. He swallowed compulsively, as he acknowledged, for the second time in as many years, that, after all, Pat had been a very prominent member of a profession not known for their people skills, and that there was definitely a core of steel beneath even Pat’s sunny nature. Surely, this Patrick Donaghue was simply as much an exaggerated version of the original, as Blue or Symphony or even Green appeared to be. He wondered what choices this man had made to have caused so radical a shift in his character.

There was movement across the room and Magenta turned his penetrating gaze on to Symphony Angel. As he watched her, his eyes appeared to grow even darker with – Scarlet realised in surprise – an almost desperate yearning.

Well, Scarlet mused, he knew that, in his World, Pat Donaghue had always had a ‘soft spot’ for Karen Wainwright – and had, briefly, held cautious hopes that she felt the same, but he’d eventually accepted that he was not the man she really wanted and that particular daydream had been laid to rest, or so Scarlet had always imagined. Since then Pat had escorted several of the young women from the base’s support staff, without ever appearing to get too deeply involved with any one in particular.

Scarlet studied Symphony, remembering what the colonel had said about her refusal to join the Agency. There was no way she could fail to be aware of Magenta’s intense look, but she pointedly ignored it and her bright eyes met Scarlet’s with the merest hint of a wink as she chewed on her ubiquitous gum.

Feeling surprisingly reassured, he continued his examination of the group. Ochre’s febrile eyes were fixed with obvious animosity on Magenta, until, sensing he was being studied, he glanced towards Scarlet and his tense expression relaxed slightly. Obviously, he now saw the Englishman as an ally, but Scarlet still found it hard to come to terms with the fact that the animosity, between two men he knew to be close friends in his world, was fierce enough to be almost tangible. But then, Richard Fraser was not one to compromise his standards for purely diplomatic reasons, after all.

Captain Flaxen was sitting beside her partner. She noticed his astonishing reaction to Scarlet and she stared, frowning, at her compatriot. Scarlet wished Ochre had had the foresight to warn his partner. Flaxen was obviously well in tune with his moods, and she recognised the unexpected relaxation of hostilities between the two erstwhile rivals for Claudia’s affections and could not imagine what had brought it about. She certainly knew that, in Ochre’s private Hell, the innermost circle had been reserved for the triumvirate of Blue, Magenta and Scarlet – with equal venom.

He hoped that Ochre had the sense to hide their new rapprochement from the canny eyes of the Agency bosses. Whatever else people had told him about Blue and Magenta, no-one had called them stupid, and they were unlikely to miss the development of a new alliance between their opponents.

Colonel White coughed to attract their attention and looked around the room at his warring officers. He had decided, at the last minute, to include Scarlet in the conference. The chilling words of the Mysterons’ threat had struck a chord in his memory as he recalled the young man’s story of just such a threat and how it had been handled in his World – and its unexpected consequences. So far, he thought, it is additional proof that, however unlikely the facts might seem, Scarlet does appear to be telling me the truth – or at least a version of it. He speculated that this young man’s inclusion in the forthcoming mission might – possibly – be helpful in bringing down the Agency Bosses, once and for all. After all, he reasoned, hindsight is an exact science.

Before his silence provoked comment, he said,

“I trust everyone heard the Mysterons’ threat? Good. I want to know if anyone has any ideas as to just what they could be planning this time.” He turned to his right. “Captain Blue, any thoughts?” Scarlet breathed a sigh of relief, the colonel wasn’t letting on that he had heard tell of a similar threat, or where his prior knowledge might have come from.

Blue gave the merest smile. “It would seem to be targeted at volcanoes, sir. At a guess,” he added, with a conspiratorial glance at Scarlet.

“I agree with Captain Blue, sir,” Scarlet interjected. “What’s more, I suggest they mean to start with Etna, where, as you know, the new volcanic pacifier has recently been installed, in an attempt to deter what have been forecast as major eruptions. Should the Mysterons – or anyone else – succeed in tampering with the pacifier and inducing these eruptions, it would be catastrophic for the region. I imagine, if the scheme proved successful, they would move on to other locations; the area is rich with active volcanoes, such as Vesuvius, or they might even take on a wider range of targets… for example, the volcanoes along the Pacific Rim.” He couldn’t resist the temptation to steal Blue’s thunder for once.

“You took the words right out of my mouth, Lieutenant.” There was a hint of amusement in Blue’s voice as he uncrossed his long legs and strolled across to the World map displayed behind the colonel. “Neighbouring pillars of fire – and we know Etna is already active to the point of being a danger to the surrounding area, that was the reason it was chosen to pilot the effectiveness of the pacifiers – or so I believe. And let’s not forget Stromboli -the latest reports say that volcano has been more active of late, as has Vesuvius… across the bay here, very close to Naples.” He tapped the map with one finger. “It is just conceivable that a major eruption at Etna would destabilise the area and provoke the other volcanoes into erupting too – with, as the good Lieutenant so aptly says, catastrophic results. Apart from that, sir,” he glanced at Magenta with a satisfied smirk, “I am as much in the dark as everyone else. I really know very little about volcanoes. Isn’t that the case, Captain Magenta?”

Magenta barely looked up from the folder he was studying and growled, “No doubt, Captain Blue.”

“If you read the daily update reports, Captain, you would know rather more than you claim to. You would know, for instance, about the possibility of a ‘terrorist’ assault on the pacifier. Warnings have been received by the Italian authorities and that is why Spectrum already has a presence on Etna.” The colonel looked with grave warning at the two Americans. “I do not want another incident to explain to the World Security Council.”

This time Magenta did look up, and growled, “Your meaning, Colonel? Are you suggesting we have any connection with this threat?”

Colonel White met the challenging stare with a forthright one of his own. It was Magenta who looked away, a dull flush on his cheeks as he studied his folder once more.

Blue ignored them and walked back to the colonel’s desk. “How do you propose we combat this threat, Colonel?”

Scarlet glanced surreptitiously at the colonel, wondering how he would deal with such a leading question.

Colonel White kept his tone as neutral as Blue’s had been. “There is already a security cordon in place around Etna – it comprises of a few of our men and a contingent from the local WAAF base. Therefore, as the threat is now from the Mysterons, it would seem prudent to increase our presence – to prevent any Mysteron agents from destroying or interfering with the pacifier. I also propose to send a second team down, to protect Professor Gaspari – Captain Grey, you will lead that team,” he paused, “and as for the Etna team…”

“I would like to volunteer, sir.”

“You, Captain Blue?” The colonel’s surprise was not feigned. “I understood you are still on the sick list.”

“Happily, Doctor Fawn has certified me as fit for duty this very evening. I am sure the paperwork is on its way, as we speak, sir.”

The colonel gave the tall American an icy stare. Blue worked when he wanted to and if he told Fawn he wanted to be declared unfit, a certificate would duly appear on the colonel’s desk the next morning. He had no doubt that a certificate of fitness could appear just as readily.

“How fortunate, Captain. Very well, I think you ought to go along – with Captain Ochre, Symphony Angel and… Lieutenant Scarlet.”

“Do I have to work with him?” Ochre protested, glaring at the smirking Blue with genuine loathing.

“Captain Ochre, now is not the time for personal animosities,” Colonel White said sharply. “Many thousands of lives will be at risk if we fail to stop this Mysteron threat. I trust you and Captain Blue to work together with all diligence.”

“I have no problem with that,” Blue said, looking hurt. “I am only sorry that Captain Ochre still finds it within himself to harbour such a grudge against me. I was only doing my duty at the Car-Vu, after all.”

“Oh, can it, you sanctimonious hypocrite!” Ochre snarled.

“Captain Ochre!” The colonel’s anger was not feigned this time.

Ochre’s dark eyes met the colonel’s fierce blue ones and, after a short struggle, fell. “I apologise,” he muttered.

“And I accept,” Blue grinned.

“I wasn’t apologising to you…”

“Hey, when you two schoolboys have stopped playing one-upmanship games with each other, we have a job to do.” Symphony Angel stood and tugged her uniform jacket down over her ample hips. “Come on Sky, Oaks – let’s get a move on. Lieutenant Scarlet, can we leave you to sort an SPJ out? Half-an-hour in hangar two, you guys, and the last one there is a cissy!”

She strolled out of the room with an air of indifference and Flaxen, following her out, was heard to mutter, “Sometimes, I think she’s the only one around here with any balls.”

The men all avoided looking at each other and busied themselves gathering their belongings, prior to leaving the room.

Apparently in a hurry to get to the hangar and perform the pre-take off checks, Scarlet hurried after Symphony. Hearing his call she stopped and waited for him. He saw the gleam of intelligence in her hazel-green eyes as she watched him approach. Remembering Ochre’s assessment of her, he found himself warming to this woman. He had always liked Karen Wainwright; they had a lot in common in many ways – quite apart from their friendship with Adam Svenson.

“I need your help…” he began with a quick smile.

“Forgotten if the hangars are in the same place in this universe?” she asked quietly, a sceptical smile on her unusually pallid face.

He grimaced. So Ochre had guessed right and Colonel White had told her. “Very funny, Symphony.” He returned her smile. “No, I’m thinking about Lieutenant Garnet… as you are aware of our predicament, you must realise that this may be our best chance to get back through the portal. I have no idea what triggered the switch between my reality and yours, but I’m betting it won’t be there for ever…”

“You intend to use this opportunity to leave us, Captain?” There was an edge to her voice that revealed her disapproval.

“Believe me, I want to stop the Mysterons any way I can, and anywhere I can. But, once that part of the mission is over… would you deny that I have the right to seek a way back to my own world?”

She glanced away momentarily. “No, I guess you have the right to do that – after you’ve helped us sort this threat out. Fair’s fair, after all.”

He smiled at her. “Yes,” he said, thinking that Symphony was not always so level-headed. “So you must understand that I can’t leave Garnet here. Yet, I’m sure I’m not authorized to sanction her discharge from sick-bay.”

She nodded. “And you assume I am?” She drew a deep breath and said, “I don’t pretend to understand what game you are playing, Captain Scarlet, but the colonel says you are to be trusted – for now – so… you can leave it to me. I have my orders too. It would be for the best if only we two knew about this for now. I wish I had been in time to stop you telling everything to Captain Blue… the Agency may have other plans for the pair of you, and we don’t want them interfering.” She paused and dropped her voice to a whisper. “By the way, you have realised you’re being followed, haven’t you? Magenta isn’t going to risk losing you or Garnet, if you are from another dimension and if you are our Scarlet, he still wants you dead. I would advise you to keep clear of Lieutenant Cobalt; he is not a nice man. I’ll fetch Garnet, whilst you go and get the jet sorted. We’ll meet you in hangar two in ten minutes. If you can distract Cobalt for a while, it’ll make it easier.”

“Distract as in… render unconscious?”

She shrugged. “Whatever you can manage, Scarlet. If Cobalt doesn’t carry out his orders he’ll end up having to explain it to Magenta and Patrick will, no doubt, express his annoyance in his usual way. Still, broken fingers do mend… eventually.”

“Symphony…”

She looked up at him, “Yes?”

“Thanks… for everything.”

“Wait until we’ve done it, Paul, then you can be as grateful as you like!” She suddenly reached out and patted his cheek, winked and resumed her unhurried stroll to the escalators.

Scarlet watched until she had disappeared and the others had pushed past him and gone their separate ways. He turned towards the conference room, where Ochre and the colonel were still busily discussing something or other and caught sight of Cobalt hovering along the corridor. With a sigh he turned and walked slowly towards the hangar, planning exactly how he would distract the young Nigerian.

By the time Symphony arrived at the hangar ready to depart, the other members of the away team were already there but, Scarlet grinned, no-one called her a cissy as she threw a holdall into the passenger compartment and moved to the cockpit.

“If I can’t fly myself, I want to be where I can prevent anyone else crashing the plane,” she said, looking sourly at Captain Blue who was going through the final instrument checks. “I don’t suppose…” she began.

“Quite right,” he replied absently as he reset a dial and then glanced up at her. “I fly my own plane, Symphony. Always have done, always will.”

“Don’t I know it,” she replied. She strapped herself into the co-pilot’s seat and tapped a series of codes into the console as the jet was raised to the flight deck. “Ready when you are, Sky. Let’s take her up.”

Lieutenant Green gave them flight clearance and the jet taxied smoothly along the deck and sailed seamlessly into the wide, blue expanse of the cloudless sky. Scarlet gave a slight nod of acknowledgement – Real Adam couldn’t have handled the take-off better – the colonel had been right to say Blue was a good pilot.

The SPJ banked away from Cloudbase, framing the huge craft in a halo of brilliant sunlight before the base disappeared from sight as they headed for the Italian coast. Sitting next to Ochre in the passenger seats, Scarlet mused on the forthcoming mission with some trepidation.

Chapter Two

Symphony was waiting for Captain Blue as he emerged from the cabin in his wetsuit. Silently she handed him his mask and fins. He smiled his thanks, too unsure of her mood to risk speaking. She threw her arms round him and whispered in his ear, “Take care of yourself and I hope you find Paul. But if it is a choice between him or you, I am going to be really selfish and hope you make it back.”

He hugged her. “Oh, I’ll be back; someone has to keep you in check…”

She thumped him playfully, and then presented her face for his kiss. Oblivious to the audience they had acquired, he kissed her and she broke away with a smile. Troy indicated the entrance to the airlock with a gesture that invited the Spectrum officer to go first and, as Blue turned to go, Symphony playfully slapped his backside.

“No flirting with any pretty mermaids…” she teased, hiding her fears for his safety under levity – as usual.

The divers left Stingray using the sea-bugs. Captain Blue had never used one before and it took him a few attempts to manoeuvre the individual jet-motor correctly and stretch out behind it so that it towed him along through the water. He could hear Tempest chuckling at his ungainly actions over his microphone. Having finally mastered the technique, he gave the aquanaut the thumbs up and they moved away from Stingray into the open sea.

The current was even stronger than Blue remembered and controlling the machine was quite a task initially. He followed in Troy’s slipstream as the aquanaut led the way towards the jumble of jagged boulders that lay at the foot of the volcanic coastline. They searched along the sea-bed but saw no sign of Captain Scarlet.

Suddenly Tempest waved Blue to a halt and, handing him his sea-bug, he dived to the sea-bed, coming back with the underwater map the Spectrum officers had used for their initial search of the wreckage area. “I’ll give this to Phones, it’ll save his duplicating the effort,” he said over the radio. Blue nodded and watched as Tempest turned his sea-bug around and headed for the sub once more.

Left alone, Blue decided to use the time investigating his immediate surroundings. He could see how the escarpment seemed to fall away into a precipitous trench, a few metres beyond where he was. He edged forward to determine the extent of the drop. He had not moved very far when there was a deep, bone-shaking rumble and the water around him began to seethe. Huge jets of boiling water exploded from crevices, like some geological Jacuzzi, and his surroundings grew perceptibly warmer, as the sudden flood entered the straits. Influenced by the rising tides, a strong wave buffeted at him and he began to spin uncontrollably in the undertow. The sea-bug was torn from his desperate grasp and spun away to crash onto the rocks below. He tried to swim against the insistent pull but made little headway against the increasingly turbulent current. Then the water seemed to heave, as if a giant wave was breaking over him and he was hurled towards the serrated rocks. Desperately he kicked out and sobbed with relief as he cleared the razor-edged outcrop. He felt sure he could break clear now, but without warning the current changed and the water, spinning him like a top, dragged him down into the inky depths beyond the ridge.

“S.I.R!” he screamed into his radio mic as he fought the overpowering force of the tide. His regulator was torn from his mouth and he was slammed against a cave wall, with a force that expelled the remaining air from his lungs. He saw a distant bank of shingle, against which the ‘wave’ was breaking with a force that deafened him, and he struggled towards it, desperate for air. This was worse than anything he’d experienced in all his years of diving and water sports, and he was as close to drowning as he had ever been. Bracing himself for the impact, he let the water fling him up on to the bank. Gasping for breath, he struggled to crawl a few feet away from the drag of the retreating tide but lay too exhausted to move further as the next breaker roared into the cave and pounded him into unconsciousness.

~oo0oo~

Arriving at the WAAF base on Sicily, the Spectrum away team disembarked and started unloading their equipment from the SPJ, whilst auxiliary ground agents stowed it into the vehicles already waiting for their use.

Captain Ochre was over-seeing the operation, issuing orders in a stentorian bellow. Scarlet smiled to see that even Captain Blue was lending a hand with the manual labour. He got the distinct impression from Symphony’s expression that this did not happen very often.

Whilst everyone was busy, he went back into the plane and knocked briefly on the door of the emergency medical compartment, which he had configured in the adaptable space of the passenger cabin, before they left Cloudbase.

Lieutenant Garnet opened the door and emerged into the main cabin with a tentative smile. “We’re here?” she asked. When he nodded, she continued, “Do they know I am here?”

“No, I thought we would let that be our little surprise…” Scarlet winked at her. “There was no way you were going to be left behind, Claudia,” he reassured her. “If Symphony hadn’t been prepared to collect you from sick-bay I would have found a way to fetch you myself. There is no way of knowing if we can ever find a way back, but I am sure as hell that if anyone has a right to be here when we try – it is you.”

“Symphony told me that Colonel White has stipulated we must help deal with the Mysteron threat to the pacifier, before we could begin to look for the portal,” she explained. She wondered if he knew that the Angel pilot had pumped her for information all the time she was accompanying her down to the hangar bay. It had been a relief to explain about her captivity and escape to such a sympathetic listener, that she had, perhaps, said more than she should concerning Captain Scarlet’s remarkable abilities. But Symphony had shown so little surprise on hearing the information that she suspected the captain had told her himself.

When they had reached the hangar bay, Symphony had noted with satisfaction that Scarlet was alone and had left him to stow Garnet away on the plane – hurrying away to collect her own things before her tardiness became too noticeable.

Now, as she emerged with Captain Scarlet into the bright, Mediterranean sunlight, Garnet wondered if she had done the right thing after all. No-one seemed very pleased to see her, indeed, Captain Ochre’s face showed a mixture of alarm and concern at the sight of her.

He began to berate Scarlet. “What on earth are you thinking of? I’m sure Lieutenant Garnet can’t have recovered enough to undertake this mission. Besides, we don’t have time to make allowances for any officers unable to keep up,” he insisted as he gazed at the young woman. Garnet blushed with embarrassment, although whether it was caused by his words or his gaze it wasn’t possible to say.

“If anyone has the right to be here when we investigate the possibility of making the return journey to our own dimension, it is Lieutenant Garnet,” Scarlet said calmly, in the face of Ochre’s continuing bluster. “And if you must know, I asked Symphony to fetch her to join us. She was doing me a favour.”

Ochre turned angrily towards Symphony. “I was happy to do it,” the Angel pilot commented blandly, with a look at her colleague that should have been enough to calm his agitation. It didn’t, primarily, she imagined, because he was actually more unsettled by the presence of the woman than he was worried about the consequences to his mission. She pursed her lips and held her tongue realising that, even knowing that this woman wasn’t the same Claudia Vecchio as the one he had been in love with, was not making it any easier for Ochre to ignore her.

Then, much to everyone’s surprise, Blue echoed Ochre’s doubts. This was one reproof too many for Symphony – she wasn’t prepared to make allowances for this captain’s feelings – and, in response to his reproof; she jerked one hand towards him, the middle finger extended.

Scarlet smothered a laugh.

Garnet sighed and wondered if Captain Ochre didn’t have a point after all. She was feeling much better than when the rescue team had found them; but she knew she was still weak. When Symphony had arrived in sick bay with the news that Captain Scarlet was returning to Etna, she had panicked, wondering if she would to be left alone in this new reality. But now, in the face of Ochre and Blue’s disapproval, she began to doubt the wisdom of her decision and she moved to stand closer to Captain Scarlet. He gave her a reassuring smile and she felt grateful that he seemed to understand her.

Ochre continued to look angrily at the Angel and said, “Then I hope you will do me the favour of explaining that to the colonel, instead of expecting me to do it. He thinks we are all here primarily to stop the Mysterons from carrying out their threat. And, anything that might hamper that aim is to be regretted. Besides, I don’t believe he expected you to turn this into a chance to go inter-dimensional pot-holing. At least, not until we have definitely stopped the Mysterons dead in their tracks…”

Scarlet interrupted peremptorily. “If I can do anything to help stop the Mysterons carrying out their threat, I will, rest assured, Captain. Yet, I am sure you’ll understand if I say, to me, getting myself and Garnet back to where we belong is equally important.”

Ochre shrugged and turned his back on his companions; it had unsettled him to see Claudia and he was fighting hard to stay in control.

Anxious to patch things up with the – at least nominal – commander of this mission, Scarlet moved closer and glanced surreptitiously at Blue before adding quietly, “I can understand why you are concerned… you doubt his intentions?”

Ochre shrugged. He did not yet trust Scarlet enough to confide everything to him. Besides, it was too late to do much about it now. Claudia was here and he would just have to make the best of it. He considered that his mission was already hampered by a team that consisted of an independent and strong-willed woman, a man determined to go his own way and a fellow officer, whose primary allegiance, it seemed, was to the enemy. Now he had the additional burden of a semi-invalid. He knew he was going to have to exert himself to keep command of this eclectic group.

He turned to the SSC the auxiliary had brought across the tarmac. “It is gonna be a squash in there,” he grumbled.

“Three in the front and then there is still room in the back for the equipment,” Symphony said briskly. “Who’s going to drive?”

The three men glanced at each other. “Me,” Blue said firmly and demanded the keys from the hovering security guard.

“Nothing new there, then,” Scarlet muttered and followed Blue to the car.

After a certain amount of discussion, Scarlet and Ochre ended up amongst the equipment in the back seats whilst the women sat with Blue in the front.

Scarlet noticed that the three security guards who had met the plane followed behind in a second SSC; clearly, Ochre was taking no chances of being outnumbered by others with differing aims on this mission. Although he knew he shouldn’t have been surprised the colonel had given instructions that the search for the portal must wait until after the resolution of this mission – it was, after all, what he would have expected from his own colonel, if he was honest about it – he couldn’t help feeling worried that any delay in getting back through the portal might jeopardise their chances of ever returning.

He was cautiously hopeful that they would find a way to get back, but quite how he was going to communicate with his Captain Blue and the rescue team he was sure would be searching for them, was another matter. He could only hope that although he had travelled back in time, when they found a portal it would take them back to the date he had disappeared…. Otherwise they could spend a year waiting for Adam to even be in the right place… always assuming his disappearance hadn’t altered the timeline in his own dimension, of course. It was a nightmare.

Squashed in the back of the SSC, nursing a kit bag on his lap, Captain Scarlet frowned and tried to look on the bright side of things… before deciding, with uncharacteristic pessimism, that he couldn’t think of any.

~oo0oo~

At the camp at the base of the volcano, where restless waves crashed against the black shoreline, sending perpetual clouds of steam hissing into the air, Scarlet recognised the outcrop of jagged rocks that guarded the entrances to the interlocking tunnels and caves which honeycombed the mountain. There were more Spectrum Auxiliary guards around the area and a portacabin not far away – which was obviously their HQ – a far cry from the hi-tech surroundings of Cloudbase, he thought, as he surveyed the area.

Under the watchful eye of the guards they unloaded the ropes, hard hats and powerful flashlights from the SSC. It quickly became apparent that there were not enough hats to go around.

“You can use mine,” Scarlet said to Garnet, automatically holding out the bright yellow headgear, with its distinctive Spectrum logo at the front.

She reached to take it from him, but Ochre stopped her and handed her his. “Better that you use mine,” he said brusquely, with a significant twitch of his eyebrows at Scarlet. “I’m not likely to get killed by falling rocks, am I?”

Scarlet, remembering that Blue – and possibly Symphony – remained in ignorance of his power of retrometabolism, obediently plonked his hat back on his dark hair and winked at Garnet. She cringed at the thought that she might have ‘blown his cover’ with the Angel pilot. With a sinking heart she put her hat on and watched as the others finished the preparations for their entrance to the tunnels.

The entrance was wide and easy to negotiate but within a few metres, the passage divided. The wider of the two was almost completely blocked by a rock fall and the other was a mere crevice. With Ochre leading the way, they shuffled along in single file and frequently had to crawl. There were frequent clangs as hard hat met rock and Captain Blue was not the only one cursing fluently by the time they emerged into a small, dark cavern.

Scarlet found it hard to remember the exact route they had taken, but he couldn’t recall the way out being quite so treacherous.

Garnet, already wilting with the heat and exertion, leaned against the rock face and said to him, “I don’t remember much about being carried from the caves earlier, Captain, but it never seemed this bad.”

Ochre turned at hearing her comment, and answered before Scarlet, “No, it wasn’t this way. We came out before via a more direct route, which was subsequently blocked. You saw, back there, that wider passage, blocked by the rock fall? We came out through there; it intersects with the passages we used, some way down the tunnel system. This is now the only way down into the main cavern, and from there we have to climb back to that intersection to link with the tunnel with the pacifier in. It’s possible that the whole tunnel will be blocked by a fall eventually, so there are plans to drill a secure route through to the pacifier’s chamber but they hadn’t got very far when the tremor brought this roof down.”

“He waits until now to tell us that,” Blue muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Hey, you know what? I am hoping that whatever happens here, you manage to get trapped inside this mountain until you learn some manners!”

“Oh, now I’m worried,” Blue mocked. He straightened up to his full height in response to Ochre’s aggressive stance.

“Hey!” Symphony moved between them. “If he gets trapped we’ll all be trapped – so unless you two want to spend your last hours fighting each other, stop it!”

“They won’t be my last hours…” Ochre taunted. Blue darted towards him, but Scarlet stepped next to Symphony and they formed a barrier between the warring Americans. He laid a hand on Blue’s chest and pushed him away.

“She’s right, Blue. We all want to get out of here in one piece, and to do that we need to co-operate. Now, let’s move on again, shall we? Does anyone have any idea where we go from here?”

Ochre produced a sketch map and waved it under their noses, “This is as good as it gets… Flaxen and I drew this before we left Cloudbase. We based this on the official charts the authorities produced, when they installed the machine, but of course, since then some tunnels have collapsed and others opened. We simplified it, to make it easier to follow,” Ochre explained to Symphony as she took the paper and squinted at it under the light from her torch.

She grimaced, “You failed then, Oaks… this looks like nothing so much as two spiders dancing a jig…”

Sniggering, Scarlet peered over her shoulder. “I see what you mean, all right, but look, I think you’ll find that…” he turned the map the other way round, “now it looks slightly more comprehensible… that circle must represent the cave we are in now. The pacifier looks to be over in that direction, through those tunnels coming off from the next large cave, the entrance to which, ought to be in that direction. The cavern Garnet and I are looking for, to find the portal, is across there and down a further tunnel,” he said to Symphony, who nodded her head in rueful agreement.

“What is it with women and maps?” Blue murmured to no-one in particular.

“You are coming to check the pacifier with me?” Ochre sought confirmation from his colleagues.

Blue gave a derisive snort. “Are you saying you’d trust me anywhere near it?” he asked Ochre.

“Personally, I wouldn’t trust you anywhere,” came the immediate reply.

“Stop it!” Symphony snarled at them both, “Before I knock your heads together.”

“I will come with you, Captain, although I suggest that Lieutenant Garnet remains here. Perhaps you would be kind enough to stay with her, Symphony?” Scarlet said.

“Hey, no…” the Angel protested.

Ochre over-ruled her, “Scarlet is right, she can’t traipse about after us… please, Karen, stay with her…” He placed a hand on the Angel’s arm. Her indecision was clearly visible on her face, but as she glanced across at the exhausted Garnet, she nodded her head. “Thank you,” Ochre said simply.

“I am sorry,” Garnet said to her. “I know how much you’d rather be going with them…”

“It’s all right,” Symphony replied. “They’ll need someone to protect their cute butts for them, anyway and you need to conserve your strength for the climb to the other cavern and the portal home. Let’s move over there and find a better place to sit this out…”

She shouldered one of the canvas knapsacks and started across the rock-strewn floor in the direction of the far tunnel entrances. Garnet trailed after. Their progress was slow for the floor of the cavern was littered with fallen rocks of all sizes, many with edges sharp enough to slice the flesh of any unwary person who slipped and fell.

The officers watched the women until they were the best part of the way across the cavern. Symphony stopped frequently to assist her weaker companion and at one point they both turned and waved at the officers. All three men waved back.

“She’s a nice girl…” Scarlet commented. Ochre glared at him and with a smile he explained, “Symphony is a nice girl. She really wanted to stay with us, but she knew Garnet couldn’t have kept up.”

“Yeah, well, she’s responsible for bringing Claudia along in the first place. And as I told you – except for one unaccountable weakness – she’s the best of the Angels.” Ochre cast a glance at Captain Blue.

The tall American sighed. “I’ve known far worse women,” he agreed.

Scarlet’s eyebrows rose as he detected a softening in Blue’s expression. Maybe this Adam wasn’t as indifferent to this Karen as he liked to make out?

They shouldered the other knapsacks and turned to begin the steep climb to the mouth of the tunnel that led to the pacifier. They had barely gone a few metres when a gunshot echoed around the cavern and there was a scream from one of the women.

Three heads spun around. Symphony was down, shielding Garnet. That they were both alive was confirmed as they began to crawl up the slope to the mouth of a large tunnel. Several shots hit the rocks around them, causing them to drop flat again.

Peering in the direction of the shots they were able to make out the figure of a man near the mouth of the first tunnel. He was armed with an automatic weapon and was firing at the women. To reach him they would have to cross largely open terrain, which would be suicide, but, Scarlet realised, there was a slim chance he could reach the women and try to protect them.

He didn’t hesitate. Dropping his kit bag and his hard hat, he set off at a run towards Symphony and Garnet, dodging behind boulders and zigzagging across the open ground. Captain Blue, following close behind, stopped after a few paces, crouched behind a sizeable rock and drew his pistol from his holster. He fired off a few shots in the general direction of the gunman, which, although he was too far away for them to be very effective, did succeed in diverting the gunman’s attention and drawing his fire away from the women.

It also put both Scarlet and himself in the firing line.

Pausing to fire off another round, Blue squinted at the distant figure and gave a gasp of recognition. “Ruffolo!” That can only mean that Magenta is behind this attack…which could make things difficult, he thought. Doggedly, he followed Captain Scarlet, who was now some distance ahead.

Ochre watched the other officers disappear with exasperation. His shouts of “Wait!” had been lost in the echoes of further shooting. Cursing, he began to follow, but a series of near misses from a second – and so far unseen – gunman forced him back towards the tunnels leading to the pacifier. Realising that this second gunman could easily outflank his colleagues, he drew his own pistol and fired off a blistering hail of bullets in the general direction of the assassins.

Come on, Punk, he thought desperately, you come after me and I will have you!

He glanced back into the darkness of the cave’s interior and, praying that Scarlet and Blue would be able to protect the women, he darted into the tunnel leading to the pacifier and waited at the first bend, confident that his assailant had followed him.

~oo0oo~

Oblivious of the drama being played out in the caverns beneath their feet, the Italian security guards on the surface watched with some surprise as an SPV approached their portacabin HQ. They had had no notification from Cloudbase, or even the office in Naples, to expect reinforcements. However, any addition to the complement here was welcome. They all had to spend their thirty minutes in the tunnels close to the pacifier and even with the ear-defenders the noise and unrelenting thump of the machine was unbearable after the shortest time. The possibility that they would have less time down there was a welcome one.

So it came as a complete shock when the SPV cannon slid from the front grill and blasted the portacabin to smithereens. The surviving security man from Cloudbase tried desperately to contact any member of the tunnel party, but there was too much interference for his personal radio to be effective and the base’s powerful radio was in the smoking ruins of the portacabin

Those men who had not been in the building ran for cover. They watched as the SPV driving seat descended and a tall, dark-haired man emerged from the SPV – a man dressed in a black Spectrum uniform. With ruthless concentration, he moved across the site, and picked off every surviving agent. As the last man drew his final breath, two pale green rings of light shimmered over the devastation and the ruined building rose once more on its foundations.

Captain Black watched with an expressionless face as the green rings travelled over the dead bodies and one by one the Mysteron agents clambered to their feet. They turned their dead eyes on their leader and, in obedience to his unspoken command, dragged the corpses of their human selves towards a gaping fissure that had recently opened in the volcano wall. With no apparent sentiment, they slung the bodies into the molten rock beneath their feet and watched them incinerate in the primordial furnace.

Captain Black then walked towards the entrance to the warren of tunnels and disappeared inside. Two of the newly created Mysteron agents followed him.

~oo0oo~

Once the officers had opened fire against the assassins, and the bullets had stopped flying around their heads, Symphony encouraged Garnet to crawl along towards the nearest tunnel mouth. “We can hide in there, Claudia… it’s not far.”

There was the sound of more gunshots echoing around the cave and they could just hear Scarlet’s voice yelling, “Get under cover! Hide!”

“The men’ll be coming to help us,” Symphony said with more assurance than she felt. They edged their way to the tunnel, and as another flurry of bullets bounced around them, Symphony pushed Garnet into a narrow fissure in the tunnel wall. “Quick, hide in there!”

The dark-haired American slipped into the gloom and moments later Symphony followed….

From the sparse cover of the boulders on the cavern floor, Scarlet saw the women vanish into a slit in the rock face. “Good girl, Karen…” Scarlet muttered. “Now, what do we do about the gunman?” He turned to Blue.

“There are two of them; one has just gone after Ochre… he went into the tunnels leading to the pacifier. Maybe we should go after them?”

“And leave the girls to the mercy of that madman?”

“It’s Ruffolo,” Blue admitted, “one of Magenta’s main henchman … I suspect he’s under orders to kill us all.”

“Carlo Ruffolo is the second in command at Spectrum Naples. He’s a nice guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Scarlet said with some surprise.

“Maybe your Ruffolo wouldn’t,” Blue said sourly. “That man – that Ruffolo – is a member of Magenta’s agency. He’s killed several times on command, to my knowledge. Magenta moved him to Naples when the colonel posted Garnet there. If he is here, it’s because Magenta sent him – he wouldn’t leave the command HQ without instructions from the Agency.”

Almost as if he had heard the words, Ruffolo suddenly extended his gun arm and fired towards the crouching men. The bullet went wild and ricocheted around the boulders at the foot of the shingle bank. The officers dived for cover. Ruffolo fired again.

“Well, that proves he’s probably been told to kill us all,” Blue called to Scarlet where he was hiding behind a nearby rock.

“Me, sure and even you, at a pinch, but why harm the women?”

“If you are from another dimension, so is Garnet… As for Symphony – Well, Pat’s patience is easily exhausted and she’s been a thorn in the side of the Agency for some time now. I’m afraid that he doesn’t put his personal feelings before his money making schemes,” Blue explained absently as he busied himself reloading his pistol. He glanced up at Scarlet. “Besides, she may have told him to go to Hell once too often.”

“Would you care if she’s hurt?”

“Of course I would!” There was a flash of anger in his face. “She’s my friend.”

Scarlet gave a thoughtful glance. “If you say so,” he agreed mildly.

He yelped in surprise as another bullet whizzed past. “He’s not really aiming anywhere,” he snapped. There was a distinct rumble behind them as the noise and the impact of the bullets unsettled the fragile stability of the cavern. A large boulder rolled ponderously down the slope. “If he goes on like this he’ll have the roof down,” he concluded.

“What makes you think he isn’t aiming on purpose?” Blue commented, fixing a device to the barrel of his gun. He shifted his position and rested his arm on the rock in front of him, closed one eye and took careful aim.

“You’re too far away to make the shot count…” Scarlet advised just as Blue pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Ruffolo’s arm and he dropped the gun. “Nice shooting,” he complimented with some surprise. “That will certainly win you a goldfish…” He peered at the Spectrum issue pistol, wondering if it was the same as the one he carried. He doubted that would have made the shot.

Blue’s teeth flashed in the gloom as he grinned. “No thanks,” he said, “I gave up goldfish for Lent… besides, I was aiming for his head…”

Ruffolo, hurt, angered and frustrated, began to spray bullets wildly in their general direction. More rocks began to tumble down the slope.

“Let’s get out of here,” Blue suggested. “We should be able to find another of those crevices to slip into. Then, if Ruffolo wants to carry on with his assault, he’ll have to come closer and… I’ll have him!” He led the scramble towards the nearest part of the tunnel and slid into the narrow crevice on the opposite side of the wall from that the women had chosen.

Following close behind Scarlet edged into the gap too and experienced an unusual crackle of static. He glanced back and to his consternation saw that the wall seemed to be closing behind them as the tunnel they had entered became indistinct and hazy. He turned to alert Blue, but the American had vanished. Now thoroughly disconcerted, he shuffled along until he could see a dim light ahead. With a gasp of astonished relief, he stepped out onto a paved street.

Chapter Three

Captain Blue was standing a short distance away, his hand raised to his head, his hard hat pushed back from his brow as he stared around at their surroundings. Scarlet remained where he was for a moment and then, gingerly stepped backwards into the crevice… he felt the static electricity spark over his body as the distant light diminished once more. It seemed that he could move through the crevice unhindered and so he stepped out once more onto the street and looked around him with interest, making good note of just where the entrance to their escape route was.

The first thing that struck him about their new location was the devastation. All around, the buildings were in ruins and the streets littered with debris, burning cars and dead bodies. In the distance, sirens wailed and the sound of gunfire was just audible.

“We must’ve landed in a war zone,” Blue said, wrinkling his nose against the smell.

“Whereabouts do you think we are?” Scarlet asked, surveying the ruined landscape with a frown. “I have to say I don’t remember Adam and me coming to anywhere like this.”

When there was no answer from the man at his side, he turned to look at him. The colour had drained from Blue’s face and there was a look of horror in his pale eyes. He was staring at the partially demolished gate of a house across the road and he moved towards it in a kind of daze. Sensing his companion might have recognised the location, and that it might not be a good idea for them to get separated in this devastation, Scarlet followed him.

After a few minutes of intense silence, he ventured to ask, “Captain Blue, do you know where we are? Is this a part of your life?” It was a silly question really, Blue was moving with a definite purpose.

He turned and looked with bleak eyes at the Englishman, and nodded. “Yes, I know where this is. This is Boston and that,” he pointed at the gutted wreck of the house beyond the wall, “that is what’s left of my home.”

Scarlet turned in shocked alarm to look at the house again. Now that he was really looking at it, he could recognise what was left of the house he had visited a couple of times with Adam. The windows and door were blown out and the gardens, which had always been so immaculate, were full of bomb craters and debris.

“Adam, before we go over,” he ordered, “hand me your hat… we’ll leave it just by the tunnel… I don’t want us to get lost here.”

Blue nodded and spun the hat like a Frisbee across the gap between them, and then strode across the pot-holed street.

Scarlet caught him up as he marched up the drive, his hand resting on his gun – Blue was obviously taking no chances.

They pushed their way over the rubble and into the hallway. From unconscious habit, Blue turned left into what Scarlet remembered as the comfortable main living room. The place had obviously been looted after the bomb damage – broken pieces of furniture and torn fabrics scattered the floor. He jumped as Blue gave an inarticulate cry and suddenly strode across to the ruins of a picture, thrown down by a marble fireplace. He picked it up and wiped it with his hand, gently brushing the dust and rubble from the canvas.

One side was torn from its gilt frame completely and the other side bore a jagged hole in one corner, evidently where someone’s heel had ripped through the canvas. It was a portrait and Scarlet, coming to investigate, could see enough of the face to recognise the wavy, light brown hair and bright, grey eyes of Adam’s mother. No motionless picture could really do Sarah Svenson justice – her beauty came from the animation of her features and the particular brilliance of her warm smile – but he could see that this had been a fine portrait, painted by someone who had understood the sitter and striven to give an illusion of her vivacious charm.

He looked at Blue and wondered if he knew the portrait. He had no idea how old Sarah had been when this was painted but he knew that in Blue’s world she had died when he was young.

“Your mother,” he whispered. “It’s a good likeness.”

Blue glanced at him with a fierce possessiveness in his eyes. “You said you knew her – is this the woman you knew?”

Scarlet nodded. “Yes, I would say so. It looks like the Sarah I have met.”

“I have never seen this before. This woman is older than my momma was when… when I lost her.” There were unshed tears in his eyes as he gazed at the ruined picture.

To Scarlet, his comments held the proof that they had managed to change dimensions by stepping through the crevice. He wrestled with the questions that presented. If Blue doesn’t know this portrait – is this the future of my world? The thought sent chills down his spine. He looked around seeking some indication of when this was and how the place had come to be ruined.

Blue was murmuring to himself, as he cleaned the debris from the picture and gently set it on the chipped mantelpiece. “She looks…happy. My poor, darling, momma was never happy. Not after we lost Pete.” He looked at his silent companion and asked the same question Scarlet had been pondering on. “Is this the dimension you expected to find?”

“No, when I left my world, Boston, and indeed everywhere else, was very much intact. Unless…” he paused, “the Mysterons somehow managed to use the pacifier we thought we had destroyed to set the world’s volcanoes into action and… this is the result. You see, when I arrived in your dimension, the date was a year behind the place I had left…”

“You didn’t think to mention that?” Blue frowned at him.

Scarlet shrugged. “It never struck me as important until now.”

“So, this might be your future…” He turned back to the picture. “I wonder if she is still alive here. I would give anything to see her again. You see, Scarlet, I never even got to say good-bye. My father never even went to the funeral and he refused to allow me to go – ‘needlessly parading our private grief’, he called it. I was twelve years old – I needed someone to notice my grief! I didn’t care how she had died!” He looked apologetically at the surprised Scarlet. “I guess it’s no great secret – it’s a matter of public record, after all – but my mother killed herself. After Pete’s death and the still-born baby – she suffered a series of miscarriages and it was all too much for her, I guess. My father was devastated and he destroyed everything he had that reminded him of her. I have nothing, nothing left of my mother.” He brushed a hand over his eyes and rested his head against the cold marble.

If that has been festering in Adam’s mind for twenty-odd years, it explains a lot, Scarlet thought. He rested his hand on the tall man’s bent shoulder, only to have it shrugged away. Feeling like an intruder in such a raw grief, Scarlet turned away.

Watching them from the doorway, a gun pointed towards them, was an unkempt, bearded figure of a man – a tall, blond man – wearing an ill assorted collection of clothes over a gaunt frame. His long hair was drawn back from his face in a rough ponytail and Scarlet could see that one eye was useless, cloudy and dead in that stern face. Scarlet moved a step closer and stared in a horrified disbelief as he made out the faint line of a scar along his temple.

“My God,” he breathed. “Adam….”

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” the man croaked, cocking the pistol. At the sound of the voice, Blue spun round and stared across the room at the untidy figure before him.

The stranger narrowed his one good eye and stared back, a fearful terror beginning to flow over his features. “Filthy Mysterons….” he spat.

“No, Adam, wait!” Scarlet cried, stepping into the line of fire as the man aimed the pistol at Blue.

“Why should I? Your kind has killed everyone I cared about and destroyed everything good in this World. I didn’t think you’d bother to come after me after the last encounter we had, but, God knows, your malevolence knows no bounds, does it?”

“We are not Mysterons…” Scarlet attempted to reassure him. “Please, listen to us and if you don’t believe us – we will go and leave you in peace.”

Svenson’s laugh was heavy with hate and scorn. “Peace? There is no peace in the world anymore, thanks to your kind!”

“Where is my mother?” Blue asked urgently moving towards the door way. “The woman in that portrait – where is she?”

“She is not your mother, scumbag!”

“That is a portrait of Sarah Ellis who married John Svenson and she was my mother! Now, tell me where she is, you madman!” Enraged, Blue sprang at Svenson and a gunshot rang out.

“Adam!” Scarlet shouted, although he didn’t know which man he was attempting to reason with. He rushed to where the two men were grappling.

“Where is she?” Blue demanded, shaking the other man fiercely. He was easily stronger than his adversary and the gun fell to the floor with a clatter. Scarlet picked it up and cocked the trigger himself. He fired at the ceiling, bringing down even more of the plaster around them, but so intense was the struggle between the two Svensons, that neither took much notice.

Finally the newcomer buckled under the physical assault. “She is out in the garden,” he gasped. Blue stopped shaking him and turned anxious eyes towards the back garden. “Buried under the rose-trees,” he added, trying to evade the stronger man’s grasp. “She is beyond the reach of you devils! You can’t hurt her anymore!”

Blue pushed him away with a groan and strode down the long room to the smashed windows that looked out on what had been the rose garden. Svenson staggered and fell the floor, gasping with pain as he was unable to save himself from landing heavily on his left arm.

Scarlet slipped the gun into his tunic belt and went over to the injured man. “Are you hurt, Adam?” he asked.

As he helped the man to sit comfortably he could see that the left arm was virtually useless – at some point it must have been shattered and mended badly.

Svenson turned his ravaged face on the dark man stooping beside him and struggled to focus. “Paul, is it really you?” he asked uncertainly. Scarlet nodded. “They told me you were dead – really dead. I should have trusted my instincts that they couldn’t have got you, Paul. But who is he? Why are you travelling with a Mysteron?” Svenson looked to where Blue was pacing back and forth like an angry lion before the shattered windows.

Scarlet gave a wry smile; grateful Blue was too far away to hear this muted conversation. “They didn’t get me, Adam. At least, in my World they haven’t – yet. That Blue isn’t a Mysteron, trust me. Before I can explain properly I need to know one thing. Just answer me this – what’s the date?”

Svenson looked surprised. “2069 – May, I think.”

Scarlet breathed a huge sigh of relief. Once again the date was more than a year ago. This had to be another alternative dimension and not any future part of his World. There was a good chance this horror would never happen to his friends, his life.

“Listen Adam – what I am going to say may sound preposterous….”

With as little sensationalism as he could, he sketched his recent past history to this new Adam Svenson. Svenson glanced across at his alter-ego who had ceased pacing and was sitting dejectedly on an upturned bookcase, staring out at the garden beyond the house.

“He lost his mother at an early age,” Scarlet explained. “For a wild moment he thought he might see her again…”

Svenson glanced at the portrait, and back at Blue. “At least I had her with me for most of my life… and I still have my memories of her.” Scarlet helped him to his feet. The injured man smiled his thanks and continued, “I can’t offer you much, Paul, but what I do have you are welcome to share.” He shuffled across to Blue and placed a hand on his shoulder, “Come on, Adam; let me show just how truly awful the coffee I make can be….”

~oo0oo~

The three of them sat in the dingy kitchen and sipped the undeniably disgusting coffee Svenson prepared. The remains of a meal – of a kind – lay on a table, a heel of stale loaf and a half-empty can of cold baked beans with a broken fork emerging from the tin. There were blankets along the wall away from the window which had been clumsily boarded over with jagged strips of wood. A few candles – some as tall and elegant as those used on superior dining tables – stood around the surfaces. Scarlet smiled to see a collection of books lying by the jumble of blankets that served as a bed. All of them were damaged or torn, but had obviously been lovingly salvaged from the ruins of the once extensive library.

Blue was still in a state of shock and if Scarlet could imagine the emotion being dammed up in that strong frame, Svenson could share it. He chattered on about inconsequential matters for a while and Scarlet was able to piece together enough to realise that this family was the same as the Svensons in the real world – although, it appeared that Svenson now held out little hope of any of them being left alive. His brothers and sister had fled Boston at the first attack.

Blue sat nursing his mug of coffee and listened to the harrowing story his other self had to tell, with a fascinated horror.

“It all started about a year ago, when Symphony Angel’s plane got lost over the desert. I wanted to go and find her and the colonel wouldn’t let me – the Mysterons had threatened Cloudbase and we were confined to the carrier. No-one really thought it would happen, until the radar picked up a craft approaching at incredible speed. Rhapsody went to investigate and her plane disintegrated into fragments. Then more of the craft arrived, surrounding the base. Colonel White sent you, Paul, out to investigate in Angel One and that too was attacked. It crashed on the base and they took your body to sick bay. I went to see you and – they told me you were dead. It didn’t seem possible, but after that, things went from bad to worse. The Amber Room was blown up – we lost the planes. Layer by layer they tore Cloudbase apart. Finally, there was only Green, the colonel and me left – then it was just the colonel and me. He ordered me to go – to escape – I didn’t want to and stayed as long as I could. He made a last report to Spectrum London in praise of his crew and officers, then, as the base spiralled down on to the Himalayas, I pleaded with him to come with me, but he wouldn’t – you know how stubborn he could be – the silly old fool. There was another explosion and the colonel bought it. So I was alone on Cloudbase. I just managed to get into the escape capsule and launch it, but by then we were too low over the mountains and it crashed into a cliff-face. I don’t really remember much else until….” He paused to moisten his throat with some of the coffee.

Scarlet’s face reflected his confusion as he heard the story told in that halting voice. A couple of years ago now, he remembered that his Symphony’s plane had crashed in a similar location. Destiny, scouring the area in Angel Two, had spotted the burning Angel Interceptor on the initial sweep, but there was no sign of the pilot, apart from some footsteps leading away into the harsh sands of the desert. Colonel White had immediately ordered a search party to find her. Adam had piloted the Spectrum helijet like a man possessed – squeezing every last ounce of speed from the machine, until he had half expected they would crash as well.

He had been with his partner when, several hours later, they found the unconscious Angel pilot, collapsed against a sand dune, her lips blistered with the heat. Adam had stood for what seemed an age, just staring at her as if he feared to discover that they were too late, that the crash and the heat had taken their toll and she was beyond their help.

Then she had moved slightly and they had heard her murmur …Adam, Adam … like a mantra against fear and pain.

Scarlet had seen fierce elation blaze in the face of his friend as Adam dropped to his knees. He had stretched out a hand, resting it gently on her thigh, and, speaking in a voice that revealed the intensity of the love he felt for this young woman, he had said – it’s all right, Symphony, we’ll soon have you back on Cloudbase.

Her distinctive hazel eyes, the golden-brown flecked with moss-green, had fluttered open at the sound of that beloved voice, and her surprise and relief at seeing him had been expressed in one more joyous – Adam – before she had closed her eyes, smiling gently. In response Adam had swept her into his arms, hugging her against his chest for a long minute, his face buried in her hair. Scarlet thought at the time that he might even have been crying. However, when Blue finally raised his head and asked for help to stand, there was no sign of it on his face. He had helped Blue stagger to his feet and with Symphony secure in his arms and her arms locked around his neck and her head buried against his shoulder, he had carried her across the dunes to the helijet, refusing further help.

He had laid her on the emergency medical bench, and moistened her lips with a trickle of cool water, whilst Scarlet reported the success of their mission. Doctor Fawn, obviously with the colonel in the control room, had given Blue instructions for her immediate care.

Scarlet had flown the helijet back to Cloudbase single-handed, landing on the medical helipad. As the helijet had been lowered into the hangar, he had gone back to his friends. Adam was holding Karen’s hand, his eyes fixed on her face, his ears tuned for the slightest murmured word. Scarlet had patted his shoulder. “She’s going to be all right…” he had reassured his partner.

Adam had waved away the gurney and carried her into sickbay, and later, Doctor Fawn had had to chase him from the sick bay, so that Symphony could rest, because he refused to leave her side. There had been no pretence that day that the couple were merely ‘good friends’.

A few days later, in the standby lounge, a weak but recovered Symphony had told everyone a tale of the nightmarish dream she’d had, as she lay in the desert fearful of never being rescued. A dream that covered the very same events that he had just heard recited as fact. It was if somehow, her dream had reflected what was actually happening in this dimension… it made his mind wheel at the possibilities…

As Svenson drained his coffee and continued with his story, Scarlet snapped out of his reverie.

“…I don’t know how – but I came to in a drift of snow, the fact that the capsule hit the cliff probably saved my life – it must’ve thrown me clear of Cloudbase’s impact, but it did this to my arm. I managed to crawl away from the blazing wreck of the base. I couldn’t find anyone else who had survived. I started to crawl down the mountain and – by some miracle – I was found by villagers who came to see what’d happened. They patched me up as best they could, but my arm was useless and slowly my sight got worse. I made my way to the nearest Spectrum base and from there travelled from base to base by whatever transport I could beg, borrow or steal. After Cloudbase, the Mysterons seemed to have decided to destroy the rest of Spectrum piecemeal. They started with the major bases first – London, New York… There was nothing I could do. By the time I got back here they had all but obliterated Boston and the looters were out in force. I found my parents still here – my mother had been paralysed by a collapsing wall in the very first attack and my father wouldn’t leave her. We nursed her until she died – it wasn’t easy – we had no medication and no way of easing her pain. Together we buried her in the garden – near the roses – or what was left of them…”

“I had never seen my father so… apathetic. When the looters came back – wilder, more desperate than ever – it was almost as if he wanted them to kill him. Even I had never realised how dependent he was on my mother. The attacks grew more intense and although I killed a few, there were always more of them. On one assault they wounded my father. It took him days to die and it took me days to bury him beside momma… That was about a month ago... maybe two. I stayed here – where else could I go? The food will run out soon and when the looters come back I won’t be strong enough to fend them off.” He gave a wry smile. “I don’t suppose you’d care to stay here long enough to bury me, would you?”

“It doesn’t have to be like that, Adam,” Scarlet interjected. “Come with us – come to our dimensions. Fight the Mysterons alongside us and Karen….”

Svenson smiled and shook his head sadly. “This is my World, Paul, and if it is to die beneath the jack-boot of the Mysterons, I will die with it. Everything I love and value is here – my family, my friends and the woman I love – buried under the rose-trees, on snowy mountains or in the shifting sands of a desert. I belong here with them. Even if I survived long enough in your dimensions – what use would I be? This arm is useless and I have no sight in one eye and every day there is less in the other. Why should I intrude on a world where a healthy, happy Karen is living her life with another Adam Svenson? She might look on me with a kind of pity I would rather die than see in her eyes.” He turned to look at Blue, who was staring bleakly ahead. “I envy you – but I don’t begrudge you have the chance of a lifetime of happiness with her. Please, take my blessing with you and maybe something of the happiness my Karen and I hoped for will go with you.”

Blue sprang from his seat and walked away to the window, staring with tear-filled eyes at the grave mounds in the garden. Svenson looked with some surprise at Scarlet who shrugged, preferring not to distress the other man with talk of Blue’s relationship with Symphony.

The energy drained from Svenson’s face and he watched his alter ego with compassion. “I wish you luck with your fight, Paul. We must never surrender to them, whatever they throw at us. It is comforting to know that, however hopeless the fight here may be, somewhere they are not having it all their own way.”

“No, we are holding our own. We won’t surrender.”

Blue came back, his face once more a mask against his emotions. “Is there anything we can do for you, before we go?” he asked brusquely.

Svenson gave a smile and placed his hand on Blue’s arm. “You have done more than you know already. You have given me hope.” For a moment the two men stared at each other; one so broken physically and yet, with an indomitable will so strong, that the healthy man seemed weak in comparison.

Scarlet stood. “We can get in some firewood and provisions at least – save you that job. Come on, Adam, you can show me the best places to look.”

They spent several hours collecting supplies for the injured man. It was hot and thirsty work and so when Svenson brewed another pot of his unpalatable coffee, they sat on upturned boxes, sipping at it with something bordering on enthusiasm.

Scarlet asked a question that had been hovering in his mind as they’d searched the other houses for useful items.

“Adam, was there ever a threat here to use machines – which had originally been designed to prevent volcanic eruptions – to produce eruptions?”

Svenson thought for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, there was. I wasn’t directly involved – Ochre and Magenta went to sort it out. It was pretty straightforward, as far as I can recall. Why? Has this proved difficult in your worlds?”

“Yes, it would seem that some events don’t happen – or don’t have the same outcome if they do happen – in our differing realities. For example, what you told us about the Mysterons’ attack on Cloudbase didn’t happen in my world. And although, Symphony did have a plane crash over a desert, no-one was hurt – including her. The mission I was involved in when I was pitched into Blue’s world, was concerning prototypes of these volcanic pacifiers. And we are on a similar mission to protect these machines. As I explained, circumstances forced us to enter a tunnel under Mount Etna and we found ourselves here. Each reality is slightly different, or so it would seem, so, whatever you can tell us, about the events that happened here, might prove useful in giving us a clue as to the Mysterons’ intentions in our own realities. What can you remember about it? “

“Prototypes, you say? The Volcanic Pacifiers have been in use here for 15-20 years,” Svenson explained with raised eyebrows. They were developed by a Turk – Mehmet Dincerler – the Mysterons’ threat concerned him. Ochre and Magenta went to Istanbul to collect him, only to find they were too late – he’d been Mysteronised and although they found his human body, Spectrum were unable to trace the Mysteron double… he just vanished. After that, the machines were carefully guarded, but nothing ever happened. They’re probably no longer working of course… nothing is any more.”

“Dincerler worked on these machines alone?” Scarlet frowned.

“Yes, he won all kinds of prizes for them… he was considered one of the greatest scientists ever…”

“Dincerler was involved in our machines… although very much as a junior partner with an Italian called Gaspari,” Scarlet mused.

“I’ve never heard of this Dincerler,” Blue said firmly. “Our pacifiers were developed by Professor Gaspari and his team. We’ve had them in trial use for a couple of years now.”

“Wanna bet that somewhere in the team there is a Mehmet Dincerler?” Svenson asked, arching an eyebrow at his double.

“No takers,” Blue replied with a similar gesture.

Scarlet looked at both Svensons. “Are you seeing a pattern here?” he asked. “Your worlds both seem to be some years behind mine, chronologically… yet we are the last to get these machines…”

“The threat originated here and has spread through the dimensions – is that what you’re thinking?” Svenson asked.

Scarlet nodded.

“But that would mean… the Mysterons can cross through dimensions…” Blue gasped. He looked up at the others. “We’re fighting something very much worse than we ever realised…” he whispered.

“They certainly have powers we cannot hope to understand,” Scarlet agreed quietly, thinking of his own remarkable abilities.

“All we can do is fight them – to the last man,” Svenson said vehemently.

“The last man in the last dimension…” Blue agreed emphatically.

The three of them fell silent, each considering the circumstances of their own personal war against these implacable aliens – aliens whose ability to destroy their chosen targets seemed suddenly far more formidable than ever.

It was some hours before they finally left. Blue was very quiet as they crossed to the side of the road where the portal had opened. Beneath his tunic, wrapped carefully in a length of torn curtain, was the face of Sarah Svenson salvaged from the ruined portrait. Svenson had given it to him saying, “I would like you to have this, after all, I shan’t be able to see it for much longer and it seems I have more memories of her than you…”

They quickly found the entrance to the portal, thanks to the marker provided by the yellow hard hat. Before they entered, they turned back to look once more at the house. Adam Svenson stood at the door of his ruined home, his good arm raised in valediction. Scarlet saluted, hoping the man’s vision was still good enough for him to see and then they slipped away into nothingness.

Svenson watched the empty street for some time before he turned back into his house. He went through to the kitchen and stared at the neatly stacked logs and kindling, the crates of bottled water from the inaccessible end of the partly destroyed garages, and the tinned food scavenged from around the neighbourhood. His inclination was to think he had imagined the whole episode, but he’d never heard of hallucinations that did housework.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” he muttered to himself.

He went to the nest of blankets and drew, from beneath the pile of pillows, a creased photograph. It showed an attractive young woman, with short reddish-gold hair, standing sideways in a partially-open doorway, her arms resting against the jamb, looking back towards the unseen photographer. She was wearing a black halter-neck swimsuit and her provocative expression was one of invitation.

“I wonder if they have ever been to Hawaii…?” he asked with a smile as he remembered happier days. “Knowing that somewhere in those other realities you are safe and well and happy makes it easier to bear, älskling, but you can’t blame me for wishing it had been that way here…” He kissed the portrait and slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt.

Then he lit two small candles and placed them on either side of the door to his kitchen home. He pulled out the three guns he had, checked they were loaded, wrapped himself in the top few blankets from his bed, and prepared to sit out another perilous night.

~oo0oo~

Symphony stepped through the low arch of the crevice and found herself slithering down a bank of shingle. At the foot of this bank lay a narrow beach of coarse, black sand and beyond that an area of jagged boulders and rocks. Her head turned at the sound of violent waves crashing on to the beach and she saw Garnet standing near the water’s edge staring down at the figure of a man, lying face down in the sand. He was wearing a diving suit, and although he still wore two air tanks, his mask seemed to have become detached and the air pipes were spread out like tentacles from his torso.

Symphony hastened over to join her colleague. Remembering all too clearly what Garnet had told her about the cave she had been trapped in and the unorthodox arrival of Captain Scarlet, her initial reaction mirrored Garnet’s – she was sure they had travelled back in time to before the rescue.

Garnet turned fearful eyes, full of an unspoken plea, towards the Angel and Symphony crouched down to turn Captain Scarlet. She detached the air tanks and rolled the body over. As she did so the hood fell back revealing a shock of blond hair and the unconscious face of Captain Blue.

“Adam!” she gasped and looked up in confusion at Garnet.

“Is he dead?” she whispered, her fingers rising to her lips in bewildered concern. “Captain Scarlet was almost dead…”

Symphony pressed her fingers against the man’s neck and slowly shook her head. “No, he’s alive – just unconscious, I think. It’s not surprising if he arrived in the same way as Scarlet did.” She brushed the long hair back from his face, noticing a thin, pale scar that ran across his brow and temple, close to the hairline. She knew Sky’s face as well as her own and this face was not his.

“Why is it Captain Blue?” Garnet asked, mechanically moving across to where the mask lay on the black sand and walking to the same sulphurous spring she had used before to collect water.

Symphony hunkered down and stared at the still body of the man. She considered the possibilities; finally she said, “It would seem there might be an infinite number of possibilities… in an infinite number of universes. Maybe this Captain Blue even has the… skills Scarlet possesses to recover from injuries.” She reached up to take the mask and dipped her fingers in it, shaking the drops onto the still face.

Slowly the pale, smoky-blue eyes started to blink into consciousness as the captain rolled over with a choking gasp, to vomit a lungful of water over the sand. Coughing and spluttering he sat upright and stared at the women watching him.

“Karen?” he croaked in confusion.

“I am Karen Wainwright…” she agreed, “but I am not the woman you may think I am… although I assure you I am not a Mysteron,” she added quickly, intending to reassure him. Made uneasy by his intense scrutiny, she couldn’t stop her hand moving to tidy her hair as she blushed.

“So, who are you, then?” His scepticism was obvious, as much in his tone as in his expression.

“I am Karen Amanda Wainwright,” she repeated. “My Spectrum codename is Symphony Angel – and I know you are Adam John Svenson, Spectrum codename Captain Blue. Please believe me when I say I mean you no harm. I think you will want to talk to me and I really need to talk to you.”

He looked around and stared at the silent Lieutenant Garnet. “What do you have to say?” he asked Symphony warily.

“Only that if you are looking for your partner, Captain Scarlet – who was swept away from the vessel you were using to search for a volcanic pacifier – then I can help you. Am I right?” He nodded warily. “Then let me tell you a story, Captain…”

He listened intently to what she told him, casting a bemused glance at Garnet every so often, as if he was checking that she was the woman whose face he had come to know so well, from her service record and ID photographs. Finally, he scratched his head in wonder and asked, “You mean to say that Paul and Claudia Vecchio were rescued from this underwater cave by people from a different dimension?”

“Yes, and believe me, we didn’t really accept his story either when he told us. I was the number one sceptic, but now here I am – actually in a different reality – talking to a different Adam Svenson. I guess I have to accept that Paul was telling us one–hundred-percent of the truth.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s fine – so is Claudia. Nothing has changed...”

Blue nodded and sat hunched up, with his arms around his shins and his chin resting on his knees, his gaze focused in the middle distance on nothing in particular. She waited, recognising the familiar way he would think things through.

She felt entirely at home with this man. Whereas she guessed that Scarlet found the people in her universe different enough to be unsettling, she found this Adam’s company more than congenial. It was like the early days of her relationship with Sky – when he had sought out her company and made her love him so much that, even now when she more than enough reasons to hate him, she couldn’t. There was something immensely comforting about the presence of this Adam Svenson – he showed none of the brittle edginess or underlying cynicism of the man she knew.

“So, now you have found the way here, you can just go and fetch them, right?” His expression contained an element of wariness that was not surprising, but his body language spoke of an ease in her company that echoed her own.

“It’s not that simple, Adam,” she said rather surprised at the direction his thoughts had taken. “I came through this... crevice because we were under attack from a gunman. There are people in my World who want to turn the pacifier off, and they will stop at nothing, including mass murder. I was separated from Sky and Paul and they’ve probably gone through a different portal to avoid Ruffolo.”

“Sky ?”

She blushed, “Sorry, it’s just a nick-name… I meant Captain Blue.”

He grinned. “I’m not telling you what Karen calls me – right now, none of the names are that friendly!”

She joined in his laughter. “Why, what have you done?”

“Absolutely nothing! She’ll get over it…” he sobered up again and asked, “You mentioned the pacifier – the one you have is still functioning? We had a Mysteron threat that pointed to their using the machines to promote eruptions – is that not the case with you?”

“Yes, we’ve had a threat; it was why the colonel asked Scarlet to come back here with Ochre, Sky and myself to try to avert their scheme – whatever it is. It’s a little more complex for us – there are elements on Cloudbase who are… less than vehemently anti-Mysteron.”

His eyebrows rose. “Then you can take me through this tunnel. Maybe I could help? Once it’s sorted we could all come back through the portal.”

“I don’t know, Adam, what if you can’t get back here? I don’t even know if we will arrive in the same reality when we go back. The tunnels might shift – or anything…”

“Let me come with you,” he urged, “I’m ready to take the risk.”

“But I am not!”

“Then at least, let Garnet stay here with me, there is no need for her to go back with you.”

Symphony looked at the other woman. Garnet had not spoken since Blue regained consciousness. “Claudia?” she asked.

Garnet drew a deep breath, “I don’t want to stay here. I have no proof this is my world after all. I don’t know Captain Blue. I was trapped here before and I was rescued with Captain Scarlet. I am sorry; I want to go where Captain Scarlet goes… I owe him that much.”

“Lieutenant,” he reasoned, “Claudia…”

She shook her head and turned to sprint for the shingle bank again, scrambling up and disappearing in the shadows of a rock overhanging.

“Aren’t you going to go after her?” Blue asked.

“She won’t go far,” Symphony said. “You know, I am starting to have doubts about her enthusiasm for returning home,” she confessed. Sharing confidences with him seemed such a normal thing to do. “She’s getting rather attached to the Captain Ochre in my World. He was once engaged to our Lieutenant Garnet… mind you; she ditched him and set herself up with Scarlet.”

He frowned at her. “You mean that your Scarlet and Garnet are… an item? Wow, I know a certain Angel who wouldn’t be pleased about that – not at all.”

“An Angel? Which one?” she grinned at him.

“Well, no-one is supposed to know… it’s not encouraged,” Blue gossiped absently, as he unwound some of the diving belts. “I mean, no-one is supposed to know about us either – they do… they just pretend they don’t.” He stopped suddenly, and looked up at the grinning woman watching him with amusement.

“Us?” she asked archly.

“Well, not us, naturally, but Karen and I are engaged – in our world! Are you and… me… I mean… the me in your world… are you…?”

“We … we’re close friends.” She looked away and tried to hide the sadness in her eyes, but she knew he had seen her pain. His own expression clouded and his smile faded. She shrugged and said rather too brightly, “I had better go after Garnet, in case the tunnel doesn’t go back to where it should. I will tell Paul you know how to reach him. Please, Adam, trust me and wait here.” She placed her hand on his sleeve and looked into his face.

“No-one will ever believe this…” he said quietly

Smiling she leant over and kissed his cheek. “See you later… I hope.” He watched her walk away, following the route Garnet had taken, his unease growing with every yard she covered. Every instinct in his body was screaming that he should not let her go alone. At the foot of the shingle bank she turned once and waved.

Captain Blue came to a snap decision. He muttered, “Hang on in there, Paul, I’ll damn well find you… wherever you are.” Scrambling to his feet, he raced across the beach, calling, “Symphony, wait for me…. “

Chapter Four

Symphony had changed into her wet-suit once the men had left, and now she was raging against Captain Tempest’s refusal to allow her to accompany him to the site where they had seen Blue sucked down behind the razor-toothed cliffs. The aquanauts had been exchanging the map when Atlanta’s voice over their radios had warned them that Blue was in trouble. Rather than dash across to attempt what would be a difficult rescue, Troy had ordered Phones back into the sub, which was another decision Symphony disagreed with. It had taken all of Atlanta’s persuasion to stop her rushing out to his assistance then and there, and she begrudged every second the others spent making ready to mount the rescue.

Stingray was edged closer to the rocks and the autopilot engaged to keep the vessel stationary. Then Troy and Phones strapped on fresh oxygen tanks whilst Atlanta made up a medical kit.

“You have to let me go with you,” Symphony begged once more. She was still holding a set of air tanks.

“I don’t have time to argue or to reason with you. The answer is still no, for the same reasons it was last time you asked. Stay here with Atlanta, we’ll get Blue back.” Troy’s expression softened as he saw the unshed tears in her eyes. “He may need your help when we get him back here. Help Atlanta get it all ready, will you? There’s a good girl…”

Normally, the use of such an expression would have unleashed a tirade of objections from Symphony, but she merely glowered at the men as they hurried back into the airlock and the door slammed fast behind them. Somewhere in her mind, the thought arose that she ought to be grateful that no-one on Cloudbase was that patronising towards the women they served with. The Angels had proved their capability to perform dangerous tasks often enough.

Atlanta took the air tanks from her unresisting hand. “Don’t worry; Troy is the best man in the World to have on your side in a crisis. He’ll get your captain back for you.”

“He’d better….”

She watched as the Aquanauts sped across the gap to where they had last seen Captain Blue and slowed down to approach the sheer cliffs. Troy swam up and allowed the surging tide to pull him down into the darkness, Phones close behind. “Please… please let him be alive…” she prayed.

~oo0oo~

In the darkness of the narrow tunnel, Captain Ochre came to a halt and stood listening. Since his Mysteronisation he had enjoyed heightened senses and his acute hearing had stood him in good stead on several instances. The sporadic shooting coming from the main cavern had died down and once he had despatched the Agency assassin, he had not been followed by anyone else into his bolt hole. He needed to know what had happened to Scarlet and Blue – not to mention Symphony and Claudia. If Ruffolo has hurt either of the women there will not be a place on this planet safe enough to protect him from me…

He began to move back to the main cavern to investigate what had happened to his companions. Stealthily, he moved out into the wider space and scanned the far side for signs of the others. He could see no torches, either across the cave or near the entrance where Ruffolo had been standing. He was startled by the rumble of a small avalanche of shingle and he spun towards the entrance, expecting to see one of his party or possibly one of the Agency thugs. There was a powerful beam of light and out of the tunnel mouth marched the upright figure of Captain Black, followed by three of the auxiliary agents from the surface crew.

Ochre didn’t need the overpowering wave of nausea that hit him, to tell him they were all Mysterons. He gasped and darted back, away from view. He watched with bated breath as Black paused and appeared to be listening. The somewhat inconsequential question of why the Mysterons’ chief agent should be wearing his Spectrum uniform crossed Ochre’s mind – possibly he had need to bluff his way through the security cordon the colonel had ordered around the approaches to the mountain?

Black’s momentary hesitation passed and he ordered the others to follow him with a jerk of his head, and marched into the tunnel that led to the pacifier. They followed obediently.

Ochre pondered on what to do next. There was no sign of the other members of his party, so presumably they had gone though to the next cavern to avoid their assailants, and – quite possibly – the assassins had followed them. Either that or all of them had been killed. He rubbed his hand over his eyes and dismissed the usefulness of going back to the surface to look for help – It was highly unlikely Captain Black would have left anyone alive up there.

As far as he knew he was alone and it was down to him to stop this threat to the pacifiers… whatever it turned out to be. Sighing he crept back into the tunnel and cautiously moved in the footsteps of the Mysterons.

He felt a familiar woozy feeling in the pit of his stomach…They are close, he thought. There were sudden, sharp cracks of sound, which echoed around the confined tunnels and his anxiety grew. With the sound distorted by the thundering thump of the pacifier it was hard to be sure that what he was hearing were shots, but it was enough to put him on his guard and he moved with far more caution and care now.

He saw the whitewash arrow that pointed to the tunnel that led to the pacifier’s location, and drew his gun. There was no sign of the guards he’d expected to see and the nausea that plagued him in the presence of Mysterons was rising in his throat.

The first dead body gave him a shock, even though he’d been half expecting it. The other two, further along the tunnel occasioned nothing but a feeling of pity. He edged into the cavern, lit with powerful hurricane lamps and saw in the eerie glow the familiar figure of Captain Black kneeling at the machine. The front panel had been removed and Black was working on the controls and the circuits within. Ochre could almost believe he detected a subtle change in the thudding that was making his ears ring.

It came as a surprise when Black said, “It is essential that we move this machine to the new location. Once I have disconnected the power supply you will transport it. The Mysterons’ orders must be obeyed.”

The newly created Mysteron agents murmured their obedient confirmation of these orders and Ochre was left puzzling as to why the machine needed to be moved. Whatever the reason, it gave him a window of opportunity to stop it being deployed to complete the Mysterons’ threat.

Unexpectedly, on the edge of his hearing he heard further shots, coming from the direction of the cavern. Hope sprang into his mind that some of his party had survived and they were still fighting. Even if it was one of Magenta’s assassins, he might be able to get the man to assist him defeat the Mysterons – surely the Agency couldn’t want them to succeed? Any human being who knew of their ultimate aim to remove all life from the earth would want them stopped, he thought. It was a chance and, however slim, he had to take it – he could not do much to deflect this threat alone – and getting himself killed in the process would help no-one.

He glanced with concern at the Mysterons, but their attention was focused on their dark captain and if they had heard the shots, they were unconcerned. They didn’t see the Spectrum officer slip away from the entrance and retrace his steps as quickly as he could.

With luck, he thought, Scarlet and the others will have survived the attack and they’ll come with me to stop this happening – even if I have to drag them at gunpoint from their search for the portal out of here!

~oo0oo~

Scarlet and Blue edged carefully out into the broader tunnel. A survey of the area revealed that neither the women nor Ruffolo were anywhere to be seen.

“Do you think he could have gone after them, rather than us?” Blue suggested. “If he’d gone through our tunnel, we’d have seen him – wouldn’t we?”

Scarlet shrugged, “With luck he’s roaming the wrecked streets of Boston as we speak.”

“It won’t be lucky if he finds the other Adam Svenson,” Blue commented wryly.

Scarlet rubbed his forehead. “This is making my brain spin. Maybe he did go through the tunnel after the women.” He stepped from the wall to cross to the other side where they had seen Symphony slip from view. From their current position there did not appear to be a crevice to slip down anyway.

He was half way across when a shot rang out, glancing off the tunnel wall a few feet ahead of him and pulling him up short. He sprang the remaining distance and pressed himself against the wall and a second shot made him edge further into the gloom of the narrowing tunnel. On the other side of the wall, Blue had edged along to keep pace. Suddenly he called out, “There’s a crevice here… it’s not a very big one, but we could crawl through. If Ruffolo follows we can ambush him. There’s no other choice... we can’t get into the main cavern and this tunnel is blocked. If we stay here we are sitting targets…”

Scarlet looked back towards the tunnel mouth where he could just make out a shadowy figure, covering the exit. The crevice that had led to Boston seemed to have disappeared – Blue was right, staying where they were meant they could be picked off like fish in a barrel. “Go on then, I’m coming with you…” he agreed.

Blue ducked down and Scarlet smiled as he heard the hat clunk against the rock and a muffled curse from the American. He moved further up the darkening tunnel and sprang across to approach the crevice from the other side. He dropped to his knees and crawled after his colleague.

~oo0oo~

At first glance they were in a corridor… a familiar corridor… Blue turned to Scarlet and whispered, “This is Cloudbase…” Scarlet nodded. “Yours or mine?” the American added with a raised eyebrow. He removed his hard hat and slipped it back into the tunnel they had just emerged from. It was too risky to leave it lying on the corridor floor.

Shrugging, Scarlet looked along to his right. “That’s the Amber Room – at least round the corner is the Amber Room. Shall we take a look?”

Blue stiffened. “No need, I can hear footsteps.”

“Quick, let’s get into that service cupboard! Leave the door ajar a little and let’s see if we can work out which base we are on and when…”

They peered through the narrow gap, Scarlet crouching and Blue standing behind him.

A shapely young woman came round the corner, wearing the distinctive uniform of a Spectrum Angel, but the logo above the golden cuff on her sleeve consisted of two stylised interlocking Ss – the smaller, central S being striped with the colours of the spectrum.

Scarlet glanced at Blue’s arm as it rested against the door above his head. Just as I thought, his uniform logo is as it should be – like mine – the golden S against a bull’s-eye of colours…. He sniffed and turned his attention back to the young woman who was within a few feet of them now and still oblivious of their presence.

She was above average height and her thick, jet-black, wavy hair framed a strong face, with just a hint of a cleft in her chin. Her remarkably bright blue eyes, framed by delicate black eyebrows, sparkled with good humour. She was humming cheerfully to herself as she strode jauntily along the corridor.

“Jesus wept…” Blue muttered. “Is that who I think it is?”

Scarlet did a double take as he recognised his own mother’s features in the set of her face. “I don’t know – but this is not the dimension for you or me….”

As the young woman continued to walk briskly towards them they heard a distant voice call, “Sonata! Wait!”

She stopped and turned, waiting for the woman who was strolling along the corridor from the direction of the Amber Room. The newcomer was even taller, well-built, with broad shoulders and long legs. Her shoulder-length, blonde hair was caught back from her face with a simple tortoiseshell clasp. She was also wearing an Angel Pilot’s uniform and swinging a helmet from her hand as she walked along.

“Cadenza? I’m sorry I thought you’d already gone.” Sonata’s slightly husky voice betrayed the slightest trace of a Mid-Atlantic twang.

“No, I got caught by Pat – you know how she can talk…” There was no mistaking the tortured vowels of Cadenza’s well-to-do New England accent. Scarlet heard Blue give a stifled groan. He smirked.

Sonata grimaced, “All that Irish blarney – it took me half-an-hour to get away yesterday, that’s why I skipped away sharpish today, I want to get an early lunch so I can get my hair done.”

“Why? It looks okay to me.”

Sonata gave her head a brisk shake and ran her fingers through her thick hair with resignation. “You’re joking! It’s a mess – again. It’s like having a mop on your head and I am sorely tempted to go into the barber’s and ask for a short-back and sides at times! I envy you, Caddie; I wish my hair was straight. Still, I need to get it seen to – have you forgotten it’s the Officers’ dance tonight?”

“Oh – that thing – yeah…I had sort of forgotten.” Cadenza gave a wry smile and frowned.

“You are going, aren’t you, Caddie?” her friend asked pointedly.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been asked.”

“Not even by Kevin?”

Cadenza smiled at her friend’s arch expression. “I think he’s still working up to it,” she replied. “I’m in his bad books at the moment, so I have to be made to suffer until I’m overcome with remorse and throw myself on his generous mercy…” She grinned.

“He’d better get a move on or he’ll leave it too late.” Sonata did not find the man’s behaviour so amusing.

“I could go on my own – if I feel like it. That’d teach him,” Cadenza mused.

“You can’t do that, it would be tantamount to saying he’d won,” Sonata argued. “If Kevin won’t ask you, we need to find you another escort,” she asserted.

“This is the late twenty-first Century, Paula. Women are allowed to go into public places unescorted. Do you think I’d be refused entry without a male escort?” Cadenza gave a wry smile.

“No, of course not,” Sonata frowned. She couldn’t imagine anyone trying to stop Cadenza doing anything she wanted. “Don’t you mind about not having a date for the evening?”

“No, but you obviously consider it a grave social faux-pas on my part!”

“A girl needs a man about the place, that’s all.”

“Whatever for?” the taller woman queried dryly and she began to count on her slim fingers. “I am perfectly capable of changing a plug or even a light bulb unaided, should the need arise, and I’m not scared of spiders – even when they are in the shower, Paula Metcalfe…. So, name me anything else I’d need a man for?” She was grinning at her friend’s serious expression.

Sonata played along and rolled her eyes. “It was the biggest spider on the planet, Caddie. And it made Julien feel … so brave!” She gave a girlish laugh and winked. “What else does one need a man for? Let me think… well, they can be rather decorative and then, there’s always… you know…” She gave another, broader wink.…

“Oh that…” Cadenza said, enlightened. She assumed an expression of innocence. “I thought that only happened after they catch – what was it? – ‘the biggest spider on the planet.’”

Her friend shook her head with exaggerated sadness. “I worry about you sometimes,” she said and then spoilt it by chuckling.

“You sound like my mother,” Cadenza struck a pose and imitated her mother’s nasal accent. ‘You’ve turned thirty, Babes, – don’t you long for a home and a family?’” She answered her own question in her normal voice. “Well, no actually – I don’t. I want to do what I’m doing, which is why I’m here doing it. Tell me you’re not doing this just to get hold of a man,” she pleaded.

“Of course I’m not! I never had any trouble finding them before Spectrum arrived on the scene… But… well, if you happen to meet someone…”

“Someone like Julien Pontoin, you mean?” Cadenza asked innocently.

The English girl coloured and mumbled, “Could be.”

“Oh Lord, don’t you go all house-wifely on me, Paula. I really wonder sometimes what those girls in there are doing here – if their only real aim is marriage and babies.”

“You really don’t care, do you?”

“No, I don’t care.”

“What about Kevin?”

“Oh, he’s a sweetie and every woman should have a pet.” Cadenza gave a rich burst of laughter.

“Kevin Wainwright might object to that statement,” Sonata said reproachfully.

“Oh don’t be such a prude…he’s fun – he makes me laugh – and I like him. I like him a lot – when he’s not playing me up. But, as I keep trying to explain to my mother, that does not mean I want to populate a crèche. Besides, can you imagine what this unlikely off-spring would be like? As my sister says – they’d be the first of a new race of giants!”

Laughing, Sonata pursued her point. “Does Kevin know how you feel?”

“Of course he knows. Actually, he can’t believe his luck – he never expected to be a toy-boy! – and now he’s in a relationship with a wealthy, older woman and there’s plenty of recreational sex – with no strings attached – he thinks it’s great!”

“Cadenza!” Sonata protested. She mentally cursed the absent Kevin as a cloth-eared ninny – who couldn’t see beyond the emotional defences his girlfriend was hiding behind. She thought she heard a wistful note in Cadenza’s voice, which belied her cynical statement. If Wainwright would only make the effort, he could have easily persuaded her from her supposed indifference.

“What? Have I offended your British sense of decorum now? Really, Paula, you shouldn’t have asked me if you didn’t want the truth…”

“Yes, well, but…” She stopped in the face of a warning glance and changed tack. “You might think that now – but sooner or later you’ll want a family – ever heard of biological clocks?”

“Oh yeah – every time I go home. However, I have Doctor Fawn’s considered opinion that it is unlikely to happen any more, which is probably all for the best, considering.”

“He can’t be sure of that,” Sonata reasoned sympathetically.

“No, but I’d rather not presume otherwise. I just wish I could explain it all to my Mom.” The wistfulness was more than apparent this time.

Sonata remembered that Cadenza had returned from a visit home only yesterday. “Aah, okay… point taken.” She changed the topic briskly. “I’m still looking forward to the dance tonight – I need something to cheer me up after the past hour or so. I never want to spend another session being bawled out by the colonel. Mind you, I sat there like a prize exhibit most of the time, with Blue on one side of me and Scarlet on the other. Blue would hardly let me get a word in edgeways – he was so busy trying to convince the colonel that I was a blameless victim – bless him! However, the fact remains that I did overstep my orders and then I crashed that SPV, so he was rather on a hiding to nothing with the ‘little-miss-innocent’ defence. In fact, I might have got into less trouble if Kevin hadn’t been so ‘helpful’.”

Cadenza’s smile widened. “He means well.”

Sonata rolled her sapphire-blue eyes in response. “You might drop the hint that he should keep his chivalry to himself – or exclusively for you – Julien was well narked afterwards. He thought Kevin had overdone it.”

“They can talk to each other you know – the guys,” Cadenza said calmly. “I don’t see why I should patch up their squabbles. Julien is more than capable of expressing his own complaints – in fact; he frequently does so, at some length…”

“And then Kevin tells you…?”

“Well, he can never keep a secret,” the blonde smiled. “Not if you ask him nicely, anyway.”

“Huh, You can’t trust men… any of them anywhere…. They’re all only after one thing.”

“Well, they are men – so what do you expect?”

“You’re such a cynic, Miss Svenson…”

“And you’re too gullible for words, Miss Metcalfe…”

As they walked through the swing doors together, their laughter floated behind them.

“Right – let’s get out of here. I’d rather face Ruffolo….” Scarlet said emerging from the cupboard and scratching his head. He watched the women disappear beyond the door. It was extremely disconcerting – to say the least – to see yourself as a person of the opposite gender. It had been bad enough when Lieutenant Green had been… changed – but this was something else.

“Yeah, that was well off the weird-o-meter,” Blue agreed. There was an amused smile on his face and it widened into a grin as he added, “Nice legs – shame about the faces!”

Scarlet sniggered, entertained in spite of his general disapproval of Blue. Sometimes – just sometimes – Blue reminded him very much of the real Adam Svenson.

They stepped from the cupboard and crossed to the other side of the corridor, searching for the weakness in the fabric that indicated the way back to the tunnel. They were still feeling along the walls as the door swung back.

“I wouldn’t mind but these are my favourite earrings,” Sonata was complaining. “Julien gave them to me for my birthday. It must be somewhere in the corridor, I know I had it…”

It was difficult to see which couple was the more startled – the young women or the two officers. They stared at each other for a moment and then Cadenza said, angrily, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“Please, do not be alarmed,” Scarlet began, looking from one to the other as he tried to assess which one would be most approachable.

“Too late,” Sonata pressed the intercom by the door and snapped, “Security to Corridor 5C – intruder alert.”

Blue made a move towards her only to find himself held in a debilitating arm lock by Cadenza as her pilot’s helmet clattered to the floor. He grinned and relaxed. “Take it easy, I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

“Too right, you’re not – because if you try anything, I will hurt you,” she replied using her free hand to draw a pistol from her belt. She held it against his head. Blue raised his hands in submission. She loosed her hold, keeping the gun trained on them both. “Keep still and keep your hands where I can see them – and no-one will get hurt.”

Sonata looked from Blue to Cadenza and back again. She frowned and glanced at Scarlet, “Do I know you?”

“Not exactly – in fact – not at all. If you will let me explain…”

“Explain it to security,” she snapped. “I don’t want to hear it.”

The door swung back and half-a-dozen men swarmed into the corridor. Leading the charge was a red-haired man, dressed in an ochre-coloured uniform. Close behind was a blond in pale blue and another blond in vivid red.

The two men exchanged glances. “Julien and Kevin?” Scarlet hissed at Blue who raised an eyebrow in silent agreement.

Scarlet examined the other blue clad officer thoughtfully. He was a little shorter than Blue and hardly taller than his girlfriend but there was no mistaking those hazel-green eyes and the short nose – he was undoubtedly a Wainwright. The two officers stared at their counterparts and Kevin in particular was struck by the similarity between the faces of the guard and her prisoner.

“Take them to the brig and alert the colonel,” the ochre-coloured captain ordered. The security men hustled them along towards the brig.

“Now this should be interesting,” Scarlet hissed to Blue, with an ironic grimace, as they were thrown into the cell and the bars slammed shut behind them.

They didn’t have long to wait before they heard the approach of a considerable number of feet along the corridor. Scarlet stood facing the bars of the cell, ready to begin his explanation again. Blue continued lounging against the table, his eyes averted from the corridor. It seemed he was reluctant to face this new colonel. The officers who had answered the security call arrived first, the tall, slim-built, handsome, blond-haired ‘Scarlet’ and the chunkier blond in blue. Then a veritable rainbow of coloured officers arrived, including the red-headed ‘Ochre’, and milled about the cell front. A pathway opened and Scarlet realised the colonel was approaching. He stood to attention but his snappy salute died half-way to his forehead and his mouth dropped open in concerned surprise. He turned to stare at Blue, who had looked up at the silence that had fallen. His face mirrored Scarlet’s horror-stricken glance.

The colonel was Conrad Turner.

Both of the prisoners knew him instantly. They stared, speechless, at the tall, stern-faced man, with jet-black hair and dark eyes, dressed in an immaculate black uniform.

“Are these the men?” he asked. His voice was a long way from the sepulchral tones of the Captain Black they had grown used to and had a distinctly American edge to it, punctuated by traces of the flat northern vowels of his upbringing in Manchester. It jogged Scarlet’s memory with a blow that made him gasp. It was the voice of Conrad Turner before he went to Mars and encountered the Mysterons.

There was a murmur of confirmation from the assembled officers, as all eyes tuned towards him. It was obvious that he could effortlessly command the respect and attention of his officers.

Neither Scarlet nor Blue had long to overcome their surprise and alarm. Colonel Black was in no mood for delay and the task of obeying his peremptory order for the prisoners to explain themselves, fell to Captain Scarlet. He felt as if he were giving a lecture to a particularly sceptical class of cadets. The officers stood in a semi-circle around their colonel and listened with every indication of not believing a word he was saying. The two men he now knew to be Kevin Wainwright and Julien Pontoin, were most incensed as he tried to explain that in his world they were women. Paula Metcalfe did not look too chuffed either.

Scarlet’s predicament was not helped by Blue’s refusal to participate. He remained leaning against the table, his long legs stretched out before him, a carefully blank expression on his face. Scarlet doubted Blue was even listening to his faltering explanation – he recognised the look on his face as one indicating that the American was deep in thought about something.

As Scarlet finally gave up and shrugged to silence, Colonel Black stood up. Immediately all eyes turned to him. “I have never heard so much rubbish in my entire life. Get Doctor Fawn to take a genetic sample and try to match it – we’ll identify them that way. Oh, and someone get a Mysteron detector and check them out. This might be another of their traps.” He strode away, followed by the entourage of staff officers.

Scarlet turned angrily and thumped his hand on the table next to Blue. “You were a fat lot of help!”

As usual, Blue was unmoved by his emotional outburst. He sighed and looked squarely at Scarlet. “If they weren’t prepared to accept what you were saying, my saying anything would not have made any difference. You were pretty convincing – although I guessed it would be hard to convince them we are who we say.”

“But you accepted what I told you, didn’t you?”

“Yes, eventually. But if you remember, we had a much longer discussion and you knew things about my family that no-one else did – even if what you knew was slightly askew.” Blue gave a modest smile. “Besides, I have the intelligence to see beyond the ordinary – which not all of them,” he jerked his head in the direction of the departed crowd, “do. I think some of them might have believed you, but if Black doesn’t…. they may not be prepared to cross him.”

“Black!” Scarlet sighed, “How can the colonel be Captain Black?”

“How can you be a female Angel pilot – or me either for that matter – how can Juliette Pontoin – of all people – be a masculine Captain Scarlet? This dimension seems to be… almost like a mirror to our own. You say there are differences between your dimension and mine, but this is different again from both of them.”

“There are differences between all of them,” Scarlet postulated. “In some cases significant differences too, between my world and yours, between both of ours and Boston, between all three of them and here.” Blue shrugged. “I wonder what happened to Colonel White,” Scarlet mused in conclusion.

“Maybe he went to Mars? Who knows?”

“Look, we have got to get out of here – this isn’t your dimension or mine. We must be careful not to alter their status quo,” Scarlet reasoned. He couldn’t tell Blue about his concern at the threat of a Mysteron detector test, as he had never mentioned his retrometabolic abilities to him before. If the people here were not prepared to accept his story, the evidence that he was a Mysteron would probably be enough to get him – if not both of them – killed forthwith. Maybe I should tell him about it now, he thought, at least then he’ll understand the necessity for us to get out of here, and two heads are better than one at solving these kinds of problems. Besides, however annoying his is, he’s got brains all right.

“I think it’s a little late to worry about that now,” the American replied with some amusement in his voice. “You have already told them about the inter-dimensional portals, and how we slipped from a tunnel under Etna to arrive lurking about outside the Amber Room, whilst our female selves buffed their cuticles inside. If this Conrad Turner is half the man Charles Gray is – in either dimension it seems – he’ll launch the Angels and get someone down there quicker than I can explain it.”

“But he didn’t seem to believe me,” Scarlet reminded him.

Blue gave a wry grin. “Nor did he,” he agreed. “You have to admit, it’s a pretty silly story to spin in the first place. If you asked me to explain logically why I believed you, I’d be hard pressed to justify it.”

“I though you said it was your extraordinary intelligence that gave you the ability to see beyond the ordinary.” Scarlet quoted his words at him, with irritation.

“Quit bitching…” Blue seemed amused. He had returned to staring straight ahead, gazing out beyond the cell bars. Now he added with some amusement, “However, Black wasn’t the only one in your audience and,” he nodded his head towards the cell bars, “unless of course, it is merely down to your undoubted popularity with the ladies, I believe you may have won us one ally, at least.”

Scarlet turned to follow his companion’s gaze and saw Cadenza Angel standing with her arms crossed and her head on one side, watching and listening to them. She did not move as Scarlet turned to face her, a questioning look on his face. “May I help you, Cadenza?” he said quietly.

Cadenza pouted in indecision and then, making up her mind, she drew a deep breath and said, “You’re right – the colonel does not believe a word of it.” She unfolded her arms and they could see a cumbersome Mysteron detector dangling by its strap from her right hand. “We had a little discussion and I volunteered to administer the Mysteron test. Doctor Fawn is still preparing the auto-analyser to run the genetic scan – but it won’t take her long. So – you don’t have much time to convince me that I should play my hunch and help you out of here, do you?”

“You’ll help us?” Hope fired in Scarlet’s deep blue eyes and he moved to the bars of the cell. “You believed me?”

“Let’s just say, I too have the intelligence to see beyond the ordinary and that I have an open mind about it. The colonel tends to be a little dismissive of new ideas. I want to know more about this tunnel. If I let you out – and it is still an IF – I want to come with you through to the tunnel.”

“No,” Scarlet said immediately. “That’s impossible.”

Cadenza shrugged and began to raise the detector to her eyes. “Smile please,” she instructed.

“Wait!” Caught on the horns of a dilemma, Scarlet gave Blue a sharp glance and sighed. “Okay – but you have to come back straight away.”

“One final condition,” she said, dropping the detector and moving towards the control key-pad.

“What?”

She stared at the smiling Blue and said, “He keeps his hands to himself.” Blue gave a gasp of exaggerated offence and unfolded his own arms to spread his hands in an appeal for justice. “I wasn’t born yesterday, sunshine, and he hasn’t taken his eyes off my... figure… since we found you.” She remained with her fingers hovering over the keypad. “Well?”

“He’ll behave – won’t you, Adam?” Scarlet said with heavy emphasis. Blue shrugged. Irritated, Scarlet turned to Cadenza and said maliciously, “You have to realise, Cadenza, this dimension must seem like a seventh heaven to him. It presents him with the only chance he’ll ever get to make love to the one person he has ever really fancied – himself!”

Outraged, Blue sprang from the table, as Cadenza let out a hearty peal of laughter and punched the number to release the digi-lock, just in time for Scarlet to skip through the door and avoid the irate Blue.

“Come on, you guys – if you are serious about this – you don’t have time to fight,” As they emerged she held out her hand and Scarlet shook it. “Eva Svenson, pleased to meet you,” she smiled.

He grinned at her and glanced at Blue. “That’s too wonderful for words,” he sniggered, “an Adam and now an Eve…”

Cadenza snorted with laughter. “I thought it might amuse you when I heard you call him Adam…”

“I will get you for that, Metcalfe,” Blue threatened, as they hurried along to the elevators.

“Oh for heaven sake, Adam – where is your sense of humour?” she said, shaming him with a knowing glance. She waved them ahead of her through the door of the brig and into the corridor.

“Am I always that objectionable – in other dimensions?” she added, as she strode beside Scarlet on the way to the Amber Room corridor.

“Not really – it is just my luck to be lumbered with the one who’s a complete tosser,” Scarlet replied. He was still rather put out by Blue’s reversion to being so objectionable again, just when he had seemed to be taking things seriously.

“Well, that’s a comfort then,” she smiled.

They moved through Cloudbase unmolested and came quickly to the Amber Room corridor. Cadenza watched them closely as the men began to search for the weakness in the fabric of reality that would lead them back to the tunnels beneath Etna.

Scarlet’s hand slipped through the wall easily enough and he alerted Blue. “I think I have found it.” He crouched down and shuffled forward on his hands and knees.

The Svensons came and stood either side of him, as he gently pushed his head and shoulders through the suddenly flexible wall. He heard Cadenza’s sharp intake of breath as he disappeared. Scarlet withdrew and smiled up at them, holding up Blue’s yellow hard hat.

“It’s the right tunnel. You had better go first, Blue, and see if you can find Symphony and Garnet. Let’s hope we’ve been away long enough for Ruffolo to have left.”

“Time moves at differing rates through the tunnels?” Cadenza asked sharply.

Blue turned to look at her with barely concealed animosity. “It appears so from our past… excursion. We don’t know if it always does.”

She ignored him and turned to Scarlet as he struggled to his feet. “You never mentioned it traversed time as well as realities,” she accused him.

“Like Blue said, we aren’t sure,” he replied defensively.

It wasn’t a thought that had appeared to be very important, but her eyes glowed with fascinated enthusiasm. “But that is wonderful! Imagine – if we can work out how to use the tunnel we could return through time and correct errors – fatal errors – and mistakes!”

“It doesn’t seem to work in a logical way. What’s the date here?” Scarlet asked.

Cadenza told him; it was a mere matter of months after the return of the Martian Exploration rocket to Earth. It explained why the Mysteron Detector had been so unwieldy – it must have been an early prototype. The ones Scarlet was used to using had been refined into a far more compact version over time.

“In the tunnels it is always… now…” he attempted to explain. “There the time is linear from our departure from Blue’s Cloudbase. The other trip we made took minutes in Blue’s world – but we spent hours in Boston.”

Cadenza glanced at Blue, who was maintaining a show of disinterest so she continued to address her comments to Scarlet. “You could use it to go back through time and save yourself and Lieutenant Garnet – leave a message with your friends or stop something happening – or even make sure you waited long enough for your friend to attach a new, un-frayed, safety rope to your belt.”

“That wouldn’t work,” Blue snapped.

“When time lines cross all futures exist in potential,” she replied shortly. “Didn’t you see the theories propounded by Professor Bertram Coombs? He published a very interesting paper in a scientific journal about a year ago.”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I did, but I am surprised you did.”

“Why should you be – because I am a woman?” Cadenza sighed. “I ought to be used to it by now – but I sort of hoped my other self would be above believing me to be a half-wit.”

“I just meant I am surprised they have already been published here too, given that they were only published recently… back home.” Blue gave an exasperated sigh. “Besides, there were many scientists who maintained it was all baloney.”

“They did here too, but I wasn’t so sure,” she smiled at him. “I apologise.”

He shrugged. “Considering you have such a low opinion of me, that’s very generous of you. I accept.”

The pair stared at each other with measured wariness and Scarlet was amused to see how similar their expressions were, despite the physical differences between them. Side by side they might have been brother and sister, Cadenza was hardly more than an inch or two shorter and although of a slighter build than Blue, she was still an impressively built woman. Her hair was longer, but of the exact same colour, her features were more delicate than his, yet her eyes were just as sharp and of the exact shade of smoky-blue. As he drew a breath to speak, he was suddenly surprised by another voice.

“Very touching,” Sonata said, stepping out from the access corridor beyond the doorway. “What are you doing, Cadenza?”

Cadenza turned to look at the younger woman. “I believe them, and I think they should be allowed to go.”

“You’ll be court-martialled!” Sonata protested. “And they are probably Mysteron spies – or something.”

“I will take that chance – just as I take all my chances.” The American moved to her friend and laid a hand on her arm. “Please, Paula, don’t get involved. I need to sort this out, just me... on my own.”

“You are going with them, aren’t you, Eva?” Paula Metcalfe accused. “Have you considered that you may never come back if you go?”

“Of course I will. I have… unfinished business here. But, yes, I am going through the tunnel – I want to see for myself if what they claim is true. You can help if you like – but I am not going to let you stop me, Paula.”

“And how will you do that? I could have security here in seconds.”

“But you won’t – will you? I think you believe them too – underneath it all.” Cadenza gave a tight smile. “Wait here for me. If what they tell me is true – I won’t be long. I’ll bring you a present back from the other side!”

“Eva… don’t be so foolhardy! At least, let me get Kevin to go with you…”

“Gentlemen, shall we go?” Cadenza spread her hands, indicating that one of them should go first.

Blue stepped forward and with a sudden dip of his fair head, planted a kiss on Sonata’s cheek. She gasped and stepped back. “Just testing…” he winked, and ducked into the wall, slipping from sight.

Sonata gasped, open-mouthed.

“You had better go next, Eva – just in case it seals after me, or something,” Scarlet reasoned. “But be careful, when we left, we were under attack from a hostile gunman… I’ll explain as we go…” She nodded and smiled farewell to her friend before following the vanished Blue.

“You had better look after her…” Sonata muttered, looking at her double with stern eyes. Scarlet, grinning from ear to ear, reached across and did the same as Blue; Paula Metcalfe gave a wry grimace. “You’re in need of a shave, Mister Metcalfe,” she muttered, but not unkindly as she watched him disappearing into the wall.

Then she moved across to the other side of the corridor, glanced at her watch and leant back against the wall, determined to remain at her post however long it took.

The dance would have to wait.

PART 4 - CONFRONTATION

Chapter One

Following Cadenza Angel through the portal, Captain Scarlet stepped out into the darkness and sauna-like heat of the main volcanic tunnel. He called out to the tall figures of the Svensons, whom he could just make out standing some distance away. Blue turned and gave him a warning glance. Instantly on the alert, and with an absurd feeling of protectiveness towards Cadenza, Scarlet moved to stand alongside her. She hardly glanced at him, but indicated a distant light. It was approaching them slowly.

“Is it Ruffolo?” Scarlet hissed at Blue.

“No,” he replied, stepping aside and revealing a crumpled body on the floor beside a discarded hurricane lamp. Scarlet stooped to examine it, even though he had little doubt as to who it would be. Sergeant Ruffolo had been shot.

“Do you think Symphony did this?” he suggested under his breath.

Blue shook his head. “No, my guess is that it was one of the Agency’s henchmen and Ruffolo has merely paid the price for his earlier, apparent, inefficiency in failing to kill Lieutenants Scarlet and Garnet. Patrick was already exasperated with him when you and Garnet turned up on Cloudbase – his failure to kill the away party was his death warrant.”

“Magenta? We left him on Cloudbase. How could he know Ruffolo had failed again, let alone give orders to anyone here to execute him? The radio links around here are crap,” Scarlet asserted.

Blue nodded towards the advancing light. “Because Magenta doesn’t trust anyone, especially anyone who has already failed him. Someone would have been watching Ruffolo – and he probably knew it – it would explain his eagerness to kill us all. My guess is… Magenta isn’t on Cloudbase anymore, he’s over there. I rather suspected he’d follow us - he has too much at stake to do otherwise. Now he is coming to see for himself what’s going on here… It’s likely that he’s got Lieutenant Cobalt with him, at the very least, and maybe Lieutenant Mauve as well.”

“You seem very certain of yourself,” Scarlet remarked dubiously. “Why would Magenta bring witnesses with him?” If there was something going on between the Agency bosses he wanted to know about it - right now.

“He’d have to bring at least one – he can’t pilot a plane alone.” Blue’s tone was scathing. “And normally he doesn’t leave the safety of Cloudbase without two bodyguards. Patrick doesn’t have many friends – even in the Syndicate.”

Irritated by their baffling conversation, Cadenza asked, “What is he doing in Spectrum if he cannot fly a plane?”

“Patrick Donaghue is the leader of an international crime syndicate, a very powerful man and a dangerous adversary,” Blue explained succinctly. “He has a number of prominent politicians in his pocket – or at least, in his debt. The problem was keeping him out of Spectrum when he chose to apply.”

Scarlet glanced thoughtfully at the enigmatic Captain Blue; his manner had veered to one of conscientious professionalism and all indolence had disappeared from his demeanour, which was suddenly reminiscent of the real Adam he knew. This was Captain Blue at work and taking it seriously. It felt… comforting – almost like home.

As he watched the approaching lights of the other party, Blue frowned. He had never doubted that Magenta would follow him, or that his intentions towards himself – and probably the entire away party - were neither friendly nor honourable. He sighed and cursed under his breath. He was confident that he could deal with the situation and he trusted that Scarlet could do the same – but Cadenza was the unknown in the equation. Presumably she would have had the same training as all Spectrum Angels, but, as he knew only too well, that did not always mean the women were capable – or willing – of putting what they had been taught into action. The only good thing was that Garnet and Symphony were still out of the way, and hopefully safe enough in the other tunnel. With any luck they would remain there until this was over. He found himself wishing that it was Symphony at his side, instead of this unsettlingly familiar blonde.

Cadenza had been musing over his words. “Patrick Donaghue? Well, we are running true to form, guys. I know a Patricia Donaghue. But you said this guy is dangerous?” They both nodded emphatically. “Well, Pat isn’t – except that she’d talk you to death, given the chance…”

Blue gave her a brief smile and reasoned aloud. “I suspect one of Magenta’s henchmen tailed Ruffolo. And, when Ruffolo failed to complete his mission, he followed his orders and he shot him – but only after Ruffolo had shown him where we had disappeared. Now Pat is on his way to see for himself.” He chewed his lower lip and continued as if to himself, “I may have made too much of the business possibilities of time-travelling and dimension-jumping tunnels, but he would not have come otherwise, and he was too well protected for me to tackle him on Cloudbase.”

“You planned this?” Cadenza asked sharply.

“Not quite like this,” Blue admitted. “No-one bothered to tell me that Lieutenant Garnet was coming, for a start,” he glanced reproachfully at Scarlet, “and I never expected you to be here.” He nodded at Cadenza with a doleful stare.

“That makes two of us, Adam – I never expected to be here either,” she responded with a proud tilt of her head.

“What game are you playing, Svenson?” Scarlet’s inquiry made his companion smile.

“Haven’t you heard, Captain Scarlet? This isn’t a game – this is real life - and it just got a whole lot more dangerous.”

“That is very inscrutable of you, Adam – Readers Digest has a page for aphorisms like that.” Cadenza sighed. “Do you have time to explain?” He shook his head. “Then just tell us what you want us to do,” she conceded with a shrug.

“You should keep out of the way, Cadenza,” Scarlet began before Blue could answer.

“Don’t worry about me, Captain; I can take care of myself.” She smiled at him. “Besides, has it occurred to either of you that your pistols got left behind on my Cloudbase? I am the only one of us with a gun.” She drew her Spectrum gun. “I’m assuming this will still work, even though it is a weapon from a different dimension. In this case, it is to your advantage to make use of me, because – fond though I am growing of the both of you – I do not intend to hand this over to either of you. Moreover, whoever Magenta expects to find here – it won’t be me.”

Realising she was right, and that both he and Scarlet were weaponless, Blue glared at her. “Look, both of you keep out of this. I can handle Magenta alone. I have done so far.”

“But you’re outnumbered and all of them are going to be armed, which makes you extremely vulnerable,” Scarlet reasoned. “You need my help.”

“Our help,” Cadenza amended.

“You’ll just get in the way and you might get hurt,” Blue protested angrily. “Please, I won’t ask again – stay out of this.”

Both answered.

“You need help…”

“We can help…”

Then in perfect unison, they concluded, “You know I’m right, Adam.”

Blue turned in amazement. “Now you’re talking in frigging stereo!”

He couldn’t repress a smile at the astonishment he saw on the faces of his colleagues, as they exchanged sheepish glances. “Okay, you win; I don’t have time to argue with you both. Fan out and keep me covered. I will try to get Magenta away from his minders. If either of you can deal with one or both of them, it would be a help.”

They nodded and started to comply with his order. Quietly he added, “And thanks – both of you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Cadenza replied softly, glancing back over her shoulder, “We Svensons always stick together.” Blue gave her a long, searching look as she moved into the shadows of the rocks by the tunnel mouth.

Scarlet melted into the background on the other side from Cadenza, and watched as the unknown party moved closer. One of them was definitely Captain Magenta, and he glanced at Blue in time to see his expression change. The seriousness evaporated, to be replaced by his usual expression of irritatingly patronising ennui. He lifted his hard-hat and ran a hand through his fair hair, tousling it in the process, and then he replaced the hat on the back of his head at a jaunty angle.

Once the newcomers were in earshot, he called out to them with all of his usual hauteur. “Patrick, you sure took your time. What kept you? Couldn’t find a pilot?”

Magenta’s reply was too mumbled to be audible clearly, but the tone was one of annoyance. Gradually, he became intelligible. “You were supposed to wait at the mouth of this hell-hole. I had to send Cobalt in with Ruffolo to discover where the frigging hell you’d got to.”

“Yes, I found Ruffolo.” Blue prodded the body with his foot and sniffed fastidiously. “You were not happy with his standard of work, I take it.”

“He had his orders, and he knew the penalty for failing was likely to be… terminal.” Magenta left the nature of those orders vague, and as he finished the climb over the shingle at the mouth of the tunnel he was breathless, and looked hot and annoyed. “I will not tolerate disobedience or treachery amongst my workforce…”

“Quite right too,” Blue interjected.

“Or my partners,” Magenta finished ominously.

“You can’t get the hired help these days,” Blue said lightly and gave the looming figure of Lieutenant Cobalt a cheesy grin. Lieutenant Mauve – a hard-bitten New Yorker – gave an insulting snort of laughter and spat. Blue grimaced and moved away slightly, as if he felt contaminated.

Magenta frowned at his men and asked sharply, “Where are the others?”

Blue gestured vaguely in the direction of the tunnel stretching away behind him. “Ochre went off to protect the pacifier, he took Symphony with him. Scarlet’s looking for the right cavern to get back to the portal he came through. He’ll come back for me when he’s found it.”

“You let him go alone?” Magenta growled. “He may not come back!”

“He will… Garnet isn’t with him. This Scarlet is the type who doesn’t feel happy running out on a partner – especially a lady – he’ll be back. Besides, I have no desire to go traipsing about in the darkness… these are new boots.”

“Oh, what a shame,” Magenta mocked. “You might get all dirty!”

Blue’s lips curled in a smile that held no amusement. “Padraig, you do your side of things your way and I will do mine.”

“One of these days, Svenson – you will pay… for everything.”

Blue’s smile widened and his voice went dangerously quiet, “One day, Padraig, so will you.”

“Are you threatening me, Svenson?”

His partner gave a brittle laugh. “Oh Padraig, you are so paranoid. Haven’t you realised by now that I don’t give a toss what you think about me, or what you would like to do to me. You need me, Paddy-boy, far more than I need you.”

“I could break your family with a few well chosen words. If you want to see your old man and your Uncle gaoled for thirty years, Pretty-boy, you just keep needling me.”

“If my old man’s been dumb enough to give you a hold over him, well, that is his look out! But remember, if my Dad goes, I am the only person on this planet who can access your money. And I might not do it, if I feel threatened. Kill me and you’re several tens of millions worse off. I doubt even you could make the Syndicates swallow that, Donaghue.”

Magenta ran a handkerchief over his sweating brow. He was not prepared to discuss the state of his relationship with the Syndicate with Svenson. He changed the subject. “This had better be worth it. I don’t take kindly to being dragged all over the globe chasing your fantastical theories.”

As if accepting that the opening hostilities were over, Blue shifted his stance slightly and released his tension with a huge sigh. “It will be worth it, Patrick. I am almost certain now, that these tunnels bend time as well as dimensions. The opportunities for fraud are limitless, once we know how to take advantage of the portals.”

“So you said.”

“We could use them to change history – even to abort that Martian expedition, if we wish.”

Magenta looked up and frowned. “Why would we do that? Things have worked out well, ever since Spectrum started chasing aliens and lost interest in us. You know yourself that we have made far greater profits since those bug-eyed monsters arrived. You could say the Mysterons are good for business.”

“You are out of your mind, Donaghue! They are callous, murdering brutes! I saw what they were capable of – at the Car-Vu.” The memory of the fateful day he had shot Captain Ochre came back to him in vivid detail. His voice dropped and he murmured, “I had never had to kill a man before… never had to deliberately shoot a man I knew and liked. It does things to you… leaves a stain that nothing can eradicate.” Blue drew a deep breath and forced himself to concentrate on Magenta, who was regarding him with a patronising smile. “Whatever I may do, as part of the Agency, I will not do anything that assists the Mysterons and you shouldn’t even speak of such a thing in the terms of financial gain! Besides, what good would all the money in the World be, if there is nowhere left and nothing to spend it on? You have heard their threats – they want to wipe us all out! I have seen what they could do to this planet if they chose, and believe me, that is not a world you want to find yourself in! ” Blue bit back his words, at the realisation that he had revealed far more than he intended.

But Magenta did not seem to have noticed. He gave a supercilious smile, delighted that he had finally provoked Blue into making unguarded statements. “I never thought you scared so easily, Svenson,” he said. “Quite frankly, you made a right mess of the biggest opportunity you’ll ever have; you should have shot President Younger and blamed Ochre. Okay, so you weren’t to know he would revive, but it would still have been your word against his and no-one would have believed him. Your Uncle stood a good chance of becoming the World President in Younger’s place, and that would have benefited us, far more than even the present regime does. If we decided to take advantage of the potential you claim is offered by these tunnels, that is what we would change, and if you won’t shoot the President, I am sure we can find another operative to take your place on the Car-Vu, one who would do the job properly.”

Scarlet listened to this exchange with a growing fury. Magenta was far more callous than he’d imagined, and far more dangerous. He had to remind himself that this man was not the good-natured, enthusiastic Patrick Donaghue he knew and - whereas there were touches of the Adam Svenson he knew in Blue – Magenta seemed entirely ‘alien’.

He began to wonder if the captain had been Mysteronised by some chance. He had no Mysteron detector and he was too far away from Magenta for his ‘sixth sense’ to warn him, although - given that he felt nothing with Ochre - it might not recognise a Mysteron in this dimension at all. Ochre had not sensed his presence, so it was conceivable that the effect of an ordinary Mysteron reconstruct nearby would not set his nerves jingling enough to make him feel nauseous. Still, it was worth a chance; if Magenta was a Mysteron, Spectrum would have the reason it needed to remove him. He began to edge forward and his boot dislodged a stone which clattered down onto the sloping shingle before the tunnel entrance.

He froze, cursing under his breath, as Magenta’s head came up and he listened intently. He waved Blue’s latest protest to silence and gestured Cobalt and Mauve to move further back so that they could cover the tunnel exits and provide him with protection in event of an attack. “What was that – Metcalfe coming back?” he demanded, sharply peering into the gloomy tunnel, which Blue’s body effectively shielded from his line of sight.

“Nah, this place is quivering like a jelly,” Blue improvised. “It was just another tremor.” He was striving to regain his normal insouciance.

“He had better not be too long, or someone may just have to go through those tunnels without him and see what comes of it,” Magenta threatened.

“Be my guest, Padraig, but if you think I am going to risk my neck attempting an unproven portal, you can think again.” Blue edged slightly back into the shadows, reducing his chances of being hit by Magenta’s henchmen whilst pretending to search for Scarlet. Magenta moved towards him and actually took hold of the taller man’s arm to stop himself from slipping. Blue continued to move further back, intent on separating Magenta from his bodyguards. “I think he went through one of these cracks…” he volunteered, to divert the gangster’s attention away from his companions. He could see Cadenza and Scarlet, edging around the rocky outcrops on either side, with the intention of coming up behind the henchmen, who were watching their boss with glum dedication.

Seeing Blue and Magenta fade into the murky tunnel, Cadenza moved round until she was behind where Lieutenant Cobalt was standing. She peered into the gloomy distance and, because she expected to see it there, she just caught sight of a flash of red as Scarlet edged into place behind Mauve. With a grim smile, she stepped forward and knocked Cobalt out cold with the butt of her pistol. Startled, Lieutenant Mauve turned in alarm and found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol, in the hands of an unknown woman who was pointing it straight at him. Seconds later he too hit the ground as Scarlet’s karate blow connected with his collar bone. Scarlet shook his hand theatrically and grinned at Cadenza.

Magenta heard the noise and turned to see two figures standing over his unconscious men. Recognising Scarlet’s red tunic and dark hair, he spun back and savagely pushed Blue away, causing the blond man to go sprawling on the unsure footing and disappear from view down a steep slope. Then he dived for the cover of a narrow aperture in the rock face and drew his pistol. He glanced over his shoulder to where Blue was stumbling to his feet.

“Sell me out to Scarlet and his fancy women, would you? Get over here, Svenson. You can’t even manage a double-cross with any skill, you scum.”

Dazed and cursing, Blue staggered across the shingle. “What are you talking about, Magenta? What did you go and shove me like that for? I don’t know what he’s been planning and I don’t know who that great big draft horse of a woman is, either!”

“Who are you calling a draft horse, you dumb ox?” Cadenza shouted.

“And if I choose not to believe your protestation of innocence?” Magenta snarled, his gun pointing straight at Blue’s head as the taller man made a show of brushing the dust off his uniform.

“Then I will think you are crazy. Why should I side with Scarlet and his ilk? They want to turn Spectrum into some glorified boy-scout organisation. I outgrew the boy-scouts decades ago. I am with you in this, Pat – remember we are partners?”

“Yeah, that’s as may be,” Magenta snarled. “But someone has taken your gun away, Svenson, and my guess is they got the drop on you – which is no surprise.” He turned to shout at Scarlet. “I have your patsy here, Scarlet and I won’t hesitate to kill him if you make just one false move. In fact, it will give me great pleasure to do so! It may be the only thing we have in common, Metcalfe – a wholesome contempt for this ponce! Now is your chance – I will gladly put a bullet in his pretty head for you and you can blame me for it… all you have to do is move away and let me out of here. I’m not interested in your dimensional portals… I just wanted to make sure Svenson wasn’t playing me false.”

“Why would I want to see Captain Blue dead?” Scarlet called back, watching as Cadenza secured the two minders with their own handcuffs.

“You might not want to see him dead,” she commented wryly, straightening up and pulling a face at him, “but after that dig about draft horses – I sure do.”

His amusement was short-lived as he heard Magenta’s voice, answering his question.

“He set you up – he got that technician to accuse you of raping her… It was his idea. One of his better ones, I have to add. If the President hadn’t interfered, you’d have been out on your ear.”

“Oh, come on, Patrick, is that the best you can do?” Blue scoffed, rolling his eyes.

Cadenza looked across at Scarlet’s annoyed expression and pursed her lips. “My other self is not exactly covering himself with glory,” she commented, handing Scarlet Cobalt’s gun and pocketing Mauve’s herself.

“My guess is that it isn’t even true… at least, I hope not,” he replied before shouting back. “That doesn’t merit you killing him, in fact, if you do, there will definitely be no way out of here for you – except under arrest or dead… and I don’t mind which it is, Donaghue. With Svenson alive, we might be able to come to some deal.”

“I want to walk out of here with my men and an hour’s start…” Magenta called. “And I will take Svenson with me. There are a few little jobs I have for him to do before I let him go.”

“No deal – if you go, he stays… I am sure with some persuasion he would turn state’s evidence against you.”

“In that case I have nothing to lose – I might as well have the satisfaction of killing him…” Magenta snarled back.

“Would you mind not trying to save my skin, Scarlet?” Blue sounded querulous. “I was doing rather better on my own…”

“I am quite sure, Magenta, that one call to Cloudbase would have dozens of armed men down here – the colonel has been looking for an excuse to throw the book at you for some time, as I understand it. You’ll never get out of here a free man,” Scarlet reasoned.

“You seriously under-estimate me, Scarlet.” Magenta’s voice held the confident ring of a man sure of his power. “To get anything off Cloudbase you have to launch the planes and my men have control of the launch systems. Nothing leaves that base without my authority. I left strict instructions; in my absence not even Blue’s orders are to be obeyed.” He cocked his pistol and pointed the gun at Blue’s head. The taller man stiffened, his head thrown back away from the barrel of the gun.

Magenta explained coldly, “You see, I never trust anyone – even my partners.”

Chapter Two

Symphony kept an anxious vigil through the wide sweep of Stingray’s windows as the aquanauts searched the area where Captain Blue had vanished. It was obvious, even to her inexperienced eyes, that they were having trouble manoeuvring in the turbulent waters around the cliff face. The radio links between the divers and the sub were being affected by a persistent interference and were of very poor quality, they could only hear snatches of conversation between the partners. Atlanta had tried to reassure her, as best she could, that Troy and Phones were a close team and a lack of direct communication between them would not necessarily hamper the search, and she had taken some comfort in that. She was aware that, sometimes, Blue and Scarlet knew instinctively what the other would be doing, and what would be needed by way of support. It even happened with the Angel flight sometimes – as one pilot anticipated the orders of the Angel Leader by a fraction of a second. Team-work, she thought distractedly.

Atlanta watched her visitor with sympathetic concern. It had not taken her long to realise that the attractive American girl – however much she flirted with the aquanauts – was really not interested in any man except Captain Blue. It wasn’t Atlanta’s idea of devotion - she would never torment Troy like that – but Captain Blue had appeared less than disconcerted by Symphony’s behaviour. And nobody witnessing the Angel’s distress at his disappearance could doubt where her affections lay. In a gesture of silent support, she made them both a cup of coffee, and stood beside the Angel pilot, watching until the men began to return to the submarine. That they had not found the Spectrum officer was obvious – and Atlanta pretended not to hear the smothered sob from her companion.

She moved to the airlock, leaving Symphony to regain her composure as best as she might.

As Troy emerged, he reluctantly glanced at the grief-wracked face of his passenger and said with as much reassurance as he could, “We need to replace our air tanks, we’ll go out there again as soon as we can.”

Symphony nodded, and looked away, reaching up to brush the insistent tears from her eyes. “If your air is exhausted…” she began, and her voice slurred into incoherence.

Troy spoke briskly. “It would seem there is a cave mouth behind that cliff face… I am certain that Captain Blue was sucked in by the force of that whirlpool. There is no sign of him anywhere else. It’s impossible to approach it at the moment – the tide is just too strong and it isn’t safe to even try to take the sea-bugs through the gaps. When the tide turns, in the next hour or so… we’ll try again. I am sure that we’ll get access to the cave then. It is very possible there is an air pocket in there or even that the cave extends through to the surface, with a negotiable way out. Maybe Blue is standing somewhere up the volcano’s side now – unable to contact us directly. The radio interference is not getting any less; it must be connected to the volcanic activity we’re witnessing. I hope Adam’s taking the opportunity to top up his sun-tan…” he joked feebly, trying to elicit a smile from the young woman.

Symphony nodded bleakly. “I must report to Cloudbase… Colonel White’s probably hopping mad already at our missing the last check-in.” She sighed and her voice quavered. “Although, how I am going to tell him that now Blue has disappeared as well…. I don’t know…”

“If it gets too hard – just pass him over to me,” Tempest said with a grim smile. “I don’t frighten easily…”

~oo0oo~

In the cavern beyond the cliff-face, where he had been thrown by the whirlpool, Captain Blue raced to catch up with Symphony Angel. She waited for him at the top of the scree bank by a narrow crevice in the rock face. She didn’t bother arguing over his decision not to wait in the cavern, but gave him a friendly smile as he scrambled up the last few feet, and directed his gaze to the tunnel entrance.

“Garnet has already gone though. I know I can get in there, do you think you can?”

Blue eyed the gap with a rueful grimace. “I’ll have to, won’t I?”

“You’ll need to be a contortionist, Captain, it’s not exactly… roomy in there, and it’s a matter of crawling once you are in, but if you’re determined, nothing I say will deter you.” She gave him a thoughtful glance as she estimated his breadth. “I’d say you are a little chunkier than Sky… but here goes! You go first, then if you do get stuck, I can always push…” she sniggered.

Blue ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. There was no alternative but to try. He ducked down and squeezed sideways through the opening with some difficulty, noticing with relief that it widened – albeit not by much – a few feet in. Symphony slipped in after him and they moved along a rough tunnel, which climbed steeply. Blue winced as outcrops of rock grazed his shoulders and elbows and razor-sharp shards dug into his knees as he crawled.

“Careful, we’re getting close,” Symphony urged, after they had covered some distance in silence. Blue raised his head, ducking it again as he hit his head on the roof. Ahead of them, he could just see the sullen glow of what he assumed was daylight. “We left the cave we were in because someone was shooting at us. I hope Garnet’s had the sense to keep under cover, in case he’s still there,” she explained in a whisper. “In a few feet it should open out and we’ll be able to stand.”

A dark shape emerged from the gloom ahead of them, and they heard Garnet whispering, “I waited here, I can hear voices I don’t recognise…”

With a sigh of relief, Blue staggered to his feet, surveying the tears in the knees of his wet-suit with rueful eyes. He turned and gave Symphony a hand to get to her feet. She was looking done in, he noticed with concern. Before he could ask her if she was okay, Garnet came and stood beside him, looking at him with the same wariness she’d displayed in the cave. He smiled at her, reminding himself that, although he thought he knew her pretty well, after the days he’d spent searching for her, she had never met him – apart from a lecture she’d attended at Koala Base, and as he didn’t remember her from there, it was unlikely they had even spoken directly - so perhaps her wariness was justified in the light of what she’d experienced lately and he ought not to take it personally.,

He pressed himself back against the wall and breathed in as Symphony squeezed past. He tried to ignore the faint, yet familiar, scent of Karen’s favourite perfume, which teased his senses as she passed by. Acutely conscious of the feel of her body brushing against his, he gazed abstractedly at the far wall, whilst reminding himself, this is not my Karen, and even if it was, I should be concentrating on this mission, not acting like a love-struck idiot and wasting my time fantasising …. I’d forgotten just how much I liked it when she wore her hair long….it’s only that she brings back memories… that’s all. Concentrate…..

“Oh great… just what we need. Magenta’s here…” he heard her murmur. “Looks like I am going to have to dig you out of another hole of your own making, Sky. This is getting to be a habit….”

She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled forward to listen to the conversation. Glancing at Blue, Lieutenant Garnet followed her and went to listen as well.

From his place behind the women, Blue could hardly hear any of the actual conversation, although he could make out voices that sounded familiar. He gazed at the women in front of him and found his mind wandering back to Karen on Stingray. He was sure she’d be frantic about him… but he hoped Tempest would stop her from doing anything stupid. It was just possible that she would listen to his advice, as she really wasn’t that accomplished a diver – good and getting better all the time, of course, he thought loyally – but if she was honest with herself, she’d admit she wasn’t up to the conditions in the straits. Good Lord, he reasoned, I was barely able to keep off those rocks…

He became aware of a juddering in the wall he was leaning against and moved away from it. Ahead of him, the women had felt it too.

Symphony turned and hissed, “Another tremor, they’re getting more frequent.”

A crack appeared across the tunnel floor and the shingle began to slither into it. There wasn’t room for Blue to cross the divide unless the women moved out into the larger tunnel, but they showed no signs of being ready to do that and, if it wasn’t safe for them to go, he would not even suggest it. Garnet looked back over her shoulder, surprise on her face at the rapidly widening crack.

“I’ll have to go back, Lieutenant, this side isn’t that stable,” he hissed, feeling the shingle moving beneath him.

Garnet nodded and whispered to Symphony. She turned again and looked in alarm at the considerable crack between them. “Go back, Adam,” she urged, “before you get pulled in…I will tell Captain Scarlet you are here.”

He raised his hand in acknowledgement. “Be careful, Karen… and you, Lieutenant.”

He began to make his way back along the tunnel. If - when - Stingray’s crew found him, he’d bring them here with ropes and follow the women across – he would find Paul!

Symphony watched him go with a surprising sense of loss; she had experienced a comforting reassurance from his presence. From the little she had heard of Scarlet’s world from Colonel White, it had sounded almost idyllic, and maybe part of that idyll was an Adam Svenson you could rely on? However, right now she had enough to worry about, and he had to be the least of her worries; from what she’d heard was going on in the cavern, things were coming to a head between the opposing camps.

She concentrated on events beyond their hiding place and edged forward cautiously, peering into the tunnel and cavern beyond, trying to ascertain what the situation really was. Her initial impression was that Blue and Magenta were confronting Captain Scarlet and an unknown woman… her eyebrows rose in puzzlement as she recognised an Angel uniform… of a sort.

Maybe the new Captain Blue isn’t the only person from Scarlet’s universe who’s found a way through? she wondered. Her attention was drawn back to the events beyond their hiding place, when Captain Magenta shouted to Captain Scarlet. He and the unknown Angel were guarding two men, easily recognisable by their coloured uniform tunics as Magenta’s most trusted henchmen, even in the gloom.

“Don’t be such a fool, Scarlet! What we have is a once-in-a-lifetime’s opportunity. I can make you richer than your wildest dreams – and your lady friend. The ruling council of the Syndicate – of which, I have to tell you, I am an important member – has struck a deal with the Mysterons through their representative. Where we have been of assistance to them, they are happy for us to take the profits from the schemes they introduce, and they are not so unsubtle as to make every threat obvious. It suits them to keep Spectrum occupied, running after bombs and assassination attempts and such crude red herrings. It is almost amusing to see the satisfaction with which White, and his happy band of do-gooders, congratulate themselves on yet another nuclear plant saved, or worthless politician protected. The Mysteron schemes that are really doing the damage are far more insidious – they are in carefully chosen strategic venues around the World - aimed at disrupting industry and undermining confidence in the World Government’s financial probity. There are massive profits accruing from these schemes and we – the Syndicate – are reaping the benefits. We are making money hand over fist. So much so, we have been able to broaden the scope of our operations merely using the funds they’ve generated. Currently we still need the SvenCorp organisation to launder this money but, in the not too distant future, we will be able to function without the Svensons… all of them!” he crowed with obvious glee.

He continued, unabashed by the heavy silence that followed his revelations. “Don’t think you can stop the Mysterons, Scarlet. They have extraordinary abilities and weapons at their disposal, weapons the Syndicate will be allowed access to, if they continue to be happy with the services we provide. Our agents are proving invaluable at destabilising organisations and commerce and, of course, they are undetectable by anti-Mysteron security devices. Why, even here and now, I could call on the Mysterons for their help and you would all be so much dead meat!”

Magenta smiled, recalling the devastation he’d seen as he’d driven up to the tunnel-mouth in the wake of Black’s SPV. He had received the agreed warning from Captain Black that the Mysterons were about to carry out their latest threat, and that, along with his suspicions concerning Captain Blue’s trustworthiness, had been enough to prise him from his airborne fastness on Cloudbase. As he understood it, Black would destroy the pacifier so that it could be reconstructed by the Mysterons and duplicates made, for use at Vesuvius and other strategically sited volcanoes. His satisfaction increased as he thought, that should boost the Agency’s bank accounts very nicely, once the frightened Regional Governments pay up to avoid the threat of disasters in their territories. He guessed the Mysterons’ chief agent was, even now, hard at work on the pacifier, and with any luck, he would have dealt with the tiresome Captain Ochre too – the game was far from being lost!

His reverie was interrupted by Scarlet’s outraged shout. “You must be insane, Donaghue! You cannot trust the word of the Mysterons! Their stated aim is to destroy all life on earth – what makes you think you will be spared when they achieve their aim? It is every man’s duty to stand against this threat and do what they can to thwart their plans.”

“Spare me the lecture – I’ve heard the colonel’s interminable pep talks too,” Magenta retorted.

During Magenta’s revelations, Blue had been slowly edging away from the weapon pointing at him. Now he felt his feet slithering from under him on the shingle and he suddenly slipped backwards down a slope, saving himself from falling only by throwing himself forwards and coming to a stop resting on his hands and feet.

Coldly, Magenta ordered him back. As Blue made a great play of trying to walk through the unstable shingle, Magenta began to threaten and ordered him to hurry, but the sudden touch of the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against his neck silenced him. Distracted by Blue’s antics, he had not heard Symphony emerge from the tunnel in the wall behind him, although she had been perfectly visible to Blue for some time, as well as to the others further away in the cavern.

Symphony said with an exaggerated reasonableness, “Now, now, Mr Donaghue, we don’t want things to turn nasty, do we? Throw your gun over there…” Reluctantly Magenta threw the gun across the shingle.

Listening with growing horror to Magenta’s revelations, Symphony had decided he must be stopped and, sliding her pistol from its holster, she had crept close enough to place the gun at his throat. Behind her, she could hear the scrunch of shingle as Garnet emerged from the portal.

“Well done, Symphony!” Scarlet called, and started to scramble up to the tunnel mouth, with the intention of collecting Magenta’s gun. Cadenza walked close behind him.

“Yes, thanks, Symphony,” Blue said affably, relaxing and moving towards her.

“You stay where you are, Svenson,” she snapped, frowning at him. “I can just as easily shoot you too. I don’t know what all this is about yet, but I heard enough to know that you are as suspect as Donaghue.”

Blue gave an irritated smile and protested vehemently. “Come on, Karen, I may not be your exact image of a knight in shining armour, but I’m not a frigging traitor either! You heard him admit that the Syndicate is working for the Mysterons, and you know me well enough to know I would never willingly do that!” He lurched up the slope, intent on beating the living daylights out of his enemy.

Angrily, she turned the gun on him. The memory of the other Captain Blue, and the almost instantaneous rapport she had felt with him, only served to fuel her exasperation with the slippery character of the man she loved.

How can they be so different if they are the same man? she wondered, and why did I get the louse? Aloud, she said, “What makes you think that? I am not sure I know you at all, any more. I’m sick and tired of making excuses for you and watching you strut about, as if no one and nothing mattered but yourself. You have made my life a living hell over the past few years, Adam Svenson, and - believe me – revenge would be sweet. Besides, I don’t really want my baby to grow up knowing its father is one of the lowest forms of pond-life! So, I might just take any excuse you give me, Sky, to blast your brains all over the walls. If you’re feeling lucky – keep moving and let’s just see what happens.”

Scarlet’s advance came to a sudden halt. “A baby?” He looked at the young woman with fresh eyes and realised just why her uniform seemed to fit so badly.

“Why so surprised? It was the first thing I noticed,” Cadenza said dryly. She gave Blue a withering glance, but from the look of utter surprise on his face it was clearly news to him as well. She shook her head and relented slightly, merely adding, “Who got careless then?”

“Who the hell are you?” Symphony turned to stare at Cadenza, and Magenta took his chance. He grabbed at the gun trying to knock it from her hand. A shot fired across the tunnel, ricocheting amongst the rocks and causing an echo that reverberated around the cavern. Away in the distance, they heard the rumble of falling rocks.

Garnet started forward as Magenta’s grip tightened on the struggling Symphony but, with a powerful sweep of his arm, he sent the young woman flying into the path of the advancing Scarlet. As they disentangled themselves, Blue’s advance suddenly halted and he raised his hands. Magenta had pulled Symphony’s pistol from her hand and had it at her temple.

“I am prepared to kill her - and as many of the rest of you as I can – if any one of you makes a false move,” Magenta panted. “Get back, Scarlet - and you.” He nodded at Cadenza. “Now we have a whole new scenario, don’t we? You can keep Mauve and Cobalt – they were dead men anyway, once they’d got me out of here - I have a far better pilot now.” He turned his attention to Symphony who struggled, without effect, in his grip. “I am sorry it has come to this, Karen. I always hoped that you and I would be friends; we have so much in common and I never could understand what you saw in Svenson – he’s not the man for you – he doesn’t deserve you. I am a reasonable man and, if you give me your word that you will not join with these losers again, I will accept it. Once we are out of here, there will be nothing and no one to stop us. I can call on the world-wide resources of the Syndicate and even Spectrum won’t be able to touch us. Now is the time to start calling in the favours the World Senators owe me. Between us, we can hold the reins of power in the World Government.”

Symphony’s expression was one of loathing as she stared at him, but Magenta was too occupied with his new plans to register this fact. He continued. “How would you like to be in supreme control of Spectrum Cloudbase, Symphony? There is no need for you to worry, it’ll be easy enough to get rid of that… embarrassing little inconvenience you’ve acquired… and start afresh. I expect the colonel will quickly come to see the wisdom of taking early retirement, after I have had a little chat with him.”

She struggled in his hold and gasped out her revulsion at his very suggestion. “You must be out of your mind, Donaghue! I wouldn’t let you touch me if you were the last man on this planet, which, if the Mysterons get their way, you may well be!”

Annoyed at her rejection of him, his attitude changed and he glanced down at Garnet who was still struggling to her feet. “You will come too – just to ensure Miss Wainwright’s attention stays focused on her work. You,” he looked at the rigidly motionless Blue, “you will go to Boston and transfer the Agency’s money over to the Syndicate’s accounts – unless you want to join your father in jail for the next thirty years? I am sure there’d be plenty of sex-starved men in there who would appreciate your boyish charms, Svenson!”

“Oh, perleese…” Cadenza drawled, shattering the aura of shock. “What is it with you, Donaghue? You have a real problem with him, don’t you? A little jealous, are you? Or maybe it is only such a bugbear because you can’t admit that you’d like a taste for yourself?”

Captain Blue’s horrified eyes were not the only ones that swivelled in the direction of the tall blonde, as she advanced up the shingle bank towards the stunned Magenta. She reached up slowly and removed the clip, so that her luxuriant blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders.

“Well,” she continued, her voice low and a little husky, “if Symphony is dumb enough to reject your offer, Patrick, perhaps we can come to some arrangement…” Magenta stared, fascinated, as she provocatively began to unzip the jacket of her Angel uniform, moving closer all the time. “You see, I came through one of those portals, and in my dimension, I am Adam Svenson…” she chuckled, “if that makes any sense. I work alongside a Paula Metcalfe and a Patricia Donaghue. The Captain Blue I know is a sweet young man called Kevin Wainwright and I can see a definite resemblance to your Symphony Angel. Although, Kevin has more… class, shall we say? So, what is it to be, Patrick – the shop-soiled and knocked-up tramp or the female equivalent of your darkest fantasies? They call me Cadenza, by the way…”

She struck out suddenly at the rapt Magenta, with a fierce spinning kick. As he recoiled from the impact, Symphony pulled away and collapsed at his feet. Scarlet’s shout echoed around the cavern as he dived to Cadenza’s support. Blue sprang towards Symphony, covering her prone body with his own. Another shot rang out and Garnet screamed. Scarlet’s fist connected with Magenta’s jaw and the American staggered. A second blow landed and he crumpled to the ground, leaving Scarlet standing triumphantly over his fallen enemy.

There was a moment of utter stillness as the echoes of the gunshot died away. Then Scarlet glanced at Symphony, who was in Blue’s embrace. He saw Svenson’s hand move to brush the hair back from her face and wipe a lone tear from her cheek, with a tenderness that made him smile. Maybe there is hope for him yet, he thought. Then he heard Garnet whimpering and he turned to the other side, where the lieutenant was kneeling beside Cadenza. The blonde was lying unconscious on the shingle, blood seeping into her uniform from the gunshot wound under her left breast.

“Eva!” Scarlet bent to her and lifted her gently. She was still breathing.

Meanwhile, Blue was helping Symphony to her feet.

“Was it true – what she said to Magenta? Is she you from another dimension?” she asked him.

“Yes and no,” he replied. “I think she is probably a far better person than I will ever be.”

“I doubt that – she needs lessons in good manners for a start! Who is she calling a shop-soiled tramp? ” Symphony gave him a wry smile. “Besides, you saved my life.”

“Well, I have to agree with the lady. She reminded me earlier that we Svensons always stick together.” Hesitantly, he placed a hand on her abdomen and gave her an apologetic half-smile.

With great deliberation, she removed it. “I see, so you’d have let him shoot me if I hadn’t been carrying your child?”

“No, I would not … I’d have killed him with my bare hands if I could’ve.”

“There you go again… mystifying me.” She gave a heartfelt sigh. “I wish you’d be straight with me, Sky, just for once. I know it ought to be possible for us to get along just fine – we used to. I met another Adam Svenson through that tunnel – the one Scarlet is looking for – and he wasn’t, in the least, like you have become. Whatever happened to Ochre on the Car-Vu quickly became apparent to us all, but something, less obvious, happened to you to, didn’t it? You changed… and not for the better.”

He flushed, but chose not to answer her most pertinent question. “I met another me, from yet another dimension - that was a male ‘me’ too - Cadenza was a bit of a shock, I’ll tell you that much!” She raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Would I be wrong in guessing you liked other Adam better than you do me?” he added dejectedly.

“Yes, I did, Sky. That Adam made me feel like I used to when we first met each other, before you turned into such a complete bastard. He told me he is engaged to the Karen in his world. Isn’t that amazing?” She looked at him, her expression dripping with sarcasm.

“Not really, I sort of intend to get engaged to the Karen in my world too – if she will ever agree to have me, that is?”

“I’d have to think about that. It’s too late for you to pretend that everything is as it used to be. So, don’t imagine for one minute that I’m in a forgiving mood, Sky. ” She was determined not to relent towards him.

“We don’t have the months and months you usually take to make your mind up,” he reminded her. “So, your time’s up….”

She grimaced at him, yet only struggled briefly when he bent his head and kissed her.

“When you two love-birds have finished billing and cooing…. we could do with some help,” Scarlet snarled in exasperation. He shook his head as they stepped apart with alacrity and came to where their colleagues were trying to deal with the serious matter of Cadenza’s injuries.

Garnet gently opened the leather uniform jacket and lifted the tunic beneath to reveal a messy wound.

“That’s far enough, Lieutenant…” Cadenza opened her blue eyes and gave a pinched smile. “A girl likes to keep some secrets.” She stared pointedly at the two Captains.

Instantly Symphony shooed the men away with a critical expression. She knelt beside the injured woman, shielding her from prying male eyes. “I think they only wanted to help, if they could,” she explained.

“Huh, I don’t need their help. I’m fine…” Cadenza stated in the face of the obvious evidence to the contrary.

“You are wounded; we need to staunch the wound…” Garnet reasoned. Then she looked disbelievingly at the bullet hole, which was already looking less severe. She turned her astonished eyes to Symphony who was watching with equal surprise.

“I’m fine,” Cadenza reiterated, heaving herself into a sitting position with a gasp and resting on her elbows. She grimaced and then sat upright, tugging her clothes back into place, intent on covering the injury. She looked at the women watching her with ill-concealed wariness. “I heal very quickly,” she began to explain. “It’s a legacy from an unpleasant encounter with the Mysterons. I was, for several hours, under their control - but please don’t worry - I was freed from their control after Captain Scarlet – my Captain Scarlet, I mean – shot me and I fell from… a considerable height. When I revived, I was myself again.”

. “You mean it was you who tried to kidnap your World President?” Symphony asked with some surprise.

“That incident happened here too?” Cadenza gasped. “Then someone here has… experienced the same thing as me…” She looked across at Captain Blue with a thoughtful expression.

“In my world it happened to Captain Ochre,” Symphony said, correcting her obvious assumption. “In Garnet’s world... it was Captain Scarlet – but that isn’t generally known here - and, as with Scarlet’s ability, I suggest we keep your talent to ourselves for now, as well. I am not sure how certain people would react.”

“You mean Adam, don’t you? You still don’t trust him, which is strange, because I kind of expected that you would give him the benefit of the doubt – if anyone would.”

Symphony looked away from the other woman’s penetrating gaze and gave a dismissive shrug. Cadenza finished re-arranging her clothes before she asked, “Who does know about Scarlet?”

“Well, Garnet, of course, and you and me, but I was told by the colonel, so Scarlet may not know that I know about him. Ochre knows about Scarlet – but not about you – obviously...”

“Not everything is the same in our worlds, so I did wonder if this had happened to anyone else. I always imagined I was unique, and there was nothing to suggest Scarlet was any different from Blue…” Cadenza mused with a shake of her head. Something was obviously puzzling her. “Yet, there are enough similarities between our worlds to make it likely to have reoccurred, I guess. It is all very confusing. Give me a hand up, Symphony.” The Angel pilot obliged. “Tch, another uniform ruined. I’m going to have fun trying to explain this away to admin….” the tall blonde moaned.

Symphony smiled. “It sounds as if some things don’t change, whatever the dimension…”

Chapter Three

Having effectively been banned from helping with Cadenza, Blue and Scarlet moved across to where Magenta lay, still unconscious, on the cavern floor.

“What do you propose to do now – with Magenta and his cronies?” Blue asked briskly. He had no desire to get involved with the care of his injured doppelganger - in fact, even being around her, now he was back in his own dimension, was making him edgy. Neither did he intend to discuss Symphony’s announcement with Captain Scarlet, he needed time to come to terms with that information himself.

“Hand them over to the colonel, I guess.” Scarlet said, with a speculative glance at the dark man who was starting to come round from his faint. “Then there would have to be a trial…”

“No, you can’t do that. Magenta has too many ‘friends’ in high places – he’d walk free from any trial Spectrum could stage,” Blue asserted. “Whatever happens will have to be done by other authorities than Spectrum and preferably by someone who is virtually above the law.”

Scarlet misunderstood the American’s meaning and Blue could see the mounting indignation in his face, as he prepared to face down what he saw as his companion’s unwarranted aggression. “Well, I am not going to kill, him, Captain, nor will I stand by whilst you do,” he stated vehemently.

Obviously, he is still unsure that my interests are not bound up with the Syndicate’s in some abstruse manner, Blue thought.

“And nothing – and no one – is above the law, Captain Blue,” Scarlet added. “We are all answerable for our actions.”

Blue’s answering glance was sceptical. “It would be nice to think so,” he said, “and maybe, in your world that is the truth, Scarlet, but I tend to doubt it myself.”

Magenta gave a groan and started to pull himself onto his hands and knees. Blue watched him struggle for several minutes and then with a callous shake of his head, kicked his erstwhile partner in the ribs and watched him collapse again.

“Tut, tut, tut, Captain Blue,” Symphony admonished him, but without sincerity. She was walking towards them, leaving Cadenza and Garnet whispering together.

“How is she?” Scarlet asked.

“She’ll live… we Angels are made of stern stuff, and don’t either of you forget it, Captains.”

Blue shrugged and petulantly aimed another kick at Magenta. “Yeah - Angels without hearts – the whole lot of you!”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” she snapped back.

“Its not his fault you two have fallen out – whatever else he’s guilty of – so stop kicking him!” Scarlet ordered.

“This is nothing compared to what he has had done to people in the past, Scarlet. Good people, honest people. Even on Cloudbase there have been beatings and unexplained ‘accidental’ deaths. And don’t forget Sergeant Ruffolo, you heard him say he was responsible for that death yourself.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you cared about any of that,” Scarlet remarked coldly.

“Well, I do. Whatever you may believe of me, I am not as bad as you imagine, Scarlet.” Blue’s gaze was directed at Symphony, even though he was apparently speaking to Captain Scarlet. She sniffed and turned away.

“Oh right – I keep forgetting - you’re the good guy in all this,” Scarlet answered. Blue’s eyes swivelled back to him and Scarlet met the taller man’s indignant gaze with indifference.

They broke off their bickering to look with some astonishment at Cadenza, who was on her feet, moving towards them. She was mopping ineffectually at a patch of blood on her uniform jacket. She stopped as the silence permeated her conscious mind and then deftly swept her hair back into its band once more.

“It was just a graze, really,” she said to the men by way of an explanation. “I was winded, that’s all. Or are you telling me your uniform tunics are not bullet-proof too?” The captains shared embarrassed glances. “Anyone got a water bottle handy? I could do with a drink,” she added.

Obligingly, Garnet went to scrabble amongst the discarded back-packs for a water bottle.

Scarlet stared at Cadenza for some time, a suspicion beginning to form in the depths of his mind. However, his instinct was to reject it – he had felt no nausea in the company of Eva Svenson. I’m getting paranoid, he thought critically, and yet… Ochre has been retrometabolised, and he made no impression on me. Still, the idea that a woman might have suffered the same fate is too outrageous to be given any credence.

Cadenza noticed his serious expression and, as his eyes met hers, his fears melted away in the warmth of her charming smile. In fact, he found himself grinning back at her like a gauche teenager, and, starting to feel uncomfortable with that fact, he turned away. Damn these Svensons – both of them - they are too unsettling for words, he thought. I wish they were as straightforward and honest as Adam… a chap knows where he is with Adam…

Symphony had caught the interaction between the two retrometabolic individuals and realised Cadenza thought Scarlet had twigged about her ‘abilities’. She was not so sure and she turned to Cadenza. “What you said about Donaghue…?” she began, determined to avoid the subject of the woman’s recovery.

Cadenza’s surprisingly girlish giggle echoed around the cavern. “You should have seen the look on your faces!” She glanced over at Captain Blue, who was not looking amused. “It worked though – it startled Magenta so much, he wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Patrick wasn’t the only one it startled,” Scarlet agreed, with a grin.

“It was completely ridiculous…” Blue protested. “As if…”

“Oh sure, as if…” she agreed, fighting the desire to laugh at his discomposure. She offered an explanation. “In my world, Patricia Donaghue has ‘a thing’ for Kevin Wainwright – and, because Kevin prefers me - she’s not really my best friend on the base…she has a nice line in put-downs … if you follow my meaning. When I heard Magenta’s offer to Symphony and his derogatory remarks about you,” she glanced at Blue, “it was obvious that there was a similar situation here. I hoped I might be able to use it to cause a distraction and get close enough to attack. That’s all.”

“Well, it certainly did that all right,” Scarlet agreed. “Just as long as you weren’t seriously hurt? It was quite a risk you took, Cadenza.”

“I’m fine, Captain, I’m tougher than I look, believe me.”

. “What the hell has been going on here? I’ve been looking for you!” Captain Ochre sounded really angry. “Now, don’t anybody move until I find out what’s going on - or I will put you all under arrest!”

Scarlet sighed. “Here we go again….” he muttered to the grinning Symphony.

When Ochre had scrambled along the last few yards of the tunnel and into the large cavern where he had parted company with the others, he had seen, over on the far side, a large group of people. He had no idea who some of them were, nor where they had come from, but recognising the red of Scarlet’s tunic and the blue-clad blond, he yelled at them and staggered as fast as he could across the intervening distance. The others turned and watched as he ran over the rough ground, tripped and collapsed.

Lieutenant Garnet, making her way back with Cadenza’s water bottle, changed direction and went to his side to help him up, marvelling as she saw the cuts on his hands disappear almost instantaneously.

He gave her a grateful smile, and took a drink from the water bottle she proffered shyly. They walked back together to join the others. Garnet handed Cadenza the bottle and the Angel gave a grateful nod before drinking it dry.

Ochre expressed his satisfaction at seeing Cobalt and Mauve under restraint and threw his handcuffs to Scarlet, so that Magenta, now stirring again, could also be secured.

“Are you going to cuff Blue as well?” he asked.

“No, not this time,” Scarlet replied, catching the handcuffs. “He’s on our side… for now.” He cuffed Magenta and hauled the dark-haired man to a sitting position.

Ochre looked sternly at the others. “I need help - I am asking you all for help,” he said directly.

“What’s wrong?” Symphony asked.

“I’ve found the pacifier… but the Mysterons are already there… the guards are all dead and Mysteronised. I can’t handle them alone.”

“Right, let’s get down to business,” Scarlet said briskly, unconsciously dusting his hands after touching Magenta. “All of us here are Spectrum agents; we all know that our ultimate duty is to defeat the Mysterons.”

There was a general murmur of agreement. Ochre looked at them all, nodded at Cadenza and frowned, “Who are you?”

“Cadenza Angel, Spectrum,” she replied with a crisp salute.

Ochre looked at Scarlet, “From…?”

“Elsewhere? Yes. She’s okay – she’s on our side.”

“Yours or mine?” Ochre said sourly.

“Ours,” Scarlet reiterated. “Do you want our help, or not?”

Ochre accepted the rebuke with an ironic smile. “Symphony, you and Garnet can keep an eye on them.” He nodded at the prisoners.

“You’d prefer to take her with you rather than me?” Symphony protested, indicating Cadenza with a gesture.

“I trust you…”Ochre left the sentence hanging. “Let’s go…” Then he turned and led the way once more across the cavern to the exit.

They devoted their stamina to moving as quickly and silently as they could through the tunnels towards the pacifier. The fact the tunnels were deserted lent credence to Ochre’s description of the worst possible state of affairs: The Mysterons were here and the pacifier was in danger.

As they approached the junction that led to the only entrance to the pacifier, Ochre flagged them down and as they gathered round him, he whispered, “The next branch of the tunnel is to the left… about twenty metres along. It widens out into a sort of natural alcove…and the machine is in there. I checked on the surface agents and all of them are under the control of the Mysterons, so we are on our own. Luckily, the group in there were too busy doing something to the machine to notice me and I was able to get away.”

“How many men are in there?” Cadenza asked quietly.

Slipping her pistol from its holster, she checked the cartridge chambers. Ochre watched as she produced Mauve’s gun and did the same again with a detached professionalism that went some way towards reassuring him.

“There were four of them, unless more have joined them since I left,” he replied. “But, we ought to remember that more may come down if they sense a danger of failing in their mission.”

“Four shouldn’t present a problem,” Scarlet commented, as he checked the firearm he had acquired from Lieutenant Cobalt. To his surprise he saw Blue also had two pistols – somehow, he had acquired Ruffolo’s pistol and taken Magenta’s as well.

Ochre, noticing the same thing, gave a wry smile. “I never thought I’d be glad to see you armed to the teeth, Svenson.”

Blue’s smiled response was partly surprise, partly acknowledgement of a depressing fact. He caught Cadenza’s eye and raised his eyebrows in exasperation. She pulled a face – as if to say ‘what did you expect?’

“What’s the best – just go in with all guns blazing, or try to pick them off? “ Ochre continued. He glanced at Scarlet, automatically deferring to his military experience.

“Well, I think we’d stand a better chance if we hemmed them in there - but as this isn’t the Wild West, we don’t shoot unless we have to. Remember, a ricochet could just as easily kill one of us and we can’t risk starting a rock-slide or alerting other Mysteron agents in the vicinity. Cadenza, will you watch our backs? If anyone tries to get to the pacifier, you’ll have to kill them, I’m afraid.”

“Sure, I have no qualms about killing Mysterons, Paul.” She twirled the two pistols around her fingers, like a gunslinger – echoing his cowboy reference – and winked conspiratorially at Blue.

Ochre looked at her in surprise. “Can we trust this girl to watch out for us?” he asked sceptically.

“This Girl is perfectly trustworthy and more than capable, Captain,” she replied sourly. “Don’t you worry your cute little head about it.” She cocked a pistol and stared Ochre’s dark eyes down. He glanced at Blue and back to her with a slight frown of surprise. “Save it for later,” she advised.

Scarlet led the way forward, and Cadenza took a position across from the entrance where she could see both the entrance and the corridor, and which was partly sheltered by a rough boulder. Blue slipped into Scarlet’s shadow and Ochre, with one last look at this unexpected Angel, followed him.

It was claustrophobic in the cave. There were already four men around the pacifier and not much room for manoeuvre. Scarlet winced as the vibrations from the pacifier assaulted his hearing. He detected that the pitch of the machine was different from the one he remembered at Gaspari’s boat-house, in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. A quick glance at the other two showed that they were also being affected by the proximity of the machine – and as he expected, Ochre was suffering far more than Blue. There wasn’t much time if they were to avoid the ear-splitting consequences he’d experienced before.

He cocked his pistol and the three security auxiliaries spun round, almost in slow motion. For the first time that gave them a clear view of the man closest to the pacifier. Kneeling at the machine was a Spectrum officer dressed in black.

“Black!” Scarlet gasped.

Captain Black stood up and turned with imperturbable languor. He looked at the three Spectrum agents and a slight smile crossed his pallid features. Ignoring Scarlet and Ochre, he said, almost conversationally, “Captain Blue, I was wondering where you had got to, I know Captain Magenta was looking for you… “

Ochre turned on Captain Blue, anger flashing in his dark eyes. “You’re in league with them - you and your buddy, Magenta!” he accused.

“Of course I’m not!” Blue snapped.

“Shut up!” Scarlet ordered. The pressure in his ears was becoming almost unbearable and he knew his tolerance of the pacifier was reaching its limit. The longer they argued, the more likely he and Ochre, at the very least, would pass out, and he doubted Blue could defeat the four Mysterons alone. “He’s trying to sow distrust and gain time to trigger an eruption. Well, it won’t work. We have you this time, Conrad… you have three of us to deal with.”

Black smiled. “And what a trio, it is – if you are the best the dimensions can offer, you might as well surrender now. You, Captain Scarlet, are still as much the impetuous hot-head as ever, I see. The censorious Captain Blue - all fired up with zealous righteousness, again - and you, Captain Ochre - what can I say about you? - except that you are unable to forget - or forgive – and far too scared to trust. What a collection of would-be heroes… it needs three of you to face me.”

“I know what you are trying to do, Black and I won’t let you…” Scarlet raised his pistol and aimed at Black’s head.

Unperturbed, Black shifted his dark gaze beyond Scarlet and spoke to someone in the entrance. “Are you going to let him kill me?” he asked in a measured tone.

Ochre and Blue turned to see Cadenza staring with horrified eyes at the scene before her. She had recognised Black’s voice and been irresistibly drawn to see what was happening.

“Conrad?” she asked in some confusion.  “What are you doing here? You never said you would follow me, didn’t you trust me, Colonel? None of these men are Mysterons – I am sure of it, although ...”

“Conrad? This is Captain Black – he’s the Mysterons’ chief agent on the earth… he’s never been a colonel – at least not in Spectrum,” Ochre snapped, his eyes narrowing with re-emergent suspicion.

“Don’t let him confuse you, Eva, he is not to be trusted.” Blue added his voice to Ochre’s warning. He could read the hurt in her face.

Scarlet said nothing. His eyes had never left Black’s face and his determination to kill him increased with every passing second. He cocked his pistol and moved to a better stance for firing, he didn’t want a stray bullet to hurt any of his companions. This time Black would get what he deserved.

None of the Mysterons moved, and Black continued to look at the woman by the entrance. Ignoring the others, he spoke exclusively to her.

“Of course I trust you, Eva – I always have, you know that. Is this how you repay me? I fought long and hard to have you reinstated and you know how honestly I have always dealt with you. Would you trust these strangers more than me? I am your commanding officer and your friend - you know what I feel for you, and how dear you are to me.”

Bewildered, and more than a little confused by the pounding of the pacifier, she looked from one man to other, “Scarlet…can’t you see? It’s the colonel…” she pleaded. Scarlet shook his head and began to pull the trigger but Cadenza fired first. “I can’t let you…I am sorry,” she cried in anguish.

Scarlet felt the searing pain as the bullet entered his body, smashing his ribs and piercing his left lung before it came to rest under his breast-bone. Staggered by the impact, his own shot went wide and Black watched with an almost clinical interest as the man sank to his knees, his eyes glazed in excruciating agony and red froth bubbling from his mouth as he slowly drowned in his own blood.

“You are a Mysteron!” Ochre raged, seeing his worst fears confirmed. He turned and shot the woman behind him at point-blank range. The impact of the bullet lifted Cadenza off her feet and she crashed to the floor, banging her head against the rough hewn walls of the cave.

“Are you crazy, Rick? What are you doing?” Blue yelled. He turned both of his guns on Black and fired them simultaneously, but in the split second it took for the bullets to travel across the cave, Black vanished and the other Mysteron agents collapsed to the ground.

Captain Blue surveyed his fallen colleagues with exasperation. “That was bright of you, Fraser,” he snarled. “You played right into Black’s hands – fighting amongst ourselves has allowed him to escape.”

“You heard what he said to her and what she said – they were in league!”

Blue sighed. “I doubt it, you see, she was telling the truth. In her dimension the colonel in charge of Spectrum is Conrad Turner and he wears a black uniform. Whoever she knows to be the Mysterons’ premier agent on this planet - it is not Black.”

“Well, you might have said something…I’m not a frigging mind-reader,” Ochre complained.

Blue walked across and crouched to examine Cadenza’s body.

“Is she dead?” Ochre asked.

“She’s not far off it; I doubt anyone could survive a shot at that close range,” Blue replied in some distress. “What about Scarlet?”

Ochre glanced that way. “He’ll be okay…Once we get him away from this damned machine.”

“I know he will, but you could at least make him as comfortable as you can in the meantime.” He looked at Cadenza. “We should call for medical help anyway, although it probably won’t get here on time.”

“You know about Scarlet?” Ochre asked distractedly; the noise of the pacifier was making his ears ring and his head felt fit to burst.

“I thought it must be the case – after what he described about his… arrival here – he hardly had a scratch on him. It didn’t take a genius to work it out.”

“Why didn’t you ask him about it?”

“I figured he didn’t want me to know,” Blue shrugged.

He turned to Cadenza once more and opened her jacket before lifting her blood-soaked jumper. Wincing as he examined the wound made by Ochre’s powerful bullet, he knew that without a proper medical kit there was nothing he could do and she’d have bled to death long before a medical team arrived. Ochre came over and peered down at her, grimaced and moved away with a shudder.

A vague suspicion began to form in Blue’s mind as he looked at her and he lifted the tunic further to examine the earlier wound – discovering nothing except a fading scar. Her face had a healthier look than it had moments earlier and her breathing was getting stronger.

“Well, I’ll be…” he breathed with a sense of relief. “Rick, come here… look at her. I think we may have hit the jackpot…”

Reluctantly Ochre peered down once more, seeing a wound where the blood flow had stopped and the jagged, bruised edges were already starting to heal over. He had seen it too often in himself not to realise what was happening.

“Good God,” he whispered.

Blue sat back on his heels and started to laugh. “I’m feeling outnumbered…” he chuckled to himself. Then he crawled over to Scarlet and stretched his body on the floor, in an effort to make him more comfortable. “Come on, Captain, now it’s your turn, so let’s be having you. Wakey-wakey…”

Scarlet opened his eyes and frowned. He coughed, leaned over on his side and spat out a mouthful of congealed blood.

“There is a canteen of water next to you,” Ochre said from where he was watching the two invalids.

“Thanks…” Scarlet heaved himself upright and reached for the canteen. With the first mouthful, he swilled his mouth and spat it out onto the floor. Then he drank most of the canteen in one gulp. He looked towards the pacifier, which was mercifully silent.

Captain Blue was kneeling before the open control panel, working intently on the connections and circuit boards. Sensing the scrutiny, the American turned and nodded affably at the Englishman. Scarlet reckoned Ochre must have told him about his retrometabolism and he felt himself blushing.

He looked away and saw Cadenza lying by the entrance. He looked at Ochre. “Is she…?”

Ochre shook his head. “Any minute now, I’d say.”

“You shot her?”

“Yes, I thought she was a Mysteron… with all the others around here, my senses were all at sixes and sevens. Blue told me afterwards that Conrad Turner is the commander-in-chief of Spectrum in her reality. I just hope she’ll understand. I don’t think I want to come up against the cutting edge of her temper.”

Scarlet frowned; everyone in this dimension seemed so callous. “She’s dying, Ochre…” he chastised.

“No, she’s not – it seems that there are three of us indestructible types here. Only Blue is not so …gifted.”

Cadenza shifted and opened her eyes. “Oh, my head aches…” She raised a hand to the back of her head and examined the sticky blood on her fingers before wiping them on her uniform. “Great, now I need to wash my hair again…Anyone got any water?”

“Drinking water, or hair washing water?” Ochre teased.

“Hand it over, Captain, before I do you serious damage.”

Ochre grinned and passed a second canteen across. She drank it thirstily and then turned to Scarlet. He grinned at her; she blushed and then smiled back.

“What happened, after I shot you?” she asked him.

He shrugged and glanced towards Captain Ochre.

“I shot you, Cadenza,” Ochre admitted. “Apologies and all that – Blue didn’t tell me about your colonel being Conrad Turner until too late – and I thought you were a Mysteron.”

“That’s right, Fraser, make it out to be all my fault,” Blue muttered, but his tone was friendly enough.

“Tell me, Cadenza, do you usually experience …a feeling, when there is a Mysteron about?” Ochre asked her. She nodded. “Yeah, so do I, but I didn’t have one about you, or Scarlet, come to that. If I hadn’t seen him recover from a beating, I wouldn’t have believed him either,” he concluded with a wry glance at the Englishman.

“Me neither… I didn’t get a feeling with either of you. Perhaps, for some reason, our instinct doesn’t work out of our own dimensions?” Scarlet speculated.

The three of them looked in bewilderment at each other, still trying to come to terms with the fact that all three of them had the power of retrometabolism. Unique though they might be in their own realities, they knew now that they were no longer the only human beings to experience the sensation.

Blue looked across from the pacifier. “Hasn’t it occurred to any of you geniuses, that the reason you may not get ‘the feeling’ with each other is because none of you are Mysterons – in the true sense of the word as we understand it?”

In the almost deafening silence that followed this suggestion, he came to stand beside Scarlet and smiled at the hope he saw in the sapphire-blue eyes. Ochre’s mouth was half open in shocked surprise at the thought, and there was a dull flush on Cadenza’s cheeks, which indicated that she shared the same reservations as Scarlet and Ochre.

Pulling herself together, she looked up at Ochre and held out her hand for assistance to rise. As he helped her to her feet; she staggered a little, but straightened up quickly. “Well, Captains... this is interesting. Perhaps we could have an annual get together here and compare notes.”

Blue placed a hand on Scarlet’s shoulder and helped him to his feet.

Scarlet had been dreading this and he gave the American an apologetic glance. “I am sorry I never told you about my retrometabolism, Captain Blue. I wanted to at the start – when I first came to see you on Cloudbase, it never occurred to me not to tell you – but as we spoke, I began to wonder if I would be wise to reveal everything. Once I learnt of your involvement with Magenta and his mob, I knew I couldn’t tell you. Only the colonel knows and Captain Ochre…”

Blue bowed his head in some amusement. “No sweat, Paul. I can understand that you might not want to trust me, besides, I’d kinda figured it out for myself.”

“You had?” Cadenza was surprised. “And me, did you guess that too?”

“No, but then, I never have been able to read women very well…I just don’t understand them,” Blue admitted with a wry twitch of his eyebrows.

“You don’t have to be indestructible to do that, you have to be omniscient,” Scarlet remarked to general amusement.

Chapter Four

Colonel White glanced at the clock on his console. His concern for the safety of his officers was growing. Lieutenant Green had reported difficulty with communications to the away team ever since they had reached the outpost at the entrance to the tunnel system – and once they had gone underground, even that link had been broken - now she couldn’t raise the terrestrial personnel either. He looked across at his communications expert as she used her extensive knowledge to attempt to boost the signal to Mount Etna. He saw her annoyed grimace as another idea proved unsuccessful.

“Lieutenant,” he called, “I think we can assume you aren’t going to be able to reach Captain Ochre or any member of his mission. The time has come for a more direct means of communication.”

“Sir?” she asked, for once failing to catch her commander’s train of thought. Does he expect me to open a porthole and shout? she thought sceptically, behind the impassive expression on her face.

“Where is Captain Flaxen?”

Green glanced at her status screen. “She is in the Officers’ Lounge, sir.” Where she has been moping ever since we discovered Lieutenant Garnet had slipped away with the Etna team. Green and Flaxen were close friends and the lieutenant knew far more about the tangled relationships amongst his senior command than the colonel did.

“Ask her to come here, would you, Lieutenant? Something tells me that Captain Ochre might need reinforcements.”

“SIG, Colonel,” she replied brightly. That will cheer Flaxen up, and no mistake!

Soon afterwards, Captain Flaxen found herself piloting an SPJ carrying a second ‘away mission team’ to Mount Etna. Besides herself, there were six of the colonel’s most trusted agents on board, led by the experienced Sergeant Bob Harcourt, which in itself was confirmation of just how seriously White took the situation. He would never willingly deplete the loyal forces on Cloudbase, for fear of a coup by the Agency men.

In his briefing, Colonel White had told her an improbable story about people from alternative dimensions which, quite frankly, she found it difficult to give much credence to. What was far more unsettling was the indisputable fact that Etna was on ‘red-alert eruption status’ and only Professor Gaspari’s machine was preventing the whole volcano from blowing its top and taking half of the island with it. Given that the latest Mysteron threat was also believed to be directed at that very volcano – it was imperative that Spectrum did not fail in its task to protect the pacifier and prevent an eruption. Flaxen bit her lip… it was unlike the colonel to have sent such a ragtag of officers down on such an important mission. Everyone knew you couldn’t trust Captain Blue as far as you could throw him… and if Scarlet and Garnet were from a different dimension – they might not be trustworthy either. She checked the control panel and squeezed a little more speed from the SPJ.

Trouble started as soon as they approached the base camp from the WAAF landing strip further across the island. Their arrival was greeted by a hail of bullets from the local security agents. Flaxen cursed – these men were supposed to be loyal to Spectrum – and she set about deploying her meagre force to best advantage.

“Captain, what is that SPV doing here?” Sergeant Harcourt shouted across to the pre-occupied Captain, as she dodged behind a lorry to avoid the bullets raining down from the camp.

Flaxen frowned. “I don’t know – the others had the two SSCs… look, they’re over there. Check with Cloudbase, Bob.”

Harcourt contacted Lieutenant Green, and, although the reception was bad, he managed to get the information that SPV 316 had been reported ‘missing’ earlier… after the terrestrial agent had been found shot dead with a Spectrum pistol. He shouted the news to Flaxen.

“Wonderful… that means it could be one of two things… Magenta and the Agency, or Captain Black,” Flaxen groaned.

“Why Black?”

“The Mysterons threatened the pacifier, remember? Where there is Mysteron activity there is usually Captain Black.” Flaxen waved her men forward. “We have to get inside those tunnels…”

“Do you want to leave anyone here to protect the vehicles?” Harcourt asked.

“I don’t think we can spare the men… besides, I’m hoping that once we get in the tunnels, we’ll find that Captain Ochre has all this sorted out already.” She gave the older man a brief smile. No point worrying him with the rest of the information about the away team, or the fact that Black didn’t need an SPV to escape from Spectrum…

Harcourt nodded agreement, then turned his attention to the problem of reaching the tunnel entrance.

They fought a protracted battle to gain access to the tunnels – which resulted in one death and several minor injuries amongst the party. As they approached the tunnel entrance they could feel the low-pitch vibrations of the pacifier, regularly thudding out the signature the scientists had calculated would soothe the volcano and delay – or even stop – the otherwise inevitable eruption. Flaxen was lining up a shot to ‘take out’ another Mysteron when their assailants faltered and began to lower their weapons in confusion.

Gratefully seizing the unexpected opportunity, Flaxen led the remaining members of her party at a dash into the tunnels and although their pace slowed in the narrow and frequently uneven tunnel, they made good progress into the interior.

When they reached the junction of the main tunnel with the large cavern, the noise of the pacifier stopped. Flaxen glanced around quickly and then led her team up to the narrow tunnel that led back towards the pacifier’s location, ordering them to quicken their pace.

They reached the corridor to the entrance of the pacifier’s enclave and skidded to a halt. Indicating that Harcourt and his team spread out and protect the approaches, Captain Flaxen edged forwards, her back to the wall and approached the opening.

She peered in round the corner, her gun ready to blast any suspicious characters she encountered. Not usually so martial in her approach, she was fired up with worry – both for the pacifier and its mission, and for Captain Ochre’s safety. Her gasp of surprise attracted Ochre’s attention and he smiled a welcome. Scarlet, and an unknown blonde woman, were standing on either side of the machine as Captain Blue fiddled with the controls.

“What on Earth are you doing? Why have you turned it off? Don’t you know the dangers in doing that?” Flaxen demanded, her hand going to her pistol.

“Relax, Flax,” Ochre said. “It’s under control. Blue is trying to reverse whatever Captain Black did to it. We figured that it wouldn’t have been a useful adaptation of the machine, so we switched it off and once we’ve fixed it, it can go back on again.”

There was a flash of brilliant electric-white light and Blue cursed, sucking at his burnt fingers.

“You want me to do it?” the woman asked, exasperated by the incident.

“No…. most of the women I know are terrible with electronics,” he muttered.

“I am not most women and you are a male chauvinist pig!” the woman asserted.

“Quit bickering and just fix it, will you?” Scarlet reprimanded them. “Honestly…you two, you squabble like kids.”

Blue sat back on his heels and smirked. “That’s it… it should work now. Try to switch it on, Rick…”

Ochre flicked a generator switch and the machine hummed and gradually the deep resonating thump started again. It was noticeable that the frequency was set at a slightly less nerve-shredding pitch

“Am I good or am I good?” Blue congratulated himself.

“Careful or you’ll never get your head through the tunnel, Svenson.” Ochre’s taunt was surprisingly good-natured.

Flaxen frowned at him. “What’s been going on?” she asked with a sigh.

“You wouldn’t believe me, Flax…”

Chapter Five

Leaving two of the security guards to watch the pacifier - and ensure that the de-activated Mysteron agents did not spring back into action the moment the Spectrum officers left - Captain Ochre led the officers and three security guards back towards the main cavern. His brief explanation of the train of events left his partner rather confused – although she quickly grasped that Captain Magenta and his henchmen had been overwhelmed and were under restraint – and she spent the journey at Ochre’s side. They spoke continually, taking the opportunity to update each other on events, both on Cloudbase and at Etna, in a whispered conversation.

It is likely that Flaxen has new orders from the colonel, Scarlet thought, hoping that these would not prove to be likely to delay the search for the portal back to his reality. He glanced across at Cadenza, who now appeared to be as fit and reinvigorated as he was himself. He’d had quite a few surprises since he found himself ‘away from home’, but the knowledge that – in Blue’s opinion anyway – he and his fellow retrometabolic officers were not ‘true Mysterons’ was a comforting one. He had often worried that, somehow, his actions were still dictated by the cold, obsessive intelligence that threatened the Earth with annihilation – especially when a mission failed and people were hurt. He guessed, from Ochre and Cadenza’s demeanour, they experienced similar doubts from time to time as well.

Cadenza saw his preoccupied expression and moved closer to him. “Problems, Paul?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Actually I was just thinking about what Blue said – about us not being Mysterons, as such,” he confessed with a wry grin.

She nodded. “Yes, and you know, it is also kind of comforting to realise that… in some ways, I’m not as unique as I felt I was. Even though we’ll probably never see each other again after this mission is over.”

“If we can find the ways back to our own dimensions, Eva,” he reminded her soberly.

“Hey!” She gave him an upbeat smile and punched his arm playfully. “There are enough bright sparks in this party to ensure we do find the ways home. You know I’m right, Paul.”

He laughed. “I know enough never to argue with a Svenson who’s made his… or her… mind up on a subject!”

“I’m glad you added that feminine pronoun…. I’m starting to feel a little got at, with all these masculine Svensons about the place.”

“Now you know how we felt, seeing you and Sonata for the first time.”

“At least, you’ve only had to get used to seeing one of your alternative selves as the opposite gender. It keeps happening to me!”

“I shouldn’t worry about it, Eva. You’re far prettier than they are…”

She roared with laughter. “Well, for that small crumb of comfort – many thanks, Mr Metcalfe!”

He joined in with her amusement. She was far more like the Adam he knew than Captain Blue was turning out to be. It was the next best thing to being back home, he decided.

As soon as she saw them approaching, across the enormous underground cavern, hazy with a miasma of the vile gasses which continuously escaped from fissures in the pumice and rocks, Symphony called a welcome and Garnet climbed the rock she was resting on and waved.

Scarlet noticed that both Ochre and Blue quickened their pace and reached the women ahead of the main party.

Blue immediately went to Symphony’s side. She was still looking pale, as the heat was obviously taking its toll on her, and he slid his arm around her shoulders, offering her his support. Scarlet watched as the Angel pilot brushed the wayward strands of her hair away from her face and deftly twisted it back into a top-knot, securing it with a few pins. She turned to glance at Blue, who was staring at her with concern on his face. She said something to him and, flushing, he dropped his arm from her, but stayed close beside her, nevertheless.

Ochre had checked Magenta and his cronies were still secure and received a mouthful of abuse from the captain for his pains. Then he went to where Garnet was waiting – watching him with open admiration. He began to speak to her, as solicitous for her welfare as Blue seemed for Symphony’s.

On her arrival, Captain Flaxen took control of the situation, ordering Sergeant Harcourt to remove the Agency members to the secure fastness of an armoured truck they had noticed, parked down the mountain side.

As he was being led away Magenta haughtily reminded his captors he had powerful friends and that everyone here was going to regret their involvement in this.

“Actually, Padraig,” Blue replied with a flash of his habitual arrogance, “I think you might find that when your sort loses their control, they lose their friends as well. No-one likes a loser, Paddy-boy.”

“Must be why you are so unpopular then,” Magenta growled back. “You will pay for this, Svenson. I swear I’ll make it my priority to see you begging for your next dollar…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Blue dismissed him airily.

“Can he do it?” Scarlet asked as they watched Magenta being hustled away.

“He can try, but he underestimates me - he always has - for some reason.”

“Jealousy,” Flaxen volunteered. Several heads turned her way and Symphony raised an interrogative eyebrow. “It can’t be a complete surprise to everyone,” Flaxen reasoned. “He’s had the hots for you, for ages, Symphony.”

“I told you so,” Cadenza murmured to no-one in particular, as she flopped down on the shingle close to Captain Scarlet.

Flaxen looked at the crowd of officers standing around, noticing with some dismay that Lieutenant Garnet was standing much closer to Captain Ochre than she was to Captain Scarlet. “Well, you have made a fair fist of wrapping this one up, Rick,” she said, seeking to cover her feelings. “I’ll take over now.”

“I don’t think so,” Blue interrupted. “You are not the senior officer here, Flaxen.”

“You shut your mouth. You ought to be under arrest too and unless you want to be handcuffed – and gagged, if I had my way – you’ll keep quiet.” Flaxen glared at Blue, defying him to argue.

He stared the young woman down. “Under arrest - what for?”

“How about: conspiracy to blackmail the Italian authorities by causing this volcano to erupt, for starters.”

“I did no such thing!”

“Tell it to the judges at your court martial, Captain Blue,” she retorted.

“I have made no attempt to extort money from any civil authorities. In fact I have – on several occasions – been the reason why attempts at extortion have failed,” he asserted. Then, as if aware he was wasting his breath he changed the subject, adding, “Over there, Captain Flaxen, you will find the body of Sergeant Ruffolo – shot by Magenta’s henchmen for failing to stop the volcanic pacifier, as well as for failing to kill the away team members.”

“I don’t doubt that Magenta had him killed, it would be his style,” she agreed. “You can say what you want to about your part in the Agency, Captain – thankfully I don’t have to decide if you are lying. Although I am damned sure you are.”

“You seem certain of your facts, Captain. I wouldn’t be so positive, if I were you,” the tall, blonde woman said.

“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” Flaxen snapped. Ochre’s explanation of Cadenza’s presence had been sketchy.

Cadenza scrambled to her feet, brushed herself down and extended her hand to Captain Flaxen with a bright smile, “Allow me to introduce myself, Captain, as none of these… gentlemen, seem to be prepared to do so. I am Cadenza Angel – Eva Joanna Svenson – and I am pleased to meet you, Captain Flaxen.” She looked closely at the surprised captain and said conversationally to Captain Scarlet, “Things are starting to diverge – I don’t recognise her at all.”

“Cadenza? We don’t have a Cadenza,” Flaxen snapped back.

“It’s rather complicated…” Cadenza smiled.

“You said your name was Svenson – are you related to Captain Blue?” Flaxen persisted.

“Intimately...” Cadenza laughed. “As I said, it’s rather complicated.”

Scarlet hauled himself to his feet and stepped forward. “Captain Flaxen, allow me to introduce the alternative Adam Svenson…” The two Svensons exchanged glances and Cadenza went to stand alongside her duplicate. The newcomers looked from one to the other in confusion.

“You mean she’s from your dimension, Scarlet?” Flaxen hazarded.

“No, my Adam is … well, is an Adam. Cadenza is from a third dimension. It seems there are multiple realities and almost every crack in the tunnel wall holds its own brave new world…”

“You mean there are more of him…?” Symphony grimaced.

“Yes, just as there are more of you, Symphony, and Flaxen and Scarlet,” Blue responded, more than a little offended by her remark. “An infinite medley of identities – all slightly different – or in this case the complete opposite,” he nodded at Cadenza. “All these realities hold a kernel of truth, which we can recognise but it would seem that at different points in history they divided, when someone made a different decision or the chromosomes got twisted, as in this case.”

“And just what is she doing here?” Flaxen asked.

“Ah, when Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue were arrested in my dimension, my colonel sent me to see if their story was true…”

“The colonel sent you?” Scarlet asked in surprise. “You kept that quiet.”

Cadenza shrugged apologetically. “I have to follow orders too. Besides, I really did want to see if you were lying.”

“Did you think we were?” Blue raised an eyebrow at his other self.

“I thought you might be,” she confessed. “You were hiding something – I am sure you still are, except I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly – but Captain Scarlet … well. I felt sure he was being as honest as he felt he could be, under the circumstances.”

“How could you tell?” Ochre asked, with a touch of his usual cynicism.

“Oh, Scarlet’s conduct is transparent, don’t you think so?” Ochre shook his head. “Well, I can read him like a book.” Cadenza smiled at the somewhat embarrassed Scarlet.

“And Blue?” Ochre prompted.

“He’s not so open, but I guess I have an advantage over you all there. I know how I would act if I was lying.”

“How do we know you aren’t lying now?” Flaxen asked sharply.

Cadenza looked at Scarlet and then gave Blue a slight smile. “If they can’t tell you – I guess you won’t know - for sure.”

“Well, I would have said you’ve been honest with us – until you just told us you were acting under orders,” Scarlet admitted with a wry grimace.

“But I wasn’t lying – I just didn’t tell you everything there was to tell,” she reasoned.

“Oh my God, she’s a Svenson all right…” Symphony commented wearily. Blue glanced down at her with some consternation.

Ochre looked pointedly at Cadenza. “So, now you had better tell us everything there is to tell, about what happened back there, when you shot Scarlet. It seemed to me that… well, I mean, are you and your colonel – well, are you … umm…?”

“No, we are not ‘umm’, Captain Ochre,” she smiled, adding a little forlornly, “at least, not any more.”

“But you were?” he persisted.

“We were… friends, for awhile… close friends. But I doubt it ever meant that much to Conrad…”

“Conrad!” Flaxen gasped. She was roundly ‘shushed’ from several directions.

“Conrad Turner is a very private man and totally dedicated to his work with Spectrum. We met, originally, several years ago, before Spectrum was created. I had been sent on a space flight orientation course, intended by the WAS to distract me from… personal problems. My fiancé had recently been killed when a jet he was testing exploded on take off. We were both test pilots and I was scheduled to take that job – but I was running late and Ed took my place. I guess I was more than a little guilt-ridden and Conrad was… kind. He was lonely too – he always seems lonely - and for a little time, we were both a lot less lonely. He took me under his wing and taught me a lot – about flying, you moron!” She rolled her eyes at Blue’s sniggering.

“We grew very close and I thought we might make a go of it – but then the Spectrum job was offered to him and Conrad left me – of course, I didn’t know why he left at the time. I never thought I would see him again. It is a measure of the man that he drafted me onto his staff, despite our history… So, I hope you can see why I felt I had to stop you shooting him, Paul? Some loyalties last a long time and you can’t ignore an appeal to them…”

Scarlet laid a gentle hand on her arm and she gave a shaky smile in response.

“How long were you together?” Garnet asked quietly. Her ready sympathy had been touched by Cadenza’s halting admission.

“Three years,” she replied, adding almost to herself, “all bar four months, and sixteen days.” She glanced up. “And will you stop grinning, Adam? I am not blind, you know!”

“But you are not…together now?” Ochre repeated.

“He’s the commander-in-chief of Spectrum and I am an Angel pilot. It wouldn’t do…” There was a hint of repressed anger in her voice.

“And Kevin Wainwright?” asked Scarlet gently.

“Kevin doesn’t know… Oh, he may suspect a great many things – but he doesn’t know anything.”

Well aware of Karen Wainwright’s incisive intuition, Scarlet wondered if that was indeed the case. Kevin Wainwright might well be equally as adept at reading the undercurrents between people. If that was the case, he was, obviously, also more adept at keeping his insights secret than the Karen at home. Scarlet could see that Cadenza was upset by the whole subject and in an attempt to reassure her he said, “That wasn’t your Conrad Turner, in that cave, Eva, – that was Captain Black – in most dimensions he is the man who led the expedition to Mars and – ultimately – you could say he got us all into this mess.”

“Who went to Mars in your World?” Ochre asked.

Cadenza grimaced. “It should have been Conrad, of course, but General White refused his permission – saying Spectrum was still too new an organisation to function without its commanding officer. I don’t think Conrad has forgiven him for that – even now. In the end, an officer from the Space Corp was given a courtesy rank in Spectrum – as Captain Zircon – for the duration of the mission. He piloted the Zero X craft; and whilst a group of officers were exploring in a Mars Rover, he panicked and fired at the Mysteron City – as far as we know. He was the only survivor amongst the crew, but he disappeared when the craft returned to Earth. He seems to be closely involved with whatever attacks the Mysterons launch on us. There are always reports of his being seen close to the scene of the crimes. It was a young guy called Stephen Kalinski – although the papers took to calling him Steve Zodiac once his mission was announced,” she shrugged – “I guess it amused them.”

“General White? You mentioned a General White…” Flaxen said.

“He’s our voice on the Joint Committee for Chief of Staff. An Ex-Admiral – quite a martinet by all accounts – Conrad’s known him for years.”

“That figures…” Scarlet muttered. He was struggling to put his finger on a tantalising aspect of their confrontation with the Mysterons’ principal agent, something which suggested it might reveal a fact of immense importance. “Captain Black seemed to know about each of us, didn’t he? In fact, he made a point of listing the… flaws he chose to ascribe to each of us,” he mused aloud. “He wasn’t at all surprised to see four individuals from different dimensions, was he? And, what is even more amazing when you think about it – he knew we were from different dimensions… we never told him that.”

“Maybe each of you can be described the same way, whatever the dimension?” Garnet suggested.

“No.” Scarlet shook his head decisively. “There are similarities between us all, right enough – but you’ve seen it, Adam - we are not the same in every dimension.” Force of habit made him turn to Blue for the prompt his mind needed.

For once they were on the same wavelength and without hesitation the American said, “Maybe, in every dimension of our world – we are fighting the same enemy.”

Scarlet nodded emphatically as the theory started to gel in his mind. “We know almost nothing about the Mysterons, let’s face it. It looks very much as if they can hop from dimension to dimension at will – trying out their revenge on each of us. They did say their goal was the ultimate destruction of all life on Earth. “

“That’s a bit far-fetched,” Ochre said doubtfully. “Far more likely that Black was just bluffing to throw us off the scent. If we are duplicated in other dimension – he must be too…”

“Yes, I suspect he is,” Cadenza said thoughtfully, “but remember –according to string theory there are up to eleven dimensions and countless parallel universes. Quantum mechanics explains that every outcome in every universe is possible, therefore every possibility must occur somewhere – we just can’t determine where. Improbable things happen everyday at the level of quantum mechanics – you could say our universe depends on them happening. So, the same things do not result in the same things happening to the same people in every dimension – we three are prime examples of that – and Conrad never went to Mars in my dimension… in others he may not even be in Spectrum, but living happily with a family somewhere.”

“So, the Conrad Turner that did go to Mars may be ‘spread through’ the dimensions?”

Ochre scratched his head. “Life used to be bad enough without all of this…”

Scarlet had been concentrating on pinning down his elusive idea and now he turned to Blue and asked, “Adam, do you remember what Svenson said in Boston? …. About the pacifiers being established technology in that dimension, and how the Mysterons might be manipulating the technology from a world they have subdued, to affect the worlds in other dimensions that they have not been able to subdue?”

Blue nodded.

“What had Black done to the pacifier when you examined it?” Scarlet asked sharply.

“He had reduced the frequency pulse and there were several disconnected circuits – I have no idea what they were intended to do. Maybe Black was dismantling it?”

“No, wait – could he have been disconnecting it from its stationary power source – or replacing that power source with something that would allow the Mysterons to transport a working machine through the dimensions?” Scarlet’s excitement increased with every idea that came to him.

Ochre interrupted, “Well, now you mention it… I remember hearing him tell the other Mysterons he had with him that the machine had to be moved to a new location, after he had disconnected it. I took it to mean that he wanted it moved to somewhere on the island – or another volcano.”

At these words, Scarlet looked at Blue and two pairs of blue eyes met – one pair a deep sapphire-blue, the other, pale enough to appear grey in certain lights. A flash of inspiration fired their intellects, and with a familiar ease their ideas sparked off each other.

“It is possible; I saw some shards of a crystal in the base of the machine near a group of wires that looked like later additions. Black might have been rigging a power source of some kind…” Blue looked at Scarlet frowning, “If they transport the machines at will across the dimensions, we’ll never stand a chance of stopping them…”

“True,” Scarlet conceded, then he reasoned, “but this may be the last working machine. There were two of them - at home - and Blue destroyed the one at Vesuvius, now the remaining one, in my world, is in pieces at the bottom of the sea after the Angel strike sunk Gaspari and Dincerler’s boat…”

“Then, might the Mysterons still be able to recreate it?” Cadenza interjected.

“No, I don’t think so. It seems to me, that whatever is causing these inter-dimensional portals to open is also restricting their options, and limiting what they can do. Rather like the interference with our communication systems… at least I hope so,” he concluded honestly.

“But, if they can still transfer things through the dimensions, it hardly seems much of a restriction…” Ochre moaned.

“Our machine might have come from Svenson’s world. We have no way of knowing for sure,” Blue mused. “It seems a likely possibility, because - even if Dincerler was Mysteronised and moved across the dimensions – chances are it would take him decades to influence research and development in other worlds…unless, of course, he turned up with a working machine and convinced - a less than scrupulously honest - Professor Gaspari to pass it off as his own research. Gaspari had been investigating the possibilities of a similar machine for several years; don’t forget. The working machines we have here are still fairly new and considered the cutting edge of technology…”

“They must’ve been rolling them out across the dimensions,” Scarlet reasoned. “Having discovered them in Svenson’s world, they have been gradually moving them into the other dimensions…”

“But, you can’t be sure they won’t just go and get another one – if we destroy this one.” Symphony pointed out.

The two men were startled from their intense theorising by the interruption, and Scarlet said slowly, “I don’t think they can… I think something is affecting their ability to move between them through the dimensions… otherwise why was Black bothering to salvage this machine?”

“That could be it; it would explain why they are in a hurry to copy or transport this machine…” Blue agreed. “Or it may just be something as prosaic as the fact that all the working machines from Svenson’s world have been used – remember, we don’t know how many other dimensions this has happened in already…”

“Surely, given their technical abilities, they can make more machines,” the Angel persisted.

“It might take time and … they seem in a hurry,” Scarlet reasoned.

“And why would the Mysterons be in such a hurry?” Flaxen asked sharply.

That stopped them for a moment until Cadenza suddenly snapped her fingers.

“The window of opportunity…” She pointed at Blue as if he was negligent for not thinking of this earlier. The men looked at her in mild confusion. “I think I can answer your question, Captain Flaxen. Conrad told me a few months ago, that there is a particular alignment of planets coming up this year… one that would add significantly to the gravitational forces acting on the Earth. There has been some discussion in the media, about whether it might effect communications and navigational equipment and all sorts of peripherals, but he said he had seen a report from the World Environmental Agency, speculating that it might also increase the risk of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and such like phenomena.”

“So, if that is true…” Scarlet gasped, as the enormity of the possibility began to become obvious.

“Any volcanic event would be magnified by the conditions resulting from the planetary alignment,” Blue concluded with an identical snap of his long fingers. “It is an ideal opportunity for the Mysterons to get the most destructive power from their machines.”

“Our next act of retaliation will see pillars of fire destroy all around them before rings of fire engulf many seas and darken all the skies.” Scarlet quoted with a hollow ring to his voice. “They were being quite literal – all the skies of every world…all the seas…”

“You mean our own dimensions could all be under attack at the same time?” Ochre asked, as what he’d heard began to make sense.

Blue nodded. “We have to destroy that machine before they can get it back!”

Flaxen had been listening to the conversation with a frown on her face. “I’m still not sure I believe all of this time-warping stuff, but, I agree that if you feel we should shut down the machine, we’d better get on with it, before Black comes back with more Mysteronised agents.”

Chapter Six

Captain Ochre led the main party back to the surface in search of suitable tools to destroy the pacifier. Scarlet’s warning about ricocheting bullets was still valid, and the job would have to be done manually rather than with an explosive charge, which might carry the risk of blocking the portals and preventing the return of the visitors to their home worlds.

Captain Scarlet, Captain Blue and Cadenza started back to the pacifier to attempt to switch it off again, and make sure there was no further Mysteron activity before the machine was finally destroyed. Their journey was uneventful and the lifeless bodies of the former Mysteron agents were still where they had fallen – cold and motionless. Flaxen’s security agents reported no further incursions and, conscious that what they were about to do might trigger a tremor, Blue ordered them back to the tunnel entrance, to assist the wrecking party’s search. A little uncertainly, they left, after Scarlet had emphatically backed up his colleague’s orders.

Captain Blue sighed deeply as he watched them walk away. This constant mistrust of his motives was wearing his patience.

Scarlet and Cadenza guarded the entrance as, once again, Blue squatted before the bulky grey machine and unscrewed the fascia with the screwdriver attachment on his pen-knife. He glanced up momentarily, after some minutes, to see Cadenza, her hands over her ears, grimacing at Scarlet, who was also suffering from the pressure build-up of the low frequency pulses. In consideration of their discomfort, he adjusted the frequency and toned down the force of the pulses as much as he could.

“Thanks,” Scarlet said, as the pressure lessened. “When I first encountered that machine in my dimension, it burst my ear-drums in less time than we’ve been standing here.”

“Can you switch it off?” Cadenza asked, coming to crouch beside Blue and frowning in at the complex electronics.

“Yes, I can, but what if that triggers an eruption or a rock-slide? We’d be trapped in here. Now, I know the thought might not fill you two with trepidation, but it sure as hell scares me,” he replied with exaggerated reasonableness.

“Well, you go and I’ll switch it off,” she offered. “You can dig me out later…”

“No way,” both men said in unison.

“Besides, Sonata made me promise I’d take care of you and I know what a temper she’s got when thwarted…” Scarlet grinned.

“I can take care of myself,” she protested, shaking her head at their misguided chivalry. “I thought we’d agreed that this could be more important than one person’s continued existence anyway…”

“No,” Blue snapped decisively. “This is my dimension and I’m in charge – at least I was when all this started. If anyone’s responsible for switching it off, it’s me.”

“They might accuse you of working for the Agency – if an eruption happens,” Scarlet warned.

“If an eruption happens, I’ll be too dead to care what they accuse me of,” Blue said dryly.

“In which case, I’ll be relying on you two to clear my name.” He looked at their bleak faces and grinned as his flippant humour reasserted itself. “It may not have much credit with the rest of the world, but I am kinda proud of my family name… no real idea why… I’d hate to see it dragged through the mud, especially unfairly. My Dad does a pretty good job of alienating people all on his own – but that vilification is, at least, justified.”

Cadenza looked searchingly at him. “You don’t like him much do you?”

“It’s mutual,” Blue shrugged. “Still, he is all I have and I won’t let anyone except me demonise the old curmudgeon.”

She sighed. “Yes, we’re like that at home. My sisters and I fight like cats and dogs – but woe betides the outsider that’s mad enough to pick a fight with a Svenson – the ranks close tighter than a clam.”

Blue disconnected a few wires and pulled a circuit board from the machinery. The thumps slowed and stopped.

“Now what?” Cadenza whispered in the unaccustomed silence.

“”We hold ourselves ready to run like the blazes if a quake starts,” Scarlet replied sardonically.

Blue rubbed the end of his nose thoughtfully. “Maybe there is a way to send it back to Svenson’s dimension?”

“So the Mysterons can patch it up and use it again? Use your loaf, Blue-boy,” Scarlet retorted.

“Blue-boy?” the American grinned.

Scarlet flushed. “Sorry, forgot you weren’t the right one for a moment there…”

“You’re right, Paul,” Cadenza said. “We’ll wait for Ochre to arrive with the crowbars and then we’ll do a demolition job to end then all.”

“Symphony said she met him – your ‘real Adam’ in the tunnel they hid in. You were right, he is looking for you, and now he knows how to find you – and that you are to be found,” Blue volunteered.

Scarlet grinned. “Good old Adam – I knew he wouldn’t let me down.”

“Tell me about him… and about what’s happened to you in your World,” Cadenza pleaded as she settled back against the cave wall.

“Yeah,” Blue seconded, as he too flopped against the wall. “Let’s see what he’s got that I haven’t….” he added wryly to himself.

“How long have you got?” Scarlet teased, and began to explain the way things were in the real world….

~oo0oo~

Captain Ochre scanned the horizon with his binoculars as Flaxen and Garnet scoured the site for shovels, wrenches and crowbars. He smiled as Flaxen exclaimed cheerfully and waved a metal cutter aloft as she emerged from the store-room. The injured security lieutenants – patched up from the medical kit - were occupied making the base secure and the others were lower down the mountain, keeping an eye on the Agency prisoners. Symphony sat a few metres away on a prominent boulder, keeping watch on the approaches to the site. He’d seen her reporting back to Cloudbase – the epaulettes on her uniform had flashed green briefly and then turned to a clear light – indicating that she was talking to the colonel. He half expected his own epaulettes to flicker into life as a result, but they remained silent. Whatever Symphony had told the colonel, it had been enough to reassure him that the mission was on course.

He wished he could believe that himself. It had been hard enough to believe that Scarlet was from a different dimension but then the Angel had turned up – a woman who shared the same affliction as Scarlet and himself - if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he’d have doubted the truth of it. Yet, the fact that there were others experiencing the same traumas and confusion as he somehow made it easier to accept. He knew Scarlet had made a far better job of coming to terms with it and it looked as if Cadenza had found a way to live with it too.

He stirred and smiled encouragingly at the foraging party. Only Garnet smiled back, colouring slightly as she met his eyes. A flash of anger flared up in him - it looked as if the other two had the love and support of their chosen partners to help them – whilst he – well, Claudia had ditched him and run straight into the arms of another man – another Scarlet. He saw Garnet shy away as she saw his expression change and he cursed to himself.

No, that isn’t what I want to happen, no, not now, not ever… his heart protested. But it is hopeless, she’s got to go with Scarlet – I’ll lose her twice…. his rational mind reasoned.

“Are you okay, Lieutenant?” he heard himself ask her. “You mustn’t overtire yourself.”

Garnet gave him a shy smile, “I’m feeling fine, Captain, and I want to do what I can to help. I feel I have been nothing more than a hindrance so far.”

“I am sure no-one thinks that,” he reassured her. “But you must pace yourself – after we’ve finished with this; you and Captain Scarlet still have to find the portal to take you back to your own dimension.” Did his eyes deceive him, or was her expression one of sadness?

“I know, and I guess it is important that we go – we could mess things up here if we stayed.”

“Would you mind it so very much, if you couldn’t find the way back, or if whatever Scarlet and Blue seem to think is affecting the portals, meant you couldn’t get back?”

She gave him a nervous glance and then shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s not so bad being here…” She drew a breath and said in a rush, “I don’t know how she could have left you… I mean, Captain Scarlet is a nice man… he’s very kind, but…well, I mean, I don’t understand it. I hope you don’t blame me for what she did to you?”

Ochre’s smile was bright with the resurgent hope that sprang into his very being. “No, Claudia, I don’t blame you…” His hand moved to her arm and her hand covered his. Their eyes locked and in that moment a complete understanding blossomed between them. “He’ll argue you should go…” he reminded her.

“I know and he’ll probably be right. But, Richard, if fate sent me here, maybe fate will find a way to keep me here.”

“Fate isn’t often on my side, Claudia.”

“Nonsense, fate doesn’t keep score… sooner or later everyone gets a turn and receives … an unexpected gift...”

Ochre smiled. “You would be the most welcome and unexpected gift I could imagine. But you must have a life back where you came from – friends, family… lovers?”

She blushed. Intuition told her that she had to take this opportunity to say what she felt – that fate was offering her this one chance to declare her wishes – her unexpected gift.

“My folks are both dead and I was an only child. I never met anyone who makes me feel as you make me do, Richard,” she confessed.

“Did you ever meet the Richard Fraser from your dimension?” There was a hint of jealousy in his question.

Claudia shook her head and said shyly, “Even if I had done, I doubt it would have felt like this.”

“How do you feel, Claudia?”

“Excited, happy…needed.” Her dark eyes met his and she saw again the pain behind his hard-pressed emotional defences.

“I guess I can relate to that,” he said gently. “I just wonder how we’ll convince Scarlet you have the right to stay…”

Her heart skipped at his words, even as her features hardened and he recognised the flare of temper in her dark eyes.

“He can’t force me to go, Richard. After all – what can he do? He can court-martial me until Kingdom Come – back there – what do I care, if I am here with you?”

Ochre’s face lit up with an indescribable joy. Maybe life isn’t so bad after all, he thought.

“You ready to go?” Flaxen said sharply. She had been watching the inter-play of gesture and expression between the two of them with a sinking heart as she approached them.

“Sure, lead on, Flax.” Ochre slapped her shoulder with an excess of good humour as he went to alert Symphony to their departure.

Flaxen sighed and handed Garnet a bundle of tools to carry. “Come on, Lieutenant… the sooner we get this finished the sooner you can go home…”

Garnet watched the other woman walk away with a new and unexpected insight into the situation. It made her wonder if she would be doing the right thing by staying here… should the chance arise. It seemed that even this wonderful, promise-filled new world would be no bed of roses. But, she thought assertively, I have as much right as anyone to strive for my own happiness and I can think of nothing I’d miss so much it makes me want to leave here… leave him. She corrected herself with her usual honesty.

So resolving to leave it all to fate, Garnet followed the procession back towards the tunnel entrance.

As they clanked along the tunnel approaching the pacifier, they could hear laughter echoing back from the cave. The vibrations had stopped some time ago and as they neared the entrance they caught snatches of animated conversation

“They really blew it up? You’re telling me that your Blue and Ochre blew up the entire Atlantica naval base?” Captain Blue’s gleeful laughter rang around the walls. “And they still have their commissions? Oh boy, I should get so lucky! If I ever totalled so much as one insignificant SPV, I guess Whitey would throw every volume of the book at me! ”

“Well, the colonel reasoned that the Mysteronised champagne was really to blame, and he could hardly punish them any more stringently than he punished the rest of us for drinking it. But he was down like a ton of bricks on the pair of them, at the slightest sign of misbehaviour, for months afterwards, and they both had to write detailed – and very apologetic – reports. Adam wouldn’t show me what his said – I’d have given a month’s salary to read it too!”

“Your colonel sounds quite a man…” Cadenza said cheerfully.

“Yeah, they don’t come much better than Colonel White,” Scarlet admitted with a wry smile. Who would have ever thought I’d miss the old martinet?

The conversation ceased as the foraging party entered the cavern and Ochre distributed the tools. Everyone took part in the systematic dismantling and destruction of the pacifier. Blue and Cadenza removed much of the internal electronics and picked it apart, Ochre disconnected the power relays and the amplification system, whilst Scarlet and the others slashed and hacked the framework into unusable lumps of metal.

Finally Scarlet dropped the hammer he’d been using to smash a rod of metal that had penetrated deep into the surrounding volcano. “Well, I don’t think even the Mysterons could reconstruct this in a hurry,” he said, wiping his brow. “It looks pretty thoroughly dismantled to me.”

“Just to be sure, I suggest we take some of this and drop into the sea. Some components can be taken back to Cloudbase for analysis and evaluation,” Blue suggested, as he examined a particularly complex piece of circuitry. “Who knows, Lieutenant Green might be able to make some use of it – she’s a dab hand at computers.”

“Can I take some of it back with me?” Cadenza asked. “I did promise Sonata I’d take her a present from ‘the other side’ and if the parts are scattered through our dimensions, surely that will make reconstruction beyond even the Mysterons?”

“Don’t see why not,” Blue agreed.

The others nodded. “How will you explain what has happened?” Symphony asked. She had played little part in the more physical destruction of the machine and was obviously suffering with the heat.

Cadenza shrugged. “I shan’t – well not in detail anyway – except, maybe, to Conrad, if he asks.” She smiled across at Scarlet. “I will tell Sonata about you - and some of the things the pair of you got up to – you and the Adam in your world.” She grinned. “It makes the trouble we get into seem mild by comparison.”

Scarlet returned the grin. “Oh, come on now, I bet you don’t do that badly yourselves.”

“Well,” she teased, “if we get time, I might be prevailed upon to regale you with a few of the wilder doings of the Metcalfe-Svenson branch of the Angels’ Hell-fire club…..”

“Good grief - do you think my delicate psyche could survive the shame?” Blue asked artlessly.

“You? You have no shame….” Symphony said curtly.

Blue looked at her and dropped his eyes in the face of her challenging stare.

Scarlet sighed. That was one problem Blue would have to deal with on his own.

PART FIVE - RESOLUTION

Chapter One

Captain Blue watched in distress the harrowing sight of the rocks and shingle crashing down around the mouth of the tunnel he had just squeezed out of. Before his astonished eyes, the rock seemed to twist and buckle, sealing itself in the process, and the entrance to the tunnel, in which he had left Symphony’s doppelganger and Lieutenant Garnet, disappeared. Forced back onto the narrow beach of black sand by the avalanche, he only clambered back to where the gap had been once he was sure the danger had passed. Running his hand along the rough cave wall, he was unable to detect even the slightest crack. His thoughts went to Symphony and Garnet, trapped within their rock tomb; he could only pray they had got out into the cave at the other end of the portal. He slammed his fist against the solid barrier, cursing the fact that he had not insisted on Garnet returning with him. Now it seemed he was back at square one, with no route to Garnet or Scarlet and no way of contacting help in either of the dimensions.

He threw himself down on the shingle slope; his back pressed against the impenetrable rock and stared with hopeless eyes at the fantastic forest of rock stalactites that covered the pitted ceiling. The vision only seemed to underline his dreadful situation and he looked away. Tired and dispirited, he dropped his head to rest it on his arms, which were stretched over his knees, and closed his eyes.

Here I am, trapped in a volcanic cavern – I can’t swim out the way I arrived, I can’t climb out through the roof holes and I don’t even know if this reality is the one I need to be in, in the first place. I found Garnet and lost her again. I met a Karen Wainwright, who felt like my real Karen, and I lost her too. My Karen is probably going frantic over my safety and making the lives of Stingray’s crew sheer hell, and I can’t even let her know I am okay. I know Scarlet is alive, I even know, theoretically, where he is and I can’t reach him either. I have made a complete hash of everything…

Never at his best in confined spaces, he felt close to tears and drew a deep breath to stave off that final indignity. He blinked furiously and then screwed his eyes tight shut. Without realising it, he dozed off, his feet slowly slipping down the bank until he woke with a jerk as his elbows dropped too low to support his head any longer. He rubbed his tired eyes and looked around his prison. He blinked and rubbed his eyes again.

Standing in the middle-distance, watching him, was a tall, dark figure. The upright stance was familiar, but on examination this man was bearded and had long, wavy black hair, roughly tied back with a torn piece of red cloth. “Paul?” he croaked, unsure if he was dreaming.

The man did not reply, but raised a hand in a friendly gesture.

“Paul!” he cried again, and sprang to his feet. “What on earth has happened to you?”

The man held up a hand to deter Blue’s hectic advance.

“Paul…” Blue ignored the gesture and accelerated over the treacherous ground towards the still silent apparition, watching him more than his path. He was alarmed to see him turn.

Something had obviously reached his sharp hearing, for he glanced away across the cavern, a frown casting a dark shadow over his intensely blue eyes. He placed a hand to his lips. Automatically, Blue stopped and frowned in concentration, straining to catch what Paul had heard – he had learned from experience to trust his partner’s senses, heightened as they were by his retrometabolism - he could hear nothing, and turned back to his companion with a questioning expression on his face.

Paul began to move away towards an hitherto unsuspected tunnel entrance. With one final glance over his shoulder, he raised his hand in a wave of farewell, and stooped, vanishing into the darkness.

Blue gave a despairing yell and rushed forward, cursing his own gullibility. Before he could reach the entrance, the ground shifted again, spilling him down the shingle bank and he watched in impotent fury as the opening sealed itself.

“Why won’t anyone stay put long enough to explain what the frigging hell is happening here? I am sick to death of half-truths, tunnels that vanish and of being rolled around in this hell-hole….” he shouted. There was no reply, except the faint echo of his own voice. He stomped along the bank, kicking moodily at the pebbles and muttering to himself.

Almost immediately, he became aware of the distant murmur of voices. Someone was moving about on the far side of the cave. He focused on the middle distance and realised that a rope was hanging from the largest of the ceiling holes. How has someone climbed into this cave without me seeing them? he thought. Remembering the new Symphony’s sketchy warning that, in her world, not everyone was as friendly to Spectrum’s cause as he might imagine, he remained motionless, watching from the shadows for some clue as to who his unexpected companions might be. And this time I want some answers….

“I don’t think this is going to lead us anywhere, Paul,” a woman’s voice called rather tetchily. “Besides, why would the Agency come this far into the caves? The pacifier is much closer to the entrance and that is what they intend to sabotage – isn’t it?”

“These caves are a warren, Claudia, maybe they hope to use them for arms stores or prisons for ransom victims? I am sure the lead I had was a good one. There is something going on here, something that won’t be obvious but can only be ignored at our peril.”

“I believe you, of course, but won’t you tell me just what you’ve learned?”

“It is better you don’t know, Claudia.”

“I’ll be thinking you don’t trust me next…”

“You know I trust you – or I wouldn’t have invited you to come with me - I need your help, darling, just as much as I want your company.”

Blue’s eyes widened in surprise. He recognised the man’s voice immediately – Captain Scarlet had a highly distinctive accent – and ‘Claudia’ had to be Lieutenant Garnet – a surmise confirmed by the sight of them when a dark-haired man, in a familiar Spectrum tunic, emerged round the corner and waited for his companion. They walked hand-in-hand along the beach.

Blue frowned, wondering if this ‘Paul and Claudia’ were from the long-haired ‘Second’ Symphony’s dimension, or if he had arrived in yet another one. Either way, he felt like a voyeur when, arriving close to a rounded boulder across the beach from his vantage point, ‘Captain Scarlet’ took ‘Lieutenant Garnet’ in his arms and began kissing her with enthusiasm, pressing her back against the boulder as his hands caressed her body.

He thought, from her body language, that she was slightly less enthusiastic than he was…or maybe she was just uncomfortable…

He averted his gaze back to the fantastical ceiling as his embarrassment mounted, and debated whether he should reveal his presence, before they got too ‘carried away’. Counting the stalactites on the ceiling, his eyes travelled towards the largest of the holes and, despite the dimness of the cave, he saw the familiar figure of Sergeant Ruffolo peering through. His hopes rose as he speculated that his rescue had arrived.

Of course, Tempest must have informed Spectrum of my disappearance and Cloudbase has ordered the Neapolitans to start searching. He smiled. Or, at the very least, Symphony has ordered Ruffolo to search the volcano… and, luckily for me, he’d be happy to obey her, if it got him another one of her smiles…

‘Scarlet’ and ‘Garnet’ had not seen the Sergeant, preoccupied as they were with each other. Captain Blue considered for a moment. Ruffolo could not know about the differing realities and would believe he had found his commanding officer in the arms of a Cloudbase captain… which was probably why he was creeping about – Carlo was a considerate man and he wouldn’t want to embarrass Lieutenant Garnet. It was obvious from their conversations about her, that he liked and respected the young American woman.

Perhaps the two ‘lovers’ were strays from ‘Long-haired’ Symphony’s universe, who had wandered into his own dimension, as unintentionally as he had blundered into theirs? He had to think of a way of letting Ruffolo know he was here, without, if possible, getting too involved with the love-birds on the beach. The problem of what to do with the other Spectrum officers was something he’d have to give a great deal of thought to… but not right now - right now, he had other priorities.

Once he was safely out of here, he’d get Troy and Phones to help him search every cave under these cliffs, so sure was he that there must be a way through to other worlds - and that the true Scarlet and Garnet could be found.

He continued to watch as Ruffolo stood warily at the edge of the opening and carefully untied the rope, before inexplicably dropping it down into the cavern. Blue barely caught the gentle sound of its landing and the lovers – still occupied with each other – heard nothing at all. He wondered what the Italian intended to do… if they were to get out of this place they would need some way of making the climb. A vague suspicion began to form in his mind and he drew a deep breath, watching intently for the sergeant’s next move.

Unaware that he was being observed, Ruffolo crouched down and steadied himself at the edge of the hole, before drawing his Spectrum issue pistol. He took a careful aim and, as he did so, Blue realised the man was going to kill the others.

Instinctively he sprang to his feet, shouting, “Carlo, no!”

He slithered down the shingle bank towards the beach in a thunderous avalanche of small stones, just as Ruffolo’s gun fired. Distracted by Blue’s shout, Scarlet spun around to look in his direction, turning his back on the assassin. Ruffolo’s bullet hit its target with a deadly force, burying itself in Garnet’s back. As she screamed and fell to the sand, Scarlet spun back, drawing his pistol, ready to return fire. Ruffolo’s second shot caught his arm, sending his bullet off at a tangent. It struck a stone stalactite and ricocheted around the ceiling. Ruffolo ducked down but continued firing and Scarlet, screaming in rage, returned the fire.

“Stop it – I order you both to stop firing!” Blue roared over the echoing gunshots, making frustratingly slow progress over the shale that littered the cave floor.

Somewhat to his surprise, both men obeyed. There is something to be said for the military discipline Spectrum employs after all, he thought as he panted up to where Scarlet stood astride the motionless body of his girlfriend. “Sergeant Ruffolo, what do you think you are doing?” he demanded with as much authority as he could muster.

“Capitano Blue, I have orders from Capitano Magenta and I am told to kill these two,” Ruffolo said with offended dignity. He could see the disapproval in the tall American’s face and he wailed piteously, “If I don’t do it, Capitano Magenta will kill me.”

Magenta? Blue’s hope started to ebb away; it seemed that Ruffolo wasn’t here to rescue him after all. He continued with as much authority as he could, “Ruffolo, Captain Magenta has no authority in this matter. You will obey my orders and I am ordering you to get us all out of here – right now!”

Muttering darkly, Ruffolo saluted and disappeared from the hole side. Blue glanced at Scarlet, wondering how badly hurt he was. To his experienced eye, the man had what looked like a flesh wound, which was bleeding profusely. That shouldn’t cause too much bother. It should only be a matter of minutes before it heals up, he thought.

Ignoring his own injury, Scarlet dropped to his knees and stared helplessly at the young woman lying motionless in the sand.

Blue had had a better view of what had happened and he doubted she could have survived such an assault. He watched as the distraught man lifted her from the sand, turned her over and tenderly cradled her in his arms. There was a blood soaked patch of sand beneath her and he knew that, unless she was a Mysteron, she was either dead or dying. Considerately, he backed off some distance and left Scarlet to his anguish, as he hugged the lifeless woman to his chest and crooned her name over and over.

Blue had no way of knowing how long it was before Scarlet gently placed Garnet on the sand and kissed her lips, but by then the man had regained his composure and when he turned to face him, Blue could see the anger blazing in his deep-blue eyes.

“I suppose you can still live with yourself after that, you murdering bastard?” Scarlet asked in a whisper. He stepped towards the unsuspecting Blue and suddenly launched a spirited attack on the startled captain.

Taken by surprise at the speed and ferocity of the attack, Blue was already at a disadvantage and Scarlet was a fierce opponent. Yet, even as he dodged and defended himself from the punches, Blue found that there was less strength behind them than he expected and he noticed the patch of blood was still growing on his assailant’s arm. But before he could draw any sensible conclusions, a fist connected with his face as he ducked away, and the blow to his left eye-socket made his head ring. He staggered back and sat down heavily on the sand. Scarlet pressed his advantage and straddled his legs, raining blows down on Blue as he tried to defend himself.

Blue was weak from the battering he’d experienced in the whirlpool and the repeated falls he’d had in the earth tremors. His ability to defend himself was faltering under the merciless barrage of blows. Gasping for breath, he pleaded, “Paul…” and Scarlet’s attack hesitated and slowed until finally he stopped. He did not have the ruthlessness to kill a defenceless man with his bare hands. Panting with exertion, he went back to where Garnet was lying on the sand and picked up the pistol he had dropped.

Blue rubbed his jaw and sat upright on the sand. “What on Earth was all that for? Exactly why did you object to my stopping Sergeant Ruffolo from shooting you both in cold blood?”

“Nice try, Blue,” Scarlet said coldly. “I must admit I am surprised that Magenta sent you to destroy the pacifier, I never realised he trusted you so much. And… at your unorthodox way in. Presumably you feel this way might preserve the fiction that you were nowhere near the place when the damage was done.”

“I have a submarine waiting for me; just beyond that cave mouth… they’ll come looking for me if I don’t go back within a given time, ” Blue replied indistinctly and with more conviction than he felt.

“No doubt. Magenta wouldn’t want to lose his co-conspirator.”

“Magenta?” Blue considered that the Irish-American’s name was cropping up far too frequently in connection with nefarious activities. “What has he got to do with this? The colonel sent me.”

“The only place the colonel would willingly send you is prison,” Scarlet snapped.

Blue frowned at him. Still dazed, he ran his hand through his hair and tried to make sense of it all. “You know who I am, right?”

“Yes, and why you are here, so don’t bother to deny it.”

“Then, perhaps you would care to explain to me what you imagine I am doing here?”

Scarlet‘s deep-blue eyes stared scornfully. “I have proof of the Agency’s plot to turn off the pacifier and cause the volcano to erupt, unless the Italian authorities make the payments you demanded. Your presence here is merely gilt on the gingerbread. Adam John Svenson, I arrest you for extortion, international terrorism and laundering the proceeds from organised crime,” Scarlet said, and went on to read his prisoner his rights. Blue lay back on the sand, staring up at the surreal ceiling, through his one good eye.

“Don’t panic….” he muttered. It was perfectly obvious now that, wherever he was, he was not back in his own dimension. The warning from ‘Second-Symphony’ that the tunnels might shift had been proved correct. The realisation that he might never get back to the correct dimension hit him like a cold shower. Wonderful, now all three of us are lost… he thought miserably.

When Scarlet’s droning voice came to a halt, he sat up again and focused with difficulty on his antagonist. “Happy now?” he asked sourly. “What would you say if I told you I am not the man you think I am?”

“Is it the kind of thing you are likely to say?”

Blue shrugged. That had not been the answer he’d expected. “It depends on how open a mind and how keen an intelligence you have, Captain…”

“Lieutenant.” The correction was spat out with some venom.

Blue’s eyebrows rose in genuine surprise and he grimaced at the pain that shot through his head as a consequence. “Really? Now that does surprise me. Where I come from, Paul Metcalfe is a captain – and a very important one at that…” He spoke with as little sensationalism as he could, there was no doubt that this man would reject anything he said if he thought it was done for effect. He was rather surprised that he got such an attentive hearing – especially after his first mention of the portals between realities.

Lieutenant Scarlet’s heart was thumping so much that he sat down opposite the American, as the carefully unemotional voice explained who he was and where he had come from. As Blue stopped, he glanced up and their eyes met – the bright sapphire and the pale cerulean blue - each assessing the other with anxious concern, neither willing to look away first. The dark-haired man shifted uneasily on the sand and dropped his gaze. Some instinct told him that Blue meant his protestations of innocence. Yet, he was reluctant to respond, and only shrugged, keeping his own counsel for the time being.

Blue sighed with frustration; he was unused to a Paul Metcalfe who did not trust him implicitly. He considered his options: he did not know if he would ever get home – or if any portals that might open would even lead back to the right dimension. This Scarlet was upset by Garnet’s death, and still suspicious that he had, in some obscure way, engineered it. The prospect of spending the rest of his life – which might well be a short one - with a man who held him responsible for the death of his lover was not an attractive one.

“What made you dream up that story?” Scarlet’s brusque question startled him back to alertness.

“I didn’t dream it up – it’s true, as far as I know. I don’t know how or why I am in this reality, but here I am.”

Scarlet hugged his knees and, carefully avoiding looking at Blue, he began to speak.

“When the volcanic pacifier was installed here, I was part of the security detail. There were rumours of a planned attack by the Agency on the site and I patrolled through the caves and tunnels, checking they were clear. I came to the cave above this one and … and I found someone there – someone who claimed to be Paul Metcalfe… but a Paul Metcalfe from a… parallel world. He asked me some very strange questions… about the abduction of the World President, at the start of the Martian War of Nerves, and then… about you, and your family. I answered his questions – as best I could… what else could I do? It was surreal, talking to myself…”

“He said he was Captain Scarlet – much as I had been, before the Agency paid that woman to lay false claims about me and get me demoted. He had come, he said, back in time - through a time-shifting, dimensional portal – to warn us that the Mysterons had discovered this same way to move through the dimensions and that the volcanic pacifier, which had been developed many years earlier in his reality, had been brought into our world, and quite possibly other realities, to destroy civilisation. His own dimension had been further devastated that way, following a direct attack by the Mysterons on Cloudbase, which effectively removed Spectrum’s ability to fight them. He was also confident that someone from this world had visited his dimension and he knew this, he said, from his colleague, Captain Blue.”

Scarlet looked directly at his attentive companion. “What was I supposed to think? I could see him and touch him and he spoke like me. He was unkempt and bearded and dressed in a rag tag of clothes, but he was earnest, I am sure of it. For no logical reason, I believed him. He would not come back to Cloudbase with me, said he had to return through the portal when the next earth tremor opened it. He suggested the portals were relatively stable – although he was not sure exactly when he might arrive back… ‘they hop about in time’ – that was how he put it. He said it was lucky I came by… he’d been waiting around some time in the hope of seeing someone he could speak to and that the first time he went back, he ended up in the right place at the ‘wrong’ time and he was waiting in the cave for the portal to shift back to the right time and place… he said he couldn’t risk missing the link. When I asked him what the hurry was, he said he had promised his companion that he wouldn’t be long, and he had left her and the child in a ruined town, some distance from the volcano. Naturally, I thought he meant Claudia.” Scarlet’s voice caught on a gasp of raw emotion as he spoke her name.

Blue laid a hand on his arm in sympathy and winced as the Englishman’s eyes showed his surprise at even this small kindness. Things are really not the same here, Blue thought sadly, removing his hand.

Heartened by the unexpected compassion he had seen in his companion, Scarlet continued his story, “But he didn’t even know Claudia; he said the woman was Karen Wainwright … Symphony Angel?” Blue nodded to show he knew the identity of that particular person. He was gratifyingly successful at hiding the sharp stab of jealousy that shot through him at the thought that any Karen – anywhere - could be in love with anyone but him… “All in all, we spoke for several hours before the next tremor began. Then he walked over to the cave wall and went into a crack that opened. When the tremor stopped, the crack was empty - just a dead end – but he was gone. I didn’t know what to do. I could hardly explain it to myself, let alone make it sound even remotely plausible to the colonel. I tried to make people see that the pacifier must be dismantled – or at least turned off - but that just got me into trouble when I couldn’t explain why. There hadn’t even been a Mysteron threat concerning it. Some people thought I had defected to the Agency – presumably in an attempt to regain my captaincy. Eventually, I managed to get permission to come down here… very grudging permission, from the colonel. I have been trying to keep watch here, with Claudia’s help, ever since.” He pursed his lips and stared at Blue. “Now you tell me you are from another reality as well…”

Blue sighed and gave the other man a wary look. He had to force himself not to concentrate on the details of the personal relationships, despite the ache it gave him to imagine… they had a child…. He supposed it wasn’t that outrageous to imagine that she might have formed a relationship with Paul – they were good friends in their own right, and Karen often turned to him, in the midst of their own arguments, demanding – and usually getting – his mediation on her behalf.

Scarlet was waiting for his response and he banished all personal thoughts from his mind. “Well,” he reasoned, “in my dimension the pacifiers are still at the prototype stage – so I don’t think your visitor could have been the Paul I know. There must be a third dimension – or maybe even more than three. You realise that, if he was speaking the truth about the Mysterons, we are in big trouble…”

Scarlet nodded, “Yeah, I worked that out by myself,” he said cynically. He turned to look at Blue and mused, “Over the course of our conversation it became clear that his closest associate was Adam Svenson. In my world, Captain Blue hardly even speaks to me – never mind being my closest friend –which seemed to surprise him. In your world, are you friendly with Paul Metcalfe?”

“He is my partner, and, yes, he is my closest friend. We were working together on this mission, as we have on many others, when he disappeared. I am here trying to find him.”

Lieutenant Scarlet considered this. He came to a decision and, deciding to trust this man, he said briskly, “If I can help you to find him, I will – if you will help me stop the Mysterons from using the pacifier to destroy my world. It may be that in doing that, you will be helping your own world.”

Blue extended his hand. “Deal. However,” he continued, with a smile as they shook hands, “our biggest problem is still ‘how the hell we get out of here?’”

“Not quite our biggest problem, Captain. That is – what the hell do we do when Ruffolo gets back?”

Their eyes met and they both grinned.

Chapter Two

Symphony had endured a difficult conversation with Colonel White. It wasn’t that the colonel had been angry with her - quite the contrary - but in an odd way it might have helped if he had been. His unexpectedly sympathetic response made it difficult for her not to burst into tears as she told him about Blue’s disappearance. It had only been the proximity of Captain Tempest and his crew that had given her the determination not to weep – it would never do for the other security services to think Spectrum officers were wimps.

Colonel White had agreed solemnly that a thorough search for Captain Blue was necessary and immediate action was essential. It was after he had pronounced this that Captain Tempest leant forward to join in the conversation, outlining his plans for a rescue attempt and explaining that, now they had refilled their air tanks, he and Phones were ready to go out once more.

“S.I.G., Captain Tempest,” White nodded and added unexpectedly, “and thank you.”

“No problem, Colonel. We’ll find them both, if anyone can!”

The rescue party suited up and Phones strapped on an additional air tank and respirator, which Symphony considered a hopeful sign. At least Troy and Phones were not dismissing the chance of finding Adam alive out of hand.

She stood next to Atlanta as they watched the pair swim towards the ominously jagged rocks.

The petite brunette could not keep the worry from her dark eyes, but she gave Symphony an encouraging smile. ”They are both experienced divers, Symphony, I am sure Troy and Phones will find Captain Blue.”

“Yes, I believe they do represent the best chance he has right now…”

”Have you known him long?” Atlanta asked. The Spectrum pilot had been reluctant to discuss her colleague before.

“Sometimes it seems as if I must’ve known him all my life – the first day I met him it was like we were old friends already – but, chronologically speaking… it’s only been a few years,” she murmured in reply. “I sincerely hope I will get the chance to know him for the rest of my life…” she added with a catch in her voice.

Out in the swirling currents of the straits, the aquanauts were making steady progress. They reached the top of the cliffs, and Troy manoeuvred his sea-bug into a position parallel with the drop and allowed it to sink into the depths. Phones followed him down into the narrow, dark crevasse. The darkness seemed to be impenetrable but then they saw a faint glimmer, suggesting a distance light source. Troy abandoned his sea bug, giving Phones instructions to remain with the craft, and kicked out in that direction. It took all of his skill and experience to swim under the rock shelf that guarded the entrance to an underwater cave. He surfaced and cautiously removed his mouthpiece, sucking in the air. It was sulphurous but wholesome enough. He swam to the shingle beach and crawled out. Over the radio he could just make out Phones, asking if he should follow him and, glancing around the cavern he found himself in, Troy told him to wait.

“We may need to get out of here in a hurry, Phones. If Captain Blue is hurt, the sea-bugs remain our quickest option…”

“‘PWOR,” he heard Phones reply before a burst of static nearly deafened him. He whipped off his radio and rubbed his ears.

An exploration of the narrow beach produced an unfamiliar, punctured air tank and battered breathing gear, but no sign of anyone, beyond a scuffling of the shingle suggestive of footprints. Picking up the unfamiliar diving gear, Tempest made his way back to the water. Maybe Symphony would know if this was the standard Spectrum equipment Blue had been wearing. If it was, then they would have to mount a full scale rescue to discover where Blue had wandered off to.

He replaced his radio, and as he dived and headed for the tricky exit, Phone’s crackly voice warned him of another earth tremor. He could feel the water beginning to seethe around him. He had just managed to get out into the crevasse and rejoin his partner when the full force of the tremor hit and they were both tossed back towards the cave mouth.

“Abandon the sea-bugs!” Troy yelled. “They could crush us against the rocks!”

The water was sucked back into the cave and they were powerless to escape the drag. Both men were pulled downwards and found themselves tossed into the broiling cauldron of water. They surfaced and struck out for the shore. As they dragged themselves out onto the shingle bank, gasping at their narrow escape, they were shocked to hear Captain Blue’s voice asking in some amusement,

“Hello, what took you so long?”

Tempest looked up in surprise; he had been so sure the cave was empty. Blue was standing beside a man dressed in a red Spectrum uniform. Tempest rolled over and lay supine on the beach, shielding his eyes with his hand.

“Well,” he responded in the same light tone, “we weren’t sure if this was a private party or if anyone was welcome to join it?” Noticing the damage Scarlet’s fist had done to his friend’s face, he added, “That’s a splendid black-eye, Adam

Phones was watching the two Spectrum officers. “Looks like you found your friend, Cap’n,” he said jovially, “but maybe he wasn’t so pleased to see you after all?”

“I think he was just taken by surprise, Phones,” Blue replied with a painful grin. “You had better help Scarlet back to Stingray and let Symphony do what she can for him...he won’t be recovering from these bruises so quickly… I mean, I did manage to land a few punches myself.” Blue just managed to turn his sentence away from the subject of retrometabolism.

He was more dazed than he had realised.

Symphony had refused to leave her post by the observation window and sat scanning the area with Captain Blue’s binoculars, while Atlanta pottered about the submarine, making sandwiches and flasks of coffee. Her argument - that Troy and Phones would be hungry when they got back – carried little weight with the Angel, who was of the opinion that they ought to make their own sandwiches, especially if they returned without Captain Blue.

She saw the nose-cone of a sea-bug edging cautiously from behind the row of cliff-tops and held her breath wishing, harder than she had ever wished for anything, that she would see Adam next. In fact, she saw Phones and attached to him by a safety rope was a red-clad Spectrum officer. They had found Captain Scarlet! Whilst part of her rejoiced at his safe return, a more selfish part resented the fact that the indestructible officer was wearing the emergency air tank and breathing gear. If they had found Adam, it meant he would have to wait until the air tanks could be returned to the cave, so he could swim back to safety. Her heart sank with a painful thud when she saw the second sea-bug nose cone negotiating the cliffs.

Fate can’t be so cruel as to throw my final words to Adam back in my face and return Paul and not him! She could hardly bear to watch as Troy Tempest’s stocky form rose into view. Moments later she saw another figure rise behind him - attached by the safety line was a blond-haired man and as soon as the man was alongside, Tempest steered the sea-bug towards Stingray and coaxed it up to its maximum speed. Every so often the respirator passed from man to man as they swam strongly for the submarine with the sea-bug at maximum speed.

They‘re sharing the air tanks! Symphony’s breath was released with a sob as she realised that Adam was going to be all right. She dropped the binoculars, racing across to the airlock.

Atlanta looked up and glanced across at the approaching rescue party with a satisfied smile. “There, what did I tell you?” she said to the tall blonde, who was almost hopping up and down in excitement, whilst she watched the airlock gauge sinking as the water was pumped out.

Symphony was even prepared to accept that Scarlet would be the first one on board and when the lock opened and two men emerged, she threw her arms around the Spectrum officer with a delighted squeal.

“Paul, thank the heavens you are safe! Adam’s been frantic with looking for you and I’ve been frantic with the WASPs looking for him!” She kissed the startled man’s cheek and shook a reproving finger at him. “Dianne will be so pleased when she hears you are back with us. She was distraught before we left Cloudbase, you must call her – straight away!”

“Dianne?” Scarlet repeated, the confusion clear in his eyes. “Do you mean Rhapsody Angel?”

“Of course I do, but it’s okay, Paul, the crew won’t report us for using our names instead of the code names!” She danced back to watch the gauge filling once more. “Don’t tell Adam how relieved I am to see him, will you? – I still haven’t quite forgiven him – but I don’t expect he’ll be fooled for one minute. He knows me too well,” she laughed and turned once more to hug the bemused captain.

Phones gave the surprised Scarlet a conspiratorial grimace at the vagaries of the female of the species, and then helped him remove the emergency breathing gear whilst Atlanta gave him a warm blanket and tutted over his gunshot wound – wondering how Symphony could have missed it, even given her excitement.

As the air-lock opened for the second time, Symphony threw herself into Blue’s wet embrace and kissed him so hard he was in danger of suffocation. When her own breathlessness forced her to release him, she slapped his face – rather harder than she had intended.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” she commanded, and attempted to kiss him again, fretting over his bruised face and black eye, whilst he backed off in alarm.

“I’ll do my best,” he reassured her, his face registering a mixture of apprehension and embarrassment.

“Where did you find Paul?” She clung to his arm and questioned him, smiling her thanks to Captain Tempest when he squeezed past them. Realising they were still blocking the air-lock entrance, Blue gave an apologetic shrug at his friend and tried to manoeuvre her out of the way as Tempest grinned back.

“I didn’t exactly find Paul,” he said. “How is he, Lieutenant Shore?” he asked over Symphony’s head. She turned to see that Atlanta had got the man to remove his uniform and was cleaning up a nasty flesh wound. Blue couldn’t help smiling at her alarm at the situation.

“It will be okay, Captain Blue,” Atlanta replied. “I have cleaned it up and I’ll bandage it. There doesn’t seem to be a bullet in there and it’s not very deep.”

“Good, I would hate to think we would have to return to one of the land bases to get you seen by a doctor, Lieutenant.”

“Me, sir?” Atlanta questioned.

“No, he means me,” Scarlet answered. “I am Lieutenant Scarlet.”

Symphony looked at Blue in confusion. “I don’t understand…”

“It’s a long story, Symphony. Is there any coffee?” he asked, adding, “I would cheerfully commit murder for a sandwich, but I don’t suppose there is anything to eat, is there…?”

~oo0oo~

Blue changed back into his uniform and then, over coffee and Atlanta’s excellent sandwiches, he tried to explain what had happened in the cavern. It was an uphill task as Tempest, in particular, was incredibly sceptical.

Lieutenant Scarlet sat nervously at one end of the passenger bay, devouring sandwiches and saying nothing, as Blue reasoned with Tempest and Symphony, and Atlanta kept a wary eye on him. Phones had taken Stingray back to the surface and occasionally he could be heard from the cockpit, humming to himself as the others wrangled.

“This other Symphony I met - with the long hair - claimed that the Lieutenant Garnet she knew was engaged to a Lieutenant Scarlet,” Blue explained, jerking his thumb at their silent guest. “But that she had used to be engaged to Captain Ochre – a relationship which foundered when Ochre kidnapped the World President and was chased to the London Car-Vu. Now that is what this guy says, which suggests they are from the same place - at least, it does to me.”

He finished the last sandwich and gave Atlanta a grateful smile. The lieutenant simpered back and Symphony glared at them – she was already feeling threatened by the ‘other Symphony’ Blue mentioned with such warmth.

Captain Tempest protested. “Wait a minute – it was Captain Scarlet’s doppelganger that kidnapped the President, wasn’t it? You had to shoot him and air-lift the President to safety. I clearly remember President Younger telling me all about it at the medal ceremony. He wasn’t likely to confuse the protagonists of that incident.”

“Yes, it was Scarlet,” Symphony agreed when Blue made no reply. She looked towards him, knowing his habitual reluctance to talk about events at the Car-Vu, but realised that he was simply not listening to what Tempest had said. He had retreated into a thoughtful silence, lips compressed, brows lowered and his eyes focused on nothing in the middle distance.

She was used to this – it generally signified that Blue was wrestling with some intractable problem and was unlikely to answer even if you spoke to him. She turned her attention to the uneasy man in the stern of the submarine.

“We should hand him over to the authorities for impersonating a security officer,” Tempest suggested, following the direction of her gaze and wondering why Captain Blue had gone so quiet.

“It’s an idea,” Symphony agreed, to keep him happy. She doubted that Blue would agree and, if Blue objected, it was odds-on that the colonel would back him. If this stranger went anywhere, it would be to Cloudbase.

Blue suddenly came back to life with a decisive nod. “I have to conclude from the evidence of our friend here, and the other… er – the second Symphony that, somewhere under that volcano is a wormhole to other realities. Lieutenant Scarlet, here, is Paul Metcalfe right enough – but not our Paul Metcalfe. Our Paul has wandered into a different reality and their Scarlet has wandered into ours….”

“I think you banged your head on your way into that cavern,” Tempest scoffed. He found it hard to understand how Blue could give this hogwash any credence – let alone take it so seriously.

“Ever heard of synchronicity, Troy?” Blue asked. Tempest shook his dark head. “It’s an early Twentieth-Century philosophy, developed by Carl Jung, which describes apparently meaningful coincidences, or identical events, that are causally unrelated. It has often been used to bolster the possibility of parallel universes.”

“And it’s about as likely as mermaids…” Symphony murmured under her breath. No one noticed Tempest’s guilty start at her words, and in fact, Blue pretended he hadn’t heard her at all.

“If you prefer, there are more scientific theories that postulate on alternative universes as well, but you don’t need me to explain quantum theory, do you?” he offered.

Symphony shook her head emphatically - let Adam get started on that and we’ll be here all day – she thought with a warning glance at Tempest in case he seemed likely to ask for a fuller explanation..

Seeing his colleagues were still disposed to reject his reasoning, Blue continued with one of his annoyingly superior smiles. “Look, even if you don’t believe me, maybe you could just humour me - Okay? - because, unless you can think of a better reason for his conviction that Magenta and I are some sort of latter-day Al Capones, what other explanation could there be?”

“You really think our Scarlet - and Garnet too – may be in a different dimension?” Symphony asked, still needing to be convinced that, for once, Adam wasn’t ‘away with the fairies’, in Rhapsody’s delightful phrase.

“I damn well hope so…I certainly believe that the woman I saw with Symphony – the second Symphony – was Claudia Vecchio… our Claudia Vecchio, too. She said she had been trapped in the cave and rescued with Captain Scarlet and that she didn’t know me.” He turned to question Lieutenant Scarlet. “Your Lieutenant Garnet knew your Captain Blue, didn’t she? You said she was posted to Cloudbase.” Scarlet nodded but still said nothing.

Satisfied, Blue continued, “All we have to do is find out how to get them back here and send our ‘guest’ back in return.”

“Well, that shouldn’t take very long…” Tempest rolled his eyes ironically. “After all, it just demands mastery of the laws of space and time…”

“May I use your Internet link?” Blue asked suddenly.

“Be my guest... we aren’t planning to go anywhere in a hurry.” Troy said, not bothering to hide his surprise. “I’ll get Phones and we’ll go and have another look for your missing box of tricks. I assume that must still be somewhere in this universe….”

“Thanks, Troy. If I’m wrong – you can say you told me so.” Blue smiled.

“And don’t think he won’t,” Symphony added quietly as the aquanaut walked away. “He thinks you’re crazy.”

“Do you?”

“If it was anyone other than you, I’d probably agree with him, but my guess is that you have the edge over most people.” She smiled at him and he reached out and hugged her. She might not believe him entirely, but she would never allow anyone else to see that.

“It is the only explanation that fits the facts, as Lieutenant Scarlet and the second Symphony tell them.” He tried to cajole her into believing him. “He is convinced that Captain Magenta and I are using Spectrum for criminal activities, that Lieutenant Garnet was based on the carrier and that the volcanic pacifiers have been in use for some time. We know all of these statements to be incorrect. Incidentally, on a more personal level, it also seems that, in some dimensions, you and Paul are a couple, and not you and I. Scarlet there, says that, in his world, we are ‘estranged’ – which is hardly the case here, even if we do have the odd disagreement now and then….”

“Humph! It didn’t sound like you and she were estranged, from the way you were speaking of her just now…”

He smiled at her pouting expression. He was only too well acquainted with her possessive jealousy. “I’m not estranged from her – any more than you are in a relationship with Paul.” He couldn’t quite keep the edge from his voice, and she grinned in delight at his rare admission of a jealous streak too. Perversely, the relating of these personal matters seemed to make her more prepared to believe him, far more than any amount of explanation of string theory would have done. Pleased to see her reaction, he continued placating her. “Besides, you have to realise that I thought she was you - to start with – it took me a second to remember your hair is short now…you know how much I always liked your hair long.”

She gave an exasperated smile. “Don’t start going on about that again!” She saw his grin and exclaimed, “Oh, I know, you are the most put-upon man in existence and I’m a termagant. But, Adam, you did promise we could go away together...”

“And I will keep my promise, just as soon as it is possible to do so without shirking our responsibilities. You know that, don’t you? Have I ever broken a promise to you?”

She pouted and reluctantly shook her head. “No, you always come through… eventually. But I always seem to take second place to your work.”

Blue looked at her in exaggerated alarm, “Now you sound just like my Mom, complaining to my Dad when he ducks out of yet another social commitment. And we aren’t even married yet! Be warned, Karen, I may be a bad bet… after all, I come from a long-line of workaholics,” he teased.

She grinned at him. “I’ll take my chances. Now, what are you going to do about Paul and Claudia?”

“I think I know of a way we can get a message to Paul – with a little help from our friend over there - and a fair bit of research data from Stingray’s Internet link, and some number crunching… which is where you come in, Karen.” He was galvanised into action now he understood the problem he faced. “I am sure we will find Claudia and, hopefully, Paul too!”

“Well, what are you waiting for? This is a Spectrum mission, not a sea cruise…” she said pompously.

“Sorry, älskling, but it just doesn’t have the same impact coming from you… you’re so much prettier than the colonel…”

Chapter Three

Once the volcanic pacifier was in no state to ever be reconstructed - in any dimension – the exhausted Spectrum officers took a break – all except Captain Flaxen, who trudged back to the surface to report to Colonel White and see what orders he had for them now. She was also anxious to get an additional security detail sent – preferably of trusted operatives from Spectrum’s London Headquarters – to collect Magenta and his two collaborators and remove them to a secure location to await interrogation and trial. She remained uneasily aware that the place was littered with Mysteron agents, albeit the ‘de-activated’ kind that were the result of the Mysterons withdrawing from a situation. It was received wisdom that, once de-activated, these agents posed no threat, but such strange things appeared to be happening that she wasn’t happy to leave them unguarded for long, in case the Mysterons decided to come to the assistance of their gangster friends.

That Captain Ochre preferred to sit in the caves with the rest of the exploration party – including Lieutenant Garnet - was something else that was bothering Flaxen. She worried that Ochre – who had been beginning to come to terms with Garnet’s original desertion – was regressing to his former state of devotion. She told herself that she didn’t mind if he ignored her, just as long as he didn’t get hurt again. After all, this Claudia Vecchio would be leaving them soon, but she would be the person who had to drag Richard Fraser back to functioning normality – again.

She doubted if he would ever realise how she felt about him – or be able to reciprocate if he ever did know – but he was her friend and her partner and she … worried about him. Few of the other Spectrum personnel did. They apparently assumed that, now he was indestructible, he was also impervious to human emotions. Little do they know, Flaxen thought, as she stepped into the fresh air with a feeling of relief. The foundations of Richard Fraser’s life had started to crumble within weeks of his contact with the Mysterons. Many of the personnel on Cloudbase still regarded him with suspicion, and blamed him that the personable Captain Brown had died whilst he had survived. She rather thought Ochre felt the same way himself; he had been Brown’s partner for many months and the pair were close friends. When it had been agreed that Captain Ochre would return to active duty, Colonel White had interviewed all of the colour captains individually, before asking her to partner Ochre from then on. She suspected the colonel knew how she felt, and that he believed her friendship might help Ochre come to terms with his new situation.

He had still been struggling to come to terms with it, when the woman he adored walked out on him.

Privately, Flaxen thought it was the best thing that could have happened, but Ochre failed to realise that fact. She had debated long and hard with herself, about the wisdom of telling him of the times she had seen Garnet coming out of Blue’s quarters, finally deciding that he had suffered enough at the hands of that conniving, two-timing bitch and there was nothing to be gained by making his gullibility even more obvious. Besides, Ochre was already so full of resentment at Captain Blue, that giving him further cause to hate the man might well lead to violence.

Not that she would have cared if Ochre had beaten Blue - or Scarlet, either - to a pulp. Except that it would have landed Richard in trouble.

When Garnet had dropped Ochre and started dating Lieutenant Scarlet, she had been less surprised than most. Presumably, the competition around Captain Blue was too hot for Garnet to handle, she thought uncharitably. Still, Scarlet’s people had money – not as much as Blue’s, but heaps more than Richard Fraser!

And now there was another Garnet – a woman exactly the same as the one who’d broken Richard’s heart before – and he was smitten all over again, just because she looked at him all wide-eyes and shy smiles. It isn’t fair! she thought, and sighed with resignation as she contacted Cloudbase and asked for the colonel. Perhaps I can get her out of here before she does too much damage. She started her report.

Some time later, she was able to close the conversation with a feeling of satisfaction. Reinforcements from London were on their way and Colonel White had agreed that the search for the portal leading to Scarlet’s way home should continue. Before she returned underground, she marched briskly down the slope to where the armoured car was parked, determined to make sure that Magenta and his henchmen were still safely under lock and key.

When Flaxen walked back into the cavern, and before she was even able to relay the new orders from Cloudbase, Symphony welcomed her with the news that they had decided to continue the search, whatever the colonel said. With a jaundiced smile, Flaxen was able to assure them that Colonel White was as good as his promise and Scarlet had full permission to continue the exploration of the tunnels.

She included Ochre in her instructions, but not Blue. Scarlet was standing close beside him and it was him, rather then the blond American, who asked, “Did the colonel say anything about Captain Blue?”

Flaxen looked at the long-legged man, lounging insouciantly on a boulder. “He was surprised that he’d helped us dismantle the pacifier and subdue Captain Magenta. He has decided to let him remain with the exploration party for the time being, but under the command of Captain Ochre and myself.” She turned to address Blue directly. “Should there be any reason to doubt your sincerity, Captain, you are to be arrested and sent to join Magenta and his men in the armoured vehicle. I doubt that you will get off without being tried for your involvement in the Syndicate, and for the Agency’s criminal activities, but for now you are released into our custody.”

Blue’s fair brows rose at the conclusion of this speech. “How that must please you, Captain Flaxen. You’ve waited a long time to be able to order me about. Obviously patience is a virtue and, as ever, virtue is its own reward. However, don’t get too cock-a-hoop about it; I am minded to do as I want - the same as always.”

“Blue, don’t provoke her,” Symphony pleaded. She was too tired to face up to another bitter argument between her colleagues. “We owe it to Scarlet and Garnet to find the right portal for their way back, so let’s not argue, okay?”

Flaxen glanced at Ochre, hoping for his support, but he was watching Garnet with a concern that made her heart sink. “Let’s get a move on – sooner we start, the sooner you’ll get to go home,” she said with a weary resignation that was not lost on Captain Scarlet.

After the usual heated discussion, it was settled that Scarlet and Blue would make the initial exploratory trips through the crevices in the tunnels, systematically trying every one until they found the right one – back to the world Garnet and he had left so precipitously. Between them, the officers had the most experience of the dimension-jumping properties of the tunnels. As there was no way Cadenza was letting them out of her sight, they eventually agreed that she might accompany them. She pointed out, with a wry glance at her counterpart, that she had to get home too…

“Too damn right you do…” he muttered.

Symphony told them about her meeting with the man she believed was the Captain Blue from Scarlet’s dimension, and it made sense to begin the search through that particular portal, in the hopes he might still be there. Scarlet was optimistic that they might find the right way through on their first attempt, but his hopes were dashed when they arrived at the location. Where Symphony was sure the crevice had been, was a smooth wall of rock.

Rather than listen to the endless speculation this started amongst the group, Cadenza wandered along the dark tunnel, she ran her hand over the wall as she walked, as much for guidance and stability on the treacherous shingle as in the hope of discovery. Her hand suddenly reached an opening and staring into a stygian blackness she could almost imagine that she saw a glimmer of light.

“Paul, Adam,” she called, “I may have found another portal. Bring those torches over here.” She waited with as much patience as she could muster whilst the entire group stomped up the incline and shone their torches in the direction of her voice.

“It’s a tunnel, all right,” Scarlet agreed. “There is a chance it leads to the same place as the one you found, Symphony.”

“Only way to find out is to go through it,” Blue said prosaically.

“And what if you end up in another war zone?” Ochre asked.

“We turn round and come straight back,” Cadenza replied quickly, but politely enough, sensing Blue was about to make some disparaging put-down. The truce between the men was still a fragile one

“Let’s do it,” said Scarlet briskly. Like Cadenza, he was not inclined to tolerate seemingly endless arguments.

They emerged some minutes later with disappointed faces. It had not been the same place, and they had not stayed long enough to explore further, for fear of becoming involved in further ramifications of the convoluted situation they already found themselves in. But it had set the pattern and Ochre had no quibble with them trying other portals after that.

They tried several apertures without success - despite gaining some interesting insights into their pasts. Sometimes they could not be really sure if they were seeing themselves, or events in other dimensions. Captain Scarlet certainly remembered taking a painful dive over the handlebars of his new mountain bike, whilst showing off to his parents one birthday, and reflected ruefully on how his youthful-self would have welcomed the ability to heal quickly on that occasion.

They also witnessed a gangly, teen-aged Adam Svenson, with braces on his teeth, peering from beneath a mane of blond hair and pleading vociferously with his father for permission to start flying lessons. Captain Blue went very pale when his mother came to see what all the shouting was about.

A third tunnel revealed a chubby Karen Wainwright, her long, red-gold hair in a heavy single plait down her back, nervously bursting into tears when her delighted parents told her that she had won a mathematics scholarship to Yale University, which would mean her leaving her Iowan home.

“All very fascinating but not much help…we’re getting even further away from the present,” Scarlet explained to Symphony on their return.

“I sure would have liked to see your bicycle trick though, Paul!” she said cheerfully, apparently unmoved by the misery of that other Karen. He grinned at her and turned to follow Blue and Cadenza back into the next tunnel.

During their absences, Garnet wandered around different parts of the cavern, putting an idea she’d had, about finding a way through to their dimension, into practise. Captain Ochre followed her closely. Flaxen was trying to ignore them, by assiduously discussing anything and everything she could think of, with the Angel pilot, but Symphony was in no mood to provide a salve for her colleague’s aching heart and she finally gave up even the pretence of listening.

By the time the explorers emerged from the next portal, with disappointment written large on the faces, Garnet was back, and with barely suppressed excitement she reached out to catch Scarlet’s arm.

“Captain Scarlet, I am sure I have found the way back to the cavern we were found in. I recognised the entrance to the cave below this one. I am sure it is the right cave … you can just make out the water’s edge and the shingle bank.”

As he approached the drop, Scarlet’s hopes began to rise. He too felt he was on familiar ground. He peered over the edge to take a look.

“See, doesn’t it look familiar to you? Look, Rick, that is where you found us, don’t you remember?”

She was leaning perilously over a hole in the cavern floor, with Ochre holding on to the belt of her jacket.

“Rick….” Symphony muttered significantly to Scarlet as she peered over his shoulder, adding, “Ochre looks like a fond father holding his child by leading reins.”

Ochre agreed that it did look familiar. He had been the only member of the rescue team who had actually descended into the cave where Scarlet and Garnet had been trapped.

“Give me a rope, I will go down and investigate,” Scarlet ordered.

“Is that wise, to go alone?” Cadenza demurred. “You may be wrong, or, just as the horizontal exits from the caves do, this one may shift in the time dimension and you could end up anywhere.”

“He isn’t going alone,” Blue commented. He dropped the rope down into the cavern. “I am going too.”

They dropped to the shingle beach safely and looked up to see their companions staring down in concern. Scarlet raised a hand to signify they could see each other and Cadenza waved back.

Blue was already pacing along the shingle beach, ostensibly looking for signs that someone had been there before, but in reality looking for the bodies of Lieutenant Scarlet and Garnet. Suddenly he stopped and stooped in the shadow of a large boulder.

“Captain Scarlet!”

Alerted by the urgency in his companion’s voice, Scarlet sprinted over the shingle and stopped some distance away from where Blue was examining the inert body of a young woman. Blue looked up and confirmed his suspicions.

“It is Lieutenant Garnet. She has been shot.”

“But where is the other body?” Scarlet cried. “When I was here before, there were two bodies – Claudia’s and mine!”

Blue stood and looked with some sadness at the corpse at his feet. “She has been shot with a Spectrum weapon, so we can assume it was Ruffolo. It seems that here, he only managed to get half of the job done. Perhaps Lieutenant Scarlet is still here – he may well be injured. We should make a thorough search.”

Scarlet nodded. He glanced up to where he could see the others peering anxiously in their direction. He frowned as he tried to focus on the person of Symphony as she leant perilously over the edge. He could see that she was calling, but he could hear nothing. He reached out and touched Blue’s arm, “Look, Adam, do you see it too? The others – they are… fading.”

The sudden jolting of the ground beneath their feet and the loud crash of falling boulders drowned Blue’s response, and both men threw themselves onto the beach, covering their heads with their arms in a futile, yet instinctive, reaction to the tremor. All around them the ground shuddered and the shingle bank opposite cascaded down in an unstoppable torrent. Scarlet scrambled to his feet, pulling Blue out of the way of the avalanche of stone. They raced for the water’s edge, prepared to dive in, if it would afford them any protection. The water itself boiled and swirled around their legs as the volcano shook. The shingle beneath their feet shifted and Blue was sucked down into the maelstrom. Scarlet screamed out his name and reached to grab the American’s hand, hauling for dear life. Blue scrambled back on to the bank, soaked and breathless, but unhurt.

The tremor died down and as Scarlet was observing that it was the biggest quake so far, Blue stared out into the gloomy water as the ripples revealed the approach of a diver. A dark head emerged from the water and slowly a figure waded to the beach - a tall, sturdily-built, dark-haired man, with brilliant blue eyes and cleft chin.

Blue nudged Scarlet’s leg and nodded down towards the water.

“We have company. Paul, meet … Paul Metcalfe,” he said with a grin.

The two Metcalfes saw each other at the same instant. And Captain Scarlet felt the shock of surprise at seeing himself, standing looking at himself, with suspicion.

After a long pause, the newcomer extended his hand and said, “It is a pleasure to meet you, Captain Scarlet.”

“You’re not dead, then,” Scarlet said, stating the obvious.

“Not yet, thanks to Captain Blue – your Captain Blue,” he explained, glancing dismissively at the man sitting on the shingle. “I suppose this is the Blue from my dimension?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, I am,” Blue said, standing and staring down the dark-haired man. “And surprise, surprise, I am still your superior officer.”

Lieutenant Scarlet shrugged and turned back to Captain Scarlet. “I was sent here with a message from the other Captain Blue…”

“Call him Adam, it saves the bother of trying to differentiate between us all,” Scarlet suggested.

Lieutenant Scarlet grinned. “Okay, well, Adam sent me here with a message – I was to try to find you and give you the details he’s arranged for a rescue.”

“We know he was here, Symphony met him and told us.” Scarlet nodded. “Why didn’t he come with you?”

“He intended to, we left Stingray together. But, as we approached the cliff face, a tremor started and he was swept away from the entrance, whereas I was pulled back in. He’d said that if that happened, the one of us that got through should proceed alone. I know what he has planned; he thought it best we both have all the details, just in case something happened to separate us.”

“That sounds very much like Adam – he’s a ‘belt and braces’ man, if ever there was one,” Scarlet remarked laconically.

“He’s on the ball though,” the lieutenant agreed, “and he catches on pretty quickly too. I rather liked him,” he added, unable to disguise the mild surprise in his voice.

Scarlet gave a broad smile. “Oh, he’s a nice guy – if you discount his inability to refrain from explaining everything in minute detail – and his appalling singing.”

“I didn’t hear him sing,” the lieutenant admitted with an amused smile.

“Count yourself lucky,” Scarlet responded with a grin.

“Don’t mind me, will you?” Blue interjected peevishly. “I mean, it’s only my other self you’re discussing as if I’m not here…”

“Oh, you sing much better than Adam; I heard you on Cloudbase, remember?” Scarlet reassured him with a crafty wink at his double. “Actually, it was that, as much as anything, that made me realise the two dimensions were not the same, in a variety of subtle ways,” he explained.

“He sounds…rather dull,” Blue commented.

“Hey,” Lieutenant Scarlet said fiercely, “I will take his ‘dullness’ over your treachery any day, buster!”

“Cut it out!” Scarlet snapped. It seemed that with every reintroduction to the people of his own dimension, Blue slipped back into his persona of an objectionable waste of space. “We are all stuck here together and - until we get back to our correct worlds – I suggest we bury our personal feuds and co-operate.” He looked at both men sternly before he added pointedly, “It is what Adam would do.”

“Speaking of being stuck,” Blue said, “the others seem to have vanished from the aperture.”

Scarlet turned and looked towards the ceiling. “Damn and blast!”

“I have noticed that both the dimensional and the time slips seem to coincide with the tremors,” Blue theorised. “Whatever Dull Blue has planned may well depend on the random instances of earthquakes.”

“They are not so random as you imagine,” Lieutenant Scarlet replied, impressed that both Captain Blues seemed to have arrived independently at a similar conclusion. “Stingray has been monitoring the earthquakes since they arrived on the site and there seems to be a pattern. Captain Blue went on-line and got more data from the Vulcanologists, then he combined it and …” he rummaged in his diving suit and produced a print-out, “it’s all on this.”

Blue reached and took it before Scarlet could, and so he was reduced to peering over the taller man’s shoulder as Blue read the columns of figures and frowned absently into the distance as he calculated.

“Make any sense of it?” Scarlet asked.

“What makes you think he can count anything except money?” Lieutenant Scarlet muttered in a snide aside.

“I won’t tell you again,” Scarlet snapped. “We are both your superior officers and, if push comes to shove, I will shut your mouth for you.” The man’s attitude was annoying him. He considered the edginess between Blue and Cadenza with a whole new understanding.

“It’s okay, Paul,” Blue said, emerging from his distraction. “I can fight my own battles. The lieutenant probably believes he has a right to feel aggrieved.” He waved the piece of paper. “I take my hat off to Dull Blue – he’s right – there is a pattern. Chalk one to the tone-deaf Svenson.” He winked at Captain Scarlet.

“I didn’t say he was tone deaf,” Scarlet said.

“My father is… so it’s not that big a gamble. If my mother hadn’t insisted I had music lessons - from a very early age – I would probably be just as bad.” Blue winked.

“You’re a fraud, Svenson,” Scarlet grinned.

Blue laughed aloud. “Well known for it, Metcalfe.”

Lieutenant Scarlet watched this by-play with a frown. He had never expected to find that his double was friendly with a man he disliked so strongly. But then, he reasoned, he had been surprised at how affable he found the Captain Blue from the other dimension. It wasn’t worth fighting over, anyway. “Can you work out the pattern?” he asked Blue levelly.

“It’s a complex one, but as far as I can work it out, there are major quakes, like the one we just experienced, every 40-48 hours, followed by a series of smaller quakes, that seem to occur every 60-90 minutes – the frequency decreasing until there is a flurry of small quakes preceding the next big one.” He looked at Lieutenant Scarlet. “What is the plan?”

“The next big one – he’ll be here.”

“Concise and to the point, I commend it.” Blue smiled.

“Do we sit here for the next 40 hours?” the lieutenant asked.

Blue glanced at his watch. “Probably not - there should be another small quake in the next 10 minutes or so – with luck, that will return the others to their vantage point above the way out. I suggest we go back to Cloudbase, tie up the loose ends and then – back we all come - in time to meet with Dull Blue and send everyone home,” he concluded flippantly.

“What about Claudia? If we can all swap times and dimensions, is there anyway I can stop Ruffolo shooting her?” Lieutenant Scarlet asked, his gaze finally moving to the boulder where he had left his fiancée.

“I am sorry, Paul,” Captain Scarlet said, placing a hand on his doppelganger’s arm. “She has not recovered from the wounds. She is dead.”

“But then, so was he, according to you,” Blue reminded him. He sighed and shrugged at the Lieutenant. “Look, if it is any consolation, maybe somewhere in the multiverse, there is a Claudia Vecchio married to Paul Metcalfe, with half a dozen ‘bambinos’ crawling around their feet.”

“I applaud the sentiment, but not the way it was expressed,” Captain Scarlet sighed.

Blue shrugged again. “Somewhere Adam Svenson is married to Dianne Simms - the poor bastard - mind you, they probably deserve each other.”

Captain Scarlet was angry at a slur that seemed to encompass his Dianne. “And you don’t deserve to be married to her? Or maybe, she doesn’t deserve to be married to you – ever thought of that aspect of it?”

“Nope, she doesn’t deserve to be married to me. And I have quite different plans…” Blue moved towards the hole in the roof where he expected to see Karen again. Scarlet shook his head in angry exasperation as the strains of ‘I’m a believer’ came wafting back towards them, in Captain Blue’s light tenor.

“What’s he on about?” Lieutenant Scarlet asked.

“Ah, well, you see….”

The explanation lasted nicely until the next tremor revealed the anxious rescue party – just as Blue had predicted.

Chapter Four

Once the parties were reunited, Blue gave an explanation of what had happened and the theory that the other Captain Blue had come up with to explain events and provide a way home. Cadenza took the papers from him and, with Symphony looking over her shoulder they made their own calculations, checking the validity of the original work.

“Well, it should get you home, Paul,” Cadenza said ruefully. “It doesn’t offer me a promise of returning, though.”

“Look, we go to the portal we found you in, and wait until the tremors coincide with your home…” Blue said, rolling his eyes.

“So, I have to wait here, popping in and out of the crevice after every quake, while you all go back to a party on Cloudbase?” she snarled.

“No,” Symphony said. “Look, these figures have time codes… we know Paul found you then,” she pointed, “and you came back before the next quake. So... it’s like one quake is home, one quake isn’t…”

“And what if the tunnel ends at hundreds of different realities before it gets back to mine?” Cadenza asked, her eyebrows raised.

Symphony grinned, raised her own eyebrows in response and chewed on her gum.

The other Angel pilot laughed. “My God, you are just like Kevin… damned annoying,” she confessed.

“I guess the decision is up to you, Eva,” Captain Scarlet said. “You can wait here, and,” he sighed, “if you decide to do that, I’ll wait with you, or you can come back to Cloudbase and try when we all come back before the next big quake.”

Cadenza smiled at him. “Thanks, Paul; I knew I could rely on your help. I think I will come back to Cloudbase with you all. I want to see just what is different…”

Captain Ochre agreed that they should all return to Cloudbase. He was sure the colonel would want a full report, and he had a sneaking suspicion his commander wouldn’t believe his story if he had to tell it unsupported by the testimony of the others. Flaxen was still highly sceptical of the whole series of events since the away mission had arrived at Etna – so it was odds on that White wouldn’t believe either. Besides, Ochre was gentleman enough to give credit where it was due, and he was grateful to Cadenza and Captain Scarlet for the significant parts they had played in the unravelling of the Mysterons’ plot and believed that Colonel White would want to thank them, officially.

He could even feel pity for Lieutenant Scarlet’s anguish at losing Claudia, although part of him ached to say it was the Englishman’s own fault, for dragging her into the morass of Agency schemes. Oddly enough, he found it hard to mourn the woman he had loved when her double stood so close beside him, her eyes brimming with tears at the news that her doppelganger had not survived. Perhaps it was shallow of him to feel this way, or perhaps it was a consequence of his Mysteronisation that he could no longer see death as a final separation, but he rather suspected it was because he felt that the new Claudia returned his love with an intensity he had not experienced with his ex-fiancée.

Somewhere, in his heart of hearts, he could not believe he would lose her a second time.

It was with mixed feelings that the away party clambered aboard an SPJ at the airfield. Sergeant Harcourt had been left in charge of the remaining security personnel, awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from the trusted personnel in Spectrum London. Captain Magenta and his cronies were being transferred to a secure facility operated by Spectrum’s internal security department ‘Spectrum Intelligence’, where a team of interrogators were itching to get their hands on him and as much inside information on the Syndicate and its various off-shoots as they could.

Scarlet watched the three men being hustled onto a second SPJ with an unavoidable feeling of unease. He glanced at Captain Blue who had also stopped on the tarmac to watch the loading.

“Do you reckon they’ll crack him?” he asked the American.

Blue pursed his lips and gave a minute shrug. “I damn well hope so, because, if they don’t, I’m going to have to do it myself. “ He turned to Scarlet, who saw an unexpected flicker of anxiety in his eyes. “I can’t risk Magenta getting loose and going after my father… or anyone else he assumes I care about. I will kill him with my bare hands before I allow him to harm any of them.”

Captain Scarlet watched him walk up the steps to the plane with a frown on his face. He had come to accept that he did not understand most of the people in this dimension, but with this man he felt it more… he felt he ought to know him, but every time Scarlet thought he had him sussed - Blue surprised him again. He started to follow him, wishing he could go home straight away and missing his friends and the companionship he valued, more than ever.

Back on the vastness of Cloudbase, they were met at the hangar door by a security team of unknown officers, who delivered them to the conference room.. Each of them was scanned with a Mysteron Detector… although, as Ochre pointed out, three of them made that precaution redundant. Colonel White had obviously been busy in their absence, and once Captain Magenta had left for Mount Etna, he had shipped in loyal troops from London and Sydney. They had rounded up the senior figures in the Agency, and those not already on their way down to SI were languishing in the brig.

Once the tests on Symphony and Lieutenant Garnet proved negative, Colonel White ordered them down to sick-bay. Both women were looking pale and tired after their exertions at Etna. He was concerned to see Symphony’s pallor and her lethargy, and he spoke to her for several moments before he ordered her to see Doctor Fawn. His concern for his senior Angel pilot made her blush guiltily, and she left meekly enough.

Colonel White accepted that Captain Ochre and Captain Scarlet posed no threat, but he was uncertain about Cadenza and took a deal of convincing that the young woman was as loyal to her Spectrum – and its commander – as his own men were to him. Eventually, it was the fact that Captain Flaxen acknowledged that the Angel pilot was on their side that convinced White to relax the guard on her. But he could not help staring at the young woman with obvious amazement. Cadenza shrugged at Captain Scarlet – she was getting used to being pointed out as an oddity.

It was only after he had dealt with everyone else in the away party that the colonel turned to Lieutenant Scarlet.

He was thankful that he had delayed telling the young man’s family about his ‘death’, and relieved and delighted to see him so hale and well.

For his part, the lieutenant was unsure of his welcome. He knew he had bent the rules, both in returning to Etna and in involving Garnet in his unauthorised scheme to deactivate the pacifier. He hoped that his story of meeting the ‘other’ Paul Metcalfe would be more believable now, given that there was not only a second Paul Metcalfe but also a female version of Captain Blue on Cloudbase. However, he had no doubt that his insubordination would not go un-noticed, or unpunished by his commander-in-chief. His Uncle Charles was a tough old bird – but, he acknowledged, fair to a fault. Whatever he decided as suitable punishment would not be tempered by his undoubted affection for his nephew, and Scarlet knew that he wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Paul,” White said, and rather surprisingly enfolded the younger man in a rough embrace.

“Uncle,” Scarlet responded quietly.

White disengaged. His face was stern and his voice clipped as he said, “I am so sorry to hear about Claudia. I cannot begin to say how much I sympathise with you… I know we all pay a certain lip-service to the possibility of death in service – but it never ceases to hurt every one of us when the ultimate tragedy happens. My dear boy…”

Scarlet hung his head. “Thank you, sir.” He raised his face, his eyes heavy with unshed tears he could not banish. “I know Claudia was special to us all… she will be missed by more than just me…”

White nodded, dismissing the sentiment he was as uncomfortable with as his nephew. “Her body will be buried with full military honours, Lieutenant. Please rest assured that no blame attaches to her, she died in the line of duty.”

Scarlet nodded. His Uncle was letting him off lightly – so be it.

Colonel White knew his nephew had been very deeply in love with the dead woman. Since the other officers all agreed that they saw little chance she might still be found alive, Paul would take time to adjust, not only to her death, but to his own apparent escape from it. There was time later for any recriminations to be expressed – in private.

~oo0oo~

An hour later, after time to freshen up and get something to eat, the officers and Cadenza sat around the conference room and told Colonel White their stories, each adding a little more to the overall picture of the events at the volcano. It was quickly apparent that they had all acted with the best of intentions, and that, whatever the result was from breaking up the pacifier, they had done it with the objective of preventing far more serious and wide-ranging catastrophes in this and other dimensions. It was going to take some explaining to the senior executive and the local governments, but on the whole the colonel believed he could make a strong enough case, even without bringing the inter-dimensional portals into the matter.

The colonel couldn’t help glancing from one ‘Scarlet’ to the other. He could see a few subtle differences between his somewhat stiff-necked nephew and the ‘alternative’ Scarlet. Despite the fact that he had been a victim of the Mysterons, Captain Scarlet was far more relaxed than his alter ego – or perhaps, the colonel mused, he was relaxed because of his situation? Either way Paul had an air of wariness about him and a cynicism in his blue eyes, which the other man lacked. On the physical side there was nothing to distinguish them, apart from the fact that Paul had a healthy tan, whilst Captain Scarlet’s pallid complexion was similar to Captain Ochre’s which, various reports had noted, was strikingly similar to Captain Black’s tomblike pallor.

It was Captain Ochre who was the most surprising of the returned officers. There was a lightness in his demeanour and an optimism in his voice that the colonel didn’t remember hearing since before the incident at the Car-Vu. He was far less acerbic than he had been and even spoke voluntarily to Captain Blue, appealing for his support to verify incidents and justify reasonings. All three of the Mysteronised officers – for he had to accept that Cadenza was the same as the two men – seemed relaxed and far more at ease than he had ever seen Ochre before. He could only ascribe it to the fact that they had met other people in the same condition as themselves. Misery, he reasoned, likes nothing better than company.

Cadenza was not over-awed by being on an ‘alien’ Cloudbase, and had obviously accepted it as a perfectly logical development of her situation. She showed no uneasiness that the commander-in-chief of this reality might pose a threat to her, even when he was told of the mix-up that had, ostensibly, allowed Captain Black to escape. Despite a tendency to call him ‘General’, she treated Colonel White with a polite deference that was a long way from fear.

Finally, Colonel White commended them. Overall, they had done a good job, he reassured them, adding that the arrest of Captain Magenta was a welcome, if unexpected, consequence of the main mission. With Magenta off Cloudbase, the Agency had become vulnerable and he had taken the chance to implement a long-formulated plan to prise the organisation from its stranglehold of the base. The general assumption was that Magenta would now seek to make a plea bargain, for his information would be crucial in attacking ‘The Syndicate’ itself. With a proven link between The Mysterons and organised crime, Spectrum could justifiably join the other terrestrial security agencies in targeting The Syndicate and its various branches around the globe.

“I have the World President’s word that the dismantling of the power of the Syndicate will cover every aspect of international government bodies and no-one will be above suspicion or above sanction. Anyone involved with the Syndicate or the Agency, or proven to have links with either of them, will be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Captain Blue had listened to everything with commendable calm, but as the colonel concluded, he heard himself denounced by Captain Flaxen as both a traitor and a gangster. In the absence of his making any defence of himself, Captain Scarlet spoke up on his behalf and Blue acknowledged his positive rebuttal of the charge with a gracious bow of his head. Captain Ochre’s comments, in response to further charges against him made by Lieutenant Scarlet, elicited a wry smile. But he never said a word in his own defence.

Colonel White turned to Cadenza and looked at her carefully for some minutes, until even the self-confident and self-possessed Eva began to blush. “Miss Svenson, you have remained uncharacteristically quiet on the subject of your… other half. Do you have anything to say about the events of the recent past?”

Cadenza bit her lip and drew a deep breath. “Only one thing, Gen…Colonel; I have thought all along that Captain Blue is hiding something. I get an impression he’s rather enjoying himself too, but I don’t have any idea why,” she admitted with a glance at her other self, “apart, maybe, from his impending fatherhood.”

“His what?” Colonel White asked in alarm.

Blue, quite unable to restrain himself, gave an absurdly proud grin. The colonel’s heart sank as he realised the situation. It didn’t take genius to figure out who was the other person involved. He’d been aware that Symphony had not been in the peak of health lately, but Doctor Fawn had not included her on his weekly health report, so he had not worried. Presumably, White thought caustically, Fawn will argue that having a baby is not an illness, when I ask him why I wasn’t informed. Oh, there are going to be changes around here and they are going to start right now!

He kept his tone as neutral as he could and said, “I think we will leave discussing that matter until after this meeting is concluded, Miss Svenson. Captain Blue, it looks as if the stage is yours. Can you provide any justification for your actions and a reason for me not to commit you to the brig for trial, by a military or civilian court, as the World Solicitor-General decides? You surely admit to having been involved with Donaghue’s schemes and to having knowledge of his criminal activities?” White looked sadly at the younger man. “You always had the potential to be a good officer, a potential, I have to say, that you have not fulfilled.”

Unabashed, Blue finally spoke up. “I am sorry you think that, sir. It has always been my objective to do whatever job I undertake to the best of my ability. When I was a test pilot, I was the best test pilot the WAS had. I can’t claim to be the best agent Spectrum has…”

“No, you damn well can’t!” Ochre muttered, but he sounded more amused than angry. The colonel glanced at him quizzically; he had noted with interest that Ochre’s voice had not been one of those raised in condemnation of his fellow American – which was, in itself, surprising.

Blue grimaced and continued, “But I would ask you some questions, sir, if I may?” White nodded curtly and the younger man continued, “What is the most important – your duty to your employers or to your family? I learned very soon after I joined Spectrum, that my family – specifically my Uncle - was involved with organised crime. He embroiled my father in laundering money for the Syndicate, and I believed my father when he told me that, initially, he was unaware of what was happening and, that by the time he did realise, he was too far in to get out. The reach of those criminals is extensive, and I hadn’t been here long before Magenta approached me, with various ‘threats’ to my father and his company. I have not always seen eye to eye with my father – but he is the only family I had…” he turned and grinned at Cadenza, “until now. So I resisted the Syndicate’s initial overtures. Until, that is, after what happened at the Car-Vu.”

Ochre had been fiddling with his pen during this speech, but he looked up abruptly at the mention of the Car-Vu. His newly acquired peace of mind did not extend to thoroughly accepting what had happened to him, and he still wished, with every fibre of his being, that it had not happened to him. Unaware of the man’s scrutiny, Blue continued his story.

“When Ochre kidnapped the World President, I was the nearest officer with a chance to stop him. We all know what happened, but what happened next is perhaps not so well known. I escorted President Younger back to Futura and, if you remember, sir, I remained there for a week. During that time, the President… convinced me that it was… my duty …to…” Blue hesitated and, for once, really seemed to be lost for words.

Captain Scarlet spoke quietly into the silence, “Whatever it was, Adam, you have to tell us now.”

Blue nodded. “Let me try and explain…I need to go back a bit, to before Spectrum was created. Whilst I was in the WAS, I was made responsible for security, and my main task was to trace and remove several espionage organisations that had infiltrated the service. That’s basically what Younger wanted me to do for Spectrum. In addition to his appeal to my duty, and my loyalty to the World Government and himself, he mentioned that he had irrefutable proof of my Uncle’s involvement with the Syndicate, and of just how far into the morass my father had been dragged. I don’t like my Uncle – I never have – but he is my mother’s eldest brother and as such he is family. I have always been taught that my first loyalties are to the family, and I couldn’t risk the possibility that he might drag my father down with him, so I agreed to do what was asked of me.

“Most of that week I spent being briefed on what the World President wanted me to do, and – with the help of a couple of President Younger’s trusted associates – how we could do it. It wasn’t going to be possible to use USS agents, because you are familiar with so many of them, Colonel, and so, it was decided to use agents from the secondary intelligence services. In fact, one of the people assisting me during that week was André Verdain. He and the President go back a long way, it seems.

“When I came back, I went to see Captain Magenta. I said I had been asked by my family to co-operate with his schemes, to ensure their safety. I am not sure that Donaghue believed me, but he saw me as another way of ensuring my father’s compliance with the Syndicate’s demands, so he let me into the inner circle of the Agency’s controllers – to keep an eye on me, I suspect. It was hard work convincing Patrick of my enthusiasm, I had to move carefully, or the Syndicate would have killed my father, and possibly me as well. Gradually, he came to trust me a little, and I was able to start acquiring the evidence the President needed to destroy the Syndicate and ‘cleanse Spectrum’. His words, by the way, not mine.

“Once I was an established member of the Agency, I was able to tip off their intended targets and blow the cover of their agents and their dummy corporations, when I could. All of this I had to do without anyone here knowing about it,” he looked up and gave a slight smile, “and I guess I succeeded, because one by one, I lost my friends and … the people I cared about. But I infiltrated the Agency so completely that there isn’t a shred of cover for them to hide behind. Donaghue and his confederates will be in prison for a very long time.”

Captain Flaxen gave a slow, mocking round of applause. “You always were a damned good liar, Svenson,” she said. “I have to hand it to, you this is the biggest piece of bull-shit I’ve heard in a long time.”

“Why should he be lying?” Cadenza snapped. She had watched Blue throughout his long monologue and had no doubt he was telling the truth.

“Because, Miss Svenson, he will be joining Donaghue inside for a decent stretch himself.” Flaxen’s reply was heavy with derision.

“I have proof,” Blue said quietly, “and I have a few accomplices here on Cloudbase.”

“Who?” Colonel White demanded angrily. His face was ashen.

“Primarily, Lieutenant Cerise and Heidi Kleditzsch, they acted as my couriers and, sometimes, as my eyes and ears too.”

“Heidi? The physiotherapist I saw in your room the first time we met? I thought she was a … well, not to put too fine a point on it …I thought she was a hooker.” Captain Scarlet blushed.

Blue laughed. “Oh no, not Heidi, she’s a senior agent with the European Area Intelligence Agency. I recruited her through the auspices of Verdain. You may recall, Colonel, she was appointed to Cloudbase some weeks after I returned from Futura? As a matter of interest, Captain Scarlet, several of the ‘Agency’s girls’ are E.A.I.A. plants. Heidi keeps a strict eye on them.” He couldn’t resist a knowing glance from beneath his brows at the other men present. There were several uncomfortable expressions around the table. Cadenza was trying hard not to snigger.

“Well, I agree with Captain Flaxen,” Lieutenant Scarlet snapped. “These girls are Agency girls – you just admitted as much. They’d claim they were nuns if you told them to!”

“True, they might at that.” Blue did not look too worried by this. “The whole mission nearly came to grief in Monte Carlo. Verdain had discovered that this was the ‘powerhouse’ of the whole set-up, if you like. Some of the members of the Syndicate’s gangs had been Mysteronised, and the money they were siphoning off from the casinos was being used to recruit humans to work for them, the kind of people who will do anything for money. Naturally, these humans are immune to our Mysteron detectors, and trying to stop their schemes is impossible if we can’t spot the reconstructs. Verdain needed help. He had unearthed this scheme and it seemed to be our best hope of linking the Syndicate to the Mysterons, and so having a legal excuse to use the resources of Spectrum against them. Symphony is nobody’s fool and she’s a good agent, she came too close to what was really going on, and I had to… divert her attention….”

“Boy, was that a diversion and a half,” Cadenza sighed mischievously. “You do have some wonderful ideas.”

Blue flushed. “Yes… well, it got rather out of hand – you can blame that on the champagne…”

“It would certainly explain your impending progeny,” Ochre mused with a wry tilt of his head.

“But,” Lieutenant Scarlet said to Blue, “I don’t understand why you would want to alienate Symphony in the first place. I mean, you two were… good friends… before all this happened. Surely she’d have been an asset to you in your ‘so called’ mission?”

Blue smiled ruefully and explained, “I had to make sure Magenta believed in my ‘conversion’ to his cause. Any ties with loyal members of Spectrum would be suspect and I wasn’t prepared to turn Karen into a hostage – someone Magenta could use against me - if I was ever found out.”

He could see that Flaxen and Lieutenant Scarlet were still not convinced, but Captain Scarlet’s face was wreathed in smiles. “I should have known you couldn’t have been such an unmitigated jerk! It never felt quite right. I’m sorry I doubted you, Adam, but you are a bloody good actor at times.”

Blue smirked. “Noted for it, Captain Scarlet.”

“Captain Blue is a founder member of the amateur dramatics group here on Cloudbase,” the colonel explained, his expression perfectly neutral.

Scarlet grinned. “Likewise, at home! Say, have you ever done a production of ‘Macbeth’?”

Cadenza glanced at him. “We did. I played Lady Macbeth…”

“Then, will you tell me all about it over dinner?” Scarlet asked.

“This is all very suspect,” Lieutenant Scarlet said, still unwilling to accept the story.

“Well, I do have one unimpeachable witness,” Blue responded. “I made a call from the SPJ before we got back to Cloudbase, Colonel. I think you will find that the World President’s jet is on its way to Cloudbase from Futura. Even the Commander-in-chief of Spectrum has to listen to the World President, Lieutenant Scarlet.”

Chapter Five

The World President arrived at Cloudbase within the hour and was ushered by security into the Officers’ Lounge. There he met a party comprised of Colonel White, both of the Scarlets, Cadenza and Captain Blue, Captains Flaxen and Ochre, Lieutenant Garnet, Symphony and Rhapsody Angel, who had managed to wangle herself an invitation.

Captain Scarlet, convinced his news would receive a generally warm welcome, had taken it upon himself to see that the three women intimately connected with the chain of events were brought up to date, including Blue’s justification for his actions. He had gone along to the Amber Room, where he found Rhapsody and the other off-duty Angels, including Symphony - who had recently been released from sickbay - entertaining Lieutenant Garnet and Cadenza. He told them the outcome of the debriefing conference, without alluding to Symphony’s condition, which he saw as a private matter for the two lovers to sort out. He concluded his explanation with a beaming smile and waited for the women to react. But things did not go quite as he expected.

Garnet showed a great deal of pleasure to think that the captain had been acting under orders – she really did not like to think ill of anyone.

Rhapsody gave the news a lukewarm welcome. She was busily assessing how it might affect her relationship with Blue. Her scheme to marry him had been shaken by the news of Symphony’s condition, and it was only with great difficulty that she was keeping a hold on her frustrated anger in the face of Destiny’s twittering and Melody’s tactless questioning of the mother-to-be. In the light of this new information, she began to hope that, perhaps, Blue had no intention of marrying his former girlfriend…even given her situation. Symphony certainly did not seem to be taking Captain Scarlet’s news very well. It was a close call, but there might yet be a chance, she reasoned. A rehabilitated Adam Svenson might not be looking to get married and quit the service, which he would surely have to do with a baby on the way… and I have always made it perfectly clear that if he wants to stay on Cloudbase after we are married, that would suit me fine….

To Scarlet’s surprise, it was Symphony who showed the most unexpected response. “How very considerate of him, Captain Scarlet, but I am perfectly capable of looking out for myself!” she snapped after hearing his explanation for Blue’s break with her. She turned away and Scarlet never saw the tears that flooded into her eyes.

All she could think was, he has played me for a fool – again - and I let him! Everything that happened between us was all a trick – a diversion – to keep me from doing my job. And I was stupid enough to fall for it! Is there no end to his duplicity?

In the formality of the Presidential reception, the women were forced to keep their emotions under control. All three of them greeted World President Younger with polite smiles, and then moved on the colonel and Captain Blue who stood alongside of him. White watched them with interested concern.

Garnet was obviously delighted, her smile was sincere and she held on to Captain Blue’s hand for slightly longer than was customary. She moved on to be met by a genial Captain Ochre, whose smile mirrored her own in its delight.

Rhapsody, accustomed to dealing with VIPs, charmed the President and moved on to flirt with a surprisingly disconcerted Captain Blue. She did not move far from the reception line, but turned with blatant interest to watch her fellow Angel.

Symphony moved along the line of guests with barely concealed fury. Her smile at the President was perfunctory and her hand merely grazed Captain Blue’s as he extended it to take hers. She pointedly turned her back on him and strode across to join Captain Ochre – thereby innocently disrupting that man’s plan to get a little time alone with Lieutenant Garnet. Captain Blue, more than adept at reading her body language, turned away and Rhapsody swooped on him, playfully berating him for deceiving them all with his ‘bad-guy’ act and making no mention of Symphony.

Formalities over, President Younger was in an exuberant mood; cheerfully heralding the dawn of a new era in World Government, one where there was no place for corruption - not even Captain Blue’s uncle, World Senator Thomas Ellis, would be protected, Younger promised – although he did confirm to Captain Blue, in a quiet aside, that John Svenson was safe. He congratulated everyone on doing an excellent job, referring to Captain Blue in glowing terms. He hardly seemed to bat an eyelid when he was introduced to the people from the other dimensions – which suggested Blue’s telephone call had been far more than just a request for personal support. He confirmed that Magenta was to be committed for trial, but that he had made a bargain with the prosecuting service, dependent on his naming names and providing back-up proofs. The Syndicate would be seriously weakened – if not obliterated – all members of the government would be investigated and any found to have links to the Syndicate would be dismissed and committed for trial.

This eagerness lasted right through to the meal. “I have found just the man for the job, Colonel,” Younger enthused. “As dedicated an officer as there is and one who most definitely puts his integrity above price – he’s incorruptible.”

“That sounds ideal, Mr President,” White agreed dubiously. “Anyone we know?”

“But of course you do, Agent Conners is in Spectrum Intelligence. He will head up a team, initially dedicated to eradicating the Agency from Spectrum, and then he will turn his attention to the officials – elected and otherwise – who have been implicated, either by Magenta’s evidence or his own investigations. This will be a clean-sweep, Colonel – my administration will leave no stone unturned in its task of ending corruption within the public service.”

Younger was beginning to sound as if he was addressing a political conference and in order to curb his natural prolixity, White replied,

“A very reliable man, as far as I understand, Mr. President. We will welcome him on Cloudbase and I can assure you, all of my personnel will be happy to co-operate with his team of investigators.”

Captain Scarlet choked on a mouthful of wine. “Oh, sure… right enough. Everyone will co-operate like crazy,” he muttered under his breath. Captain Blue, sitting next to him, raised an interrogative eyebrow. “He’s kidding, right?” Scarlet added hopefully.

“I doubt it. Why should he be?”

“You mean you haven’t experienced Mr. Conners yet?” He grinned. “Oh boy - do you have a treat in store! I almost wish I could stay and witness it! Like lambs to the slaughter, the lot of you!”

“Maybe you had better brief me, before you go. I want to know everything you know about Conners that we don’t,” Blue replied with an amused smile.

“How long have you got, Adam?”

Their attention was diverted from this interesting conversation by the World President tapping a spoon on his wine glass and starting another speech. Scarlet stifled a grin as he noticed the colonel roll his eyes heavenward and sigh. He couldn’t imagine his colonel showing his ennui, even half that much. He tuned in to Younger and tried to see beneath the political flannel to what the man was really saying.

He thought it ironic that the President was more pleased with their, almost incidental, victory over the Syndicate, rather than their ground-breaking success at foiling another Mysteron attempt to destroy the World. That’s politicians for you, the same everywhere, he thought cynically. It did, however, give him a frisson of mischievous glee to recognise that Younger was acting very cautiously towards Captain Ochre, and yet including Cadenza and himself in his general bonhomie. He knew that situation all too well – back in his own dimension.

After the meal, the President and Colonel White retired into the top security room for a meeting and Captain Flaxen and Lieutenant Scarlet went back on duty, leaving the others to naturally break up into smaller groups. Captain Ochre offered to show Lieutenant Garnet the sights of the base – as she had never seen them - and the pair wandered off together.

Cadenza shepherded Captain Blue into a corner and proceeded to deliver a few home-truths.

“You have to sort out this mess you are in with the Angels… you cannot go on pretending you are God’s gift to girls, whilst you play one off against the other. The time has come to make your mind up,” she announced.

“I have made my mind up… not that it needed making up, really. I intend to marry Karen – just as soon as she’s speaking to me again…” he confessed with a wry grimace in her direction.

“And Rhapsody?” Cadenza asked pointedly. “When are you going to let her into this well-kept secret?”

“Oh…. Dianne? Well, I guess she’s figured it out for herself. I mean, Karen’s pregnant and… and…”

“I don’t think so,” she warned him. “Otherwise I doubt you’d be standing upright, for a start. You owe her an apology – a major apology.”

“It wasn’t like she thought I was serious…” he blustered. “I mean, she wasn’t ever serious about it…”

“Oh yes she was. She was quite prepared to marry your bank account – even if it meant marrying you with it.” He pulled a petulant face and refused to meet Cadenza’s hostile gaze. She shook her head in exasperation with him. “Adam Svenson,” she sighed, “when are you going to wake up and smell the shit you’re in?”

Scarlet smiled to see the tall American squirming under a tongue-lashing that, no doubt, contained exactly the same mix of moral indignation and verbal skills he used so effectively himself.

Rhapsody and Symphony, uneasy in each other’s company, watched the party fragment with a feeling of helplessness. Both of them sensed that they were in line for some kind of showdown.

Rhapsody had been determined to attend the gathering; if there was something going on between Symphony and Blue, she needed to break it up, before it got too serious. Knowing Karen’s hot temper, she might be able to drive a wedge between them once and for all, before her colleague calmed down and decided she would forgive Blue… something she had no doubt would happen – given time. She was not prepared to see her hard work cultivating the rich captain wasted. She had witnessed the reunion of Symphony with Captain Blue with some satisfaction – it did not look as if the couple were about to become ‘reunited’ – although, from Blue’s expression, he had obviously expected to be welcomed. Rhapsody sighed and thought back over the past few months, reviewing how the latest twist in the situation might affect her own plans.

The affair between Symphony and Captain Blue had been the worst kept secret on Cloudbase and there was little doubt that, on her part at least, it had been genuine enough. Blue was far more reserved than Symphony, but at the time, he had seemed sheepishly happy in her company. All this had changed when he returned from Futura, after being awarded the Valour Star for his actions in the Car-Vu incident by the World President himself. With an uncharacteristic openness he had begun philandering with other women on the base, and his attitude towards Symphony changed dramatically. Of course, now she knew why he had alienated her - and done it with all the thoroughness for which he was justifiably noted. Not known for her meek acceptance of things she didn’t like, Symphony had reacted with anger, and they had started arguing, each row more acrimonious than the last, until finally they had split, just before Blue declared his alliance with Magenta. Symphony had been forthright in her denunciation of him and the bitterness she felt had soured her temper for weeks. She devoted herself to helping the colonel in his seemingly fruitless battle to combat the Agency’s growing power on Cloudbase, whilst her fellow Angel pilots had succumbed to Magenta’s blandishments.

And that’s when I set a determined course to capture a rich American for myself, she mused. Free from his entanglement with one Angel, Blue accepted her overtures with every sign of wishing to reciprocate and it was noticeable that his pursuit of other women had decreased as a consequence. Not that she imagined for one moment they had stopped all together.

When Symphony had been included on the away mission with him, Grey and Destiny, she had been jealous, and not a little uneasy. Grey and Destiny were happily involved in a pretty torrid affair and not likely to be keeping the others company, if chance permitted. They were supposed to investigate suspected Mysteron activity in the Mediterranean, centred around Monte Carlo. It didn’t appear to have been an onerous mission, from what she’d heard from Destiny on her return, and they all had splendid tans -and, in Destiny’s case, a whole new wardrobe of designer clothes, as well. The Frenchwoman hadn’t been able to confirm, or refute, Rhapsody’s concerns that, whilst the others were indulging in some hanky-panky of their own, Blue and Symphony had been ‘behaving themselves’.

Whatever had happened between Blue and Symphony during those two weeks – and, despite her snooping, Rhapsody had never been able to find out if anything did happen –Symphony’s attitude towards her former lover had noticeably softened and Rhapsody had been suspicious of her re-burgeoning interest for some time now, culminating in her discovery of the American Angel in Blue’s quarters the other evening. Of course, this pregnancy explained a great deal…

She glanced over at the corner where Blue was in earnest conversation with the new Angel – perhaps this apparent rapprochement with Symphony is merely a hiccough? Perhaps they are still at loggerheads? I hope so… if he’s going to be any help – even with all the money he has – he has to marry me soon…. She drew a deep sigh and decided to break up that tête-a tête; she suspected that Cadenza was more on Symphony’s side than hers.

At Rhapsody’s approach, Cadenza stopped mid-sentence and gave Blue a significant look. He sighed deeply but at a stern glance from Cadenza, moved to greet her.

Before she could say a word, he began, “I feel I owe you an apology.” His eyes were downcast. “I have behaved abominably towards you, and I can only ask you to remember that I was under orders and not to judge me too harshly. If I try to apologise for every last offence, we’ll be here for months…so, I hope you’ll accept this apology as covering all of my transgressions?” He glanced up at her, as if expecting that she would reject his olive branch.

Rhapsody broke the acid silence, her hopes were in ruins and she was in no mood for forgiveness. “I have to say that I am not convinced that you acted fairly - towards either of us, Adam. It wasn’t fair to try to seduce me, as you had seduced Karen, if you meant to dump us both… playing with our emotions as if we were of no importance!”

“I never did!” he protested. “Dianne, I was a complete bastard - I’ll agree - but you didn’t love me, and what happened between us never touched your heart. Admit it; it wasn’t as if you cared.”

“How can you say that?”

“No, Dianne – it’s time for the truth – all you cared about was getting your hands on my money. Well, it isn’t mine, it is the family’s - but setting that aside - you would have married a monkey if he could have delivered the hard cash! You were using me and I was using you – so we are even, Miss Simms – admit it, take the medicine and move on. I apologise for your disappointment – even the hurt pride I may have caused - but I can’t apologise for playing the same game as you.” He looked obdurately at the red-head. He knew Rhapsody was intelligent enough to know that she was on a losing wicket and honest to know he was speaking the truth – however unpalatable that was to hear. He also knew just how much he had led her on and he was not entirely heartless. He added, “I would like to make some amends, Dianne, and I can offer the services of SvenCorp to cover your family’s mortgages and extend their credit lines. On that you have my word and that of my father. We have favours owed us in the City; it’ll be sorted out, don’t worry. We pay our debts.”

“And that is supposed to set us even, is it?” she snapped, glaring up at the stony-faced American, but even in the depths of her apparent defeat, there was a fierce joy that she would not have to marry him. She had tried to do as her father ordered and could not be blamed if the favourite contender baulked at the final hurdle and shied away from the ultimate commitment. And judicious handling of SvenCorp’s assets, through the medium of Adam’s guilt, might yet solve the budgetary crisis at home. “I still say you behaved badly.”

“And I still say you didn’t care…” he retorted.

“You have been trying to get me into bed for months!”

“True – but it doesn’t follow that I want to get married…”

Cadenza, watching from across the room, cleared her throat significantly and stared with forthright disapproval at Blue. He sighed and apologised once more. This time Rhapsody gave a curt nod, indicating that – for now – she was prepared to accept his contrition as genuine. She had better things to do than listen to Blue’s ramblings… She needed to discover just how desperate the financial situation was at home, so that she could ensure his ‘apology’ was enough to cover the immediate crisis.

Symphony had been watching this with a sullen expression from her seat across the room. If she could have, she would have fled the room, but she was hemmed in by her colleagues and Captain Blue and Rhapsody had chosen to have their altercation in the doorway. She was not feeling up to a confrontation with him right now. She was tired, and worried about what Colonel White was going to do, now that he knew about her pregnancy. His only remark alluding to it had left her uncertain and fearing the worst. She foresaw a terrestrial posting and, quite possibly, permanent exclusion from Cloudbase. Added to that, she would be separated from Captain Blue and - she could admit to herself at least – that would be worst punishment of all.

She came to with a start as she saw Rhapsody stalk away through the exit and realised that Cadenza had melted away as well. Adam was walking across to her, a determined glint in his eye. Dragging up her last reserves of inner strength, she hardened her heart to him.

“I don’t suppose you will ever forgive me,” he said ruefully.

His expression reminded her of a naughty little boy whose mischief has been discovered and she wasn’t fooled for one minute. “No, you may be right there.”

To her surprise he crouched down before her chair, reaching for her hand. “Karen, where can I start? I was … unbelievably cruel to you. I apologise.”

“Okay,” she said coldly, aware that many people were staring at them with unfeigned interest. “Get up, please… and let me go.”

“You forgive me?” Blue asked in surprise.

“No, but I see no point in arguing. Adam, if you apologised for a decade, it wouldn’t begin to balance out how angry I am with you. But I am tired and I’ve had enough of this, I just want to get some rest.”

“You must take care of yourself,” he agreed. “Let me take you back to your quarters…” To her relief, he stood up and held out a hand to assist her from the chair.

“No. I am perfectly capable of walking there unaided, thank you.”

“Karen, please. I want to help…besides, we have to talk.”

“Do we?”

“Älskling, be sensible… there is the child to consider. You didn’t mean it when you said you wouldn’t marry me, did you? That was just temper, wasn’t it?”

“No, I meant it – I wouldn’t marry you if you crawled on your knees and begged me. If Dianne wants to cheapen herself by marrying you – she’s welcome to. Besides, I can’t see what good our getting married would do, Adam. You aren’t going to change and neither am I. I’ve watched you on the prowl over these past months… you like women you have to chase a lot. Oh, for now I’m all you want, but it wouldn’t be long before you’d stray. You have no self-control, Adam! Don’t bother to argue - I know how you work - I probably inspired most of the lines! And, the worst thing is, you’d expect me to tolerate whatever you decided to do – and whoever you decided to do it with – until I’m the one who’d end up looking like trash! Besides, I don’t want a marriage based on lies and coercion, because one day I’d wake up and realise I hated you, and that’s not the atmosphere I want to raise my child in.”

“It’s our child and I want to be part of its life…” he replied.

“It’s not a toy, Adam, not something you can play with until you’re fed up with it and then consign it to the scrap heap!”

“I wouldn’t do that!”

“No? You do it with everything else… I’ve never seen you stick at a relationship yet!”

“I’ve never met a woman I wanted to have a long term relationship with before...”

She laughed cynically at him. “And you’re telling me I am that woman? Oh, Adam, you’re cute! You get such weird ideas…” She pushed past him, hoping to get away, but he caught her arm and turned her, enfolding her in his arms.

“You don’t have to believe me now, but I do love you, and I will prove it to you – if it takes me the rest of my life.”

“Let me go…”

“No, not until you look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t love me and you don’t want me around you.”

“Let me go!”

“Karen…. “

Her eyes met his and she was lost. He kissed her. She struggled briefly in his arms, but her treacherous body responded to his and she melted into his embrace.

“You didn’t mean it, did you?” he whispered, unwittingly allowing the merest hint of the victory he sensed to creep into his voice.

It was enough to stiffen her resolve and she pushed him away. “Yes I did… even if I do love you,” she ignored his triumphant grin, “if I loved you – I wouldn’t marry you now. You have a lot of proving to do, Mr Svenson – proving you care about me and the baby – proving you can act like a responsible adult and parent and that you know the difference between partnership and possession. I am not a thing you can own and neither is my baby – nor are we some kind of trophies to your masculinity that you can brag about! When you have grown up enough to convince me you understand what I’m talking about, then - and only then – I might re-consider my answer….”

“You are in love with me though, aren’t you? You said as much and I know you meant it…”

“Adam,” she sighed, “you can’t just take love for granted… it takes some working at and … why am I even trying to make you understand? You’ve never had to work at it, have you? There have always been women willing to give you what you wanted – if not for yourself, then for your money - so, like everything else you’ve ever wanted, you expect it to just land at your feet. Well, there may have been a time when I would have given you that kind of …blind adoration,” she corrected herself, “when I did give you exactly that – but those days have well and truly gone. Even allowing for your undercover mission, you hurt me too much for me to ever feel I can really trust you…”

He kissed her again. “We’ll have the most fun ever…” he promised.

“Have you heard one word of what I’ve been saying?” she raged.

He nodded. “Sure… whatever you want me to be, I will be. I can be a responsible, grown-up, parent-type person….starting any day now.”

She sighed. “You are hopeless.” She pushed him away and as she turned to leave him she said, “You won’t get your way with ease, Adam, not this time – you’ll have to start with me all over again - and properly, this time! Because I have finally realised what you knew the first time round… that just because someone wants you, it doesn’t mean you have to want them in return…”

“So you will marry me?” He looked slightly confused by this newly self-assured Karen.

“No! I won’t – don’t you ever give up?”

He shook his head and smiled affectionately at her. “No, not when it really matters.”

Captain Scarlet and Cadenza found themselves alone for the first time. On one unspoken accord, they left the reception and wandered along to the Promenade Deck, sitting in companionable silence for some time, gazing out over the flight decks. It was a favourite haunt for both of them.

“We’ll both be going home tomorrow,” he said, as the silence threatened to become deafening. He was surprised at how much the thought saddened him. “I wonder if Sonata will still be waiting for you in the corridor?” he asked with a forced cheerfulness as he tried to lighten the mood.

Cadenza smiled. “Oh yes, she’ll be there. You can’t stop Paula from doing what she decides is the right thing to do. I just hope she hasn’t had to wait too long.”

“Some things never change, I guess.” He gave a broad grin.

“Agreed, and it seems like the basic blueprint of every Metcalfe and every Svenson remains fairly constant – even when there are fundamental differences.”

“It’s funny,” he admitted, “when I first met you, I could only see you as a… a faulty version of the real Adam Svenson. But now, now that I have come to know you, I realise you are a personality in your own right – a separate person entirely.”

“A person you could call your friend, I hope?”

“Why yes, indeed! I hope we are friends, Eva.” He placed his hand over hers. It was silly to be shy with this woman. He felt he had known her for years and besides, she understood better than anyone ever could, the sensation and responsibilities that being indestructible imposed.

“For my part we are, Paul,” Eva replied, squeezing his hand. It seemed that she felt much as he did.

They lapsed back into silence, both conscious of the proximity of the other and the touch of their hands.

“You’ll be happy to see your Dianne again, I think,” she mused, gently disengaging her fingers from his.

“Yes, I’ve missed her…” He turned and saw the smile in her pale eyes.

“She’s a lucky woman,” Eva said. “I hope you will be very happy together – well, it’s more than a hope, really - I am sure you will be very happy.” Then she leant across and kissed his cheek. “Give her that, with my love and,” she kissed him again, “that’s for the other Adam – your real one!”

His hesitation was only momentary before he returned her kiss and hugged her. “You know, I wish you could’ve met Adam – the one from my dimension, I mean - you two would get on like a house on fire!”

“You think so? He might not like me any more than the Adam here does.”

“But he likes you, of course he does,” he protested.

Cadenza smiled and shook her head slightly. “No, he doesn’t. I make him feel uncomfortable; although, maybe it isn’t just me and he’d feel the same way about your Adam too, if they met. It’s an odd sensation to see yourself from the outside. You didn’t spend that long with Paula, but I bet you anything, you’d have got edgy around her too, if she’d come along!” Scarlet considered his own edginess with Lieutenant Scarlet and gave a wry shrug. Perhaps it was always the case that two versions of the same identity would find it hard to co-exist happily for long, he thought.

She sighed. “You know, I grew up listening to my Dad’s perpetual complaint that I wasn’t the son he wanted, but having met one of the potential sons he might have had instead, I’m not sure he would have been that impressed.”

Scarlet grimaced. “This Adam’s not typical – well, not typical of the ones I’ve met anyway. We met one in an alternative dimension, in Boston, who was far more like you and my Adam… if you know what I mean. Besides, even this Adam wasn’t as bad as we all thought he must be…” he added in fairness to the man he had shared so much with over the past few days.

“I’m not that sure I like the idea of all the other Svensons being men that much, so I can guess how they’d be feeling about me!” Eva confessed with a self-deprecating grin.

“Who says they are all men? There must be dozens of dimensions we haven’t explored yet!”

“Well, if you decide to spend a vacation exploring them, drop by and say ‘hello’, won’t you?” she teased, amused by his vehemence.

“I wouldn’t dream of missing you off my visiting list.”

He smiled at her and helped her to her feet. They walked back to her apartment in the VIP quarters.

“Good night, Paul.” She kissed his cheek one more time. “That one is just for you,” she said with a gently mocking smile and a twitch of her expressive eyebrows.

She went into the room, leaving him smiling thoughtfully as the door slid closed. Perhaps she was right about the way Blue felt towards her… he found it more than a little unsettling having a woman who was so like his friend around. The temptation was to treat her much as he treated Adam, but such familiarity might be misconstrued by a woman. Maybe she felt the same about him in relation to Sonata, back in her own dimension?

He glanced at his watch and sniffed. It was late, but not so late that he was sleepy. It was fairly normal that, unless he was retrometabolising or recovering in some way, he needed very little sleep. He had always been that way and it was a trait he shared with Adam, whose ability to function without much sleep bordered on chronic insomnia, according to an incredulous Doctor Fawn. It was one of the reasons they had got to know each other so well in the early days, even before he had been Mysteronised. In order to while away the midnight hours they had often gone to one of the gymnasiums or ploughed up and down the swimming pool together. If such exertion did not appeal, they would visit the Promenade Deck to do some star-gazing or just loaf around, until the urge to sleep overtook them.

So he wasn’t too surprised when his ambling footsteps took him back to the Promenade Deck now. At least, he thought, the stars are the same; I wonder if Dianne is gazing at the self-same stars at this very moment? Oh God, how I have missed you, my sweetest Angel. Nothing will stop me finding my way back to you… “Please God, let me go home!”

He was surprised he had spoken aloud and even more surprised when a familiar red-head appeared, partly hidden by the overhanging foliage.

Rhapsody stood and said, “Captain Scarlet.”

He was discomfited to see her, given that his mind was full of thoughts of her double, besides, he had never spoken to her alone. “I am sorry to disturb you, Rhapsody, I thought I was alone. I will leave you in peace, if you will excuse me?”

She smiled, making his heart thump with the memory of Dianne. The fact that he would soon be back home was making him even more conscious of what he had lost.

“Please, don’t leave on my account, Captain. I have to get ready to start my duty shift very shortly.”

He felt he had to speak to her. “It is none of my business, and you have every right to tell me to drop dead, but, Rhapsody, you are too fine a woman to marry someone you don’t love for money…”

He thought she was going to slap his face but even as her anger mounted she gave a shaky laugh and said, “I will make my peace with Karen… and Adam Although I find it hard to be charitable towards that two-timing, double-crossing, self-centred bastard.” She smiled ruefully. “Still, he was fairly contrite – for him – and he’s offered to arrange re-financing for the mortgage.” She pulled a face.

“Will you take him up on it?”

“Oh yes, otherwise we will lose the Park and I care very passionately about my home. Besides, that way I may not have to marry someone I don’t want to – at least, not for a while.”

Scarlet watched as she turned away, hiding her angry tears. He was experiencing mixed emotions. This was the image of his Dianne, weeping and looking so miserable that he would normally have swept her into his arms until the pain and hurt had evaporated. However, this woman was crying not for a heart broken by a lost love, but for the disappearing prospect of a fortune. To her mind it didn’t matter if the money came in the shape of Adam Svenson or any other man – just as long as it came.

A crushing sadness settled on him and he longed for the reassurance of his own reality. As with almost everyone here, she was a corrupted and tarnished image of the person he loved. Karen came closest to the original woman he knew – and liked – but even she was far more cynical and manipulative than he’d expected. But Rhapsody – his charming, generous, delightful and contented Dianne – seeing her like this was breaking his heart.

He continued to watch as she dabbed at her face with a lacy handkerchief, and raised a hand to tidy her mussed hair. She gave a shaky sigh and squared her shoulders. Seeing his steady, reproving gaze, she flushed and looked away. Scarlet felt the first glimmer of hope – she really wasn’t happy with what her family had expected of her. Perhaps his Dianne was imprisoned beneath this superficial and hedonistic veneer.

“You cannot possibly owe your family so much that you need to sacrifice yourself for them like that. And don’t talk to me of duty – Dianne, I am a general’s son, I come from a family where, for generations, we have lived to serve our country and do our duty. However, I can say with pride that no Metcalfe ever did something his family, or his descendents, would have to apologise for. If the estate is forfeit – let it go, start afresh and move on - be your own woman and make your own life. The Dianne Simms I know would do that.”

“Maybe she doesn’t have a father who gambled and frittered away a fortune?”

“No, but then Lord Robert didn’t have a fortune to fritter away to begin with. Dianne has always worked to keep herself, as does her father. They are comfortable – they don’t live on the breadline - but they have no fortune.”

“Then she’s lucky. I grew up with everything and I have watched it go – sold to keep my father in his luxuries. My home is all I have left, Captain Scarlet. I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it.”

“Then I don’t censure you – I pity you.”

Tears welled up again, but this time they were the hot and painful tears of shame and misery. Those clear, sapphire-blue eyes showed her an image of a different Dianne Simms, a woman who had the heart of this man, in a way she could never imagine having the love of another human being. A woman who knew the comfort and solace of being loved and cared for – whatever her faults – and who could love in return with the same selflessness.

By comparison she felt cheap and mean-spirited.

“I am sure you must have been under considerable pressure, Dianne,” he added stiffly, moved, despite himself, by her obvious misery.

“Yes, but I ought to have known how to deal with it – that’s what I have been trained for, after all.” She gave a wan smile and admitted, “I’ve had a chat with the colonel and I am going to take a sabbatical for six months to sort out the problems at home. Apparently, Lieutenant Scarlet will be doing much the same – compassionate leave – and then we’ll get two months’ intensive training in Camp Sahara and Camp McKinley, Alaska. It should be fun.” She grimaced. “If that doesn’t stiffen my resolve and strengthen my back-bone, nothing ever will.”

“I’m sure it’s not needed really,” he smiled at her. “Most people I have met here have been close to the ones I know and I would imagine you are much the same too. Dianne Simms has more backbone than most and a will of iron under that pretty exterior. I don’t think you’ll have to look far to discover your inner strength, Rhapsody.”

“Thank you, Captain Scarlet.” She hesitated, “I hope you find your way back with a lot less effort than I shall need.” She held out her slim hand to him and he took it, reaching down to kiss her cheek. “Goodbye, Captain and God bless…” She walked away from him, with her head held high and her shoulders back.

God help them all when she does ‘find herself’, he thought, this place won’t know what’s hit it!

An hour or so later, he went to the VIP quarters they had given him, now that Lieutenant Scarlet was back in his own room, and spent a few hours musing over his recent experiences. He wondered if – by some inevitable draw of fate – Rhapsody and his own double might find themselves well-matched, during those training sessions. After all, they both knew now that there was a precedent for their relationship.

Well, I hope they make each other happy – if they do make a go of it - she’d do him good… just as my Dianne is good for me. It will be wonderful to get back to normality. I just hope everything goes okay tomorrow.

He lay down on top of the bed and managed to doze off, smiling in his dreams of his Dianne.

PART SIX - RESTORATION

Chapter One

Symphony arrived, deep in whispered conversation with Lieutenant Garnet, to say her goodbyes before they left Cloudbase. She was rather thankful that Doctor Fawn had refused to allow her to go back to Etna, insisting that she rest rather than face another gruelling climb in the overwhelming humidity of the tunnels. She turned first to Cadenza and reached out to hug the taller woman.

“I hope it goes okay and that you find your way home,” she smiled.

Cadenza thanked her, taking her hand and adding, “What can I say to you? Except he doesn’t deserve you and you make sure he remembers that fact!”

“Believe me, Eva, if I ever do marry Adam, he’ll discover that he is the most married man ever. Things will change – I promise you that.” There was a look in her eye that spoke volumes to Cadenza.

“Look after that baby, I just hope you realise what you are letting yourself in for! It’s a Svenson, after all, so it’s bound to be a handful. That, at least doesn’t change,” she warned mischievously.

Karen laughed. “If it’s a girl I’ll name her after you…”

“Don’t you dare lumber the poor thing with such an awful name!” Eva laughed and hugged the young woman once more. “Take care of yourself, Karen.”

Symphony turned to Scarlet and kissed him. “Goodbye, Paul. Say ‘hello’ to the Adam in your world for me.” She smiled and hugged him. “I wish you every joy with your Dianne.”

He hugged her in return, kissing her cheek. “You know, I will miss you, Karen. Of everyone here, you come the closest to the woman I know and like at home. I wish you every happiness.” His tone revealed that he doubted she would achieve so much.

She smiled. “Oh, I’ll be all right. After all, I have the one thing money cannot buy him and he will have to learn to pay my price before he gets his own way, this time.”

Scarlet’s eyebrows rose. “Do you think he will ever learn? He’s always seemed such an unregenerate chauvinist to me. There are occasional flashes of potential, mind you...” he added in fairness.

“There is potential and, trust me, I will develop it. I have every incentive to do so.” She rested her hand on her stomach and smiled.

“What will you name it if it’s a boy?” he teased, raising one eyebrow at her. He had over-heard her conversation with Cadenza.

“Stefan,” she replied, her straight face dissolving into a grin as he pouted.

“Huh, that’s not fair…” Scarlet grinned – wondering if she was aware that he knew it was the name of Adam’s beloved Grandfather. It looked as if negotiations had already started between the couple.

Symphony watched them all embark and waved from the control room as the hangar depressurised and the SPJ rose to the runways. His last sight of her was as she blew them all a kiss.

Captain Blue flew the SPJ down to Etna for the last time. The group consisted of a rather subdued Lieutenant Garnet and Captain Ochre, Cadenza and Captain Scarlet. Both Scarlet and Garnet were in diving suits and carried breathing gear for their return through the water.

They disembarked. There was plenty of activity on the site, as local agents cleared away the debris from Captain Black’s attack and erected a new, smaller portacabin HQ. With the pacifier dismantled there was no apparent reason to have a permanent base on the volcano, but Colonel White and the World President had agreed that some guard should be maintained – to limit access to the tunnels and the portals beneath them. They were still considering what use, if any, to make of these phenomena. Before they left Cloudbase, Captain Scarlet and Cadenza had been briefed with several messages to deliver to their commanders, concerning mutual defence against any future Mysteron activity that might make use of the portals. Scarlet was sceptical that his colonel would believe him though. After all, as far as he knew, apart from Lieutenant Scarlet’s brief visit to Stingray, no-one had visited his dimension. Still, he shared the concerns of the two men. Cadenza promised she would do her best to alert Colonel Black to the dangers – although how she was going to tell him that, in every other universe, he was a hunted and dangerous Mysteron agent, was something she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Even in the short time they were on the surface there were several short, sharp tremors, and the volcano was throwing ash and smoke far into the sky above their heads. A continuous shower of fine dust rained down on them, along with the occasional lump of pumice. The sergeant in command handed Captain Blue a sheaf of papers showing the frequency and strength of the quakes.

Cadenza read them over his shoulder. “Looks promising,” she commented. “This must be the build-up to the big tremor that should flip the dimensions back to Captain Scarlet’s World.”

Blue nodded. “We must make sure we get there before it is due, the time scale isn’t that precise so we may end up with quite a wait, but we daren’t miss the rendezvous with Dull Blue.”

She nudged him. “Don’t call him that,” she protested jovially. “Or I shall have to start calling you Libidinous Blue…”

He laughed, “I can think of worse names…”

“So,” she said significantly, “can I.”

“Oh … point taken.”

“Well,” Ochre interrupted them, “do we have the green light? Is it all on track?”

“Yes, Rick, I would say it is,” Cadenza smiled. She stretched and gazed up at the dusty sky. “Time to go home,” she murmured.

Armed with ropes and torches and a variety of other useful items, the five of them began the arduous descent into the labyrinth of tunnels. There were new falls of rocks and they passed several new and unexplored crevices and tunnels. At each slight tremor, Blue noted the time on the sheaf of papers and urged the others on.

Finally, they came to the fissure that led back to Cadenza’s world, and an uneasy silence fell.

She started to remove the equipment she was carrying, smiling as she checked that she had the twisted metal she’d saved from the pacifier – ostensibly for Sonata.

“Well, I guess it is goodbye,” she said with a sad smile as she finished.

“I’ll come through with you, check it’s okay...” Scarlet offered, preparing to dump his equipment too.

“No, it’s all right, Paul, and besides, Adam’s worried that you won’t get to the rendezvous in time.”

“You cannot go through alone! What if it’s shifted?”

“Tell you what, wait a few minutes, and if I don’t come back, you’ll know I’m okay,” she reasoned.

“I’ll do no such thing… anything might’ve happened to you!”

She smiled at him and took his face in her hands. “You are a sweetie and I’ll be fine. Go and get back to your Dianne – don’t worry about me.”

“Eva…” he protested.

She shook her head and turned to the others.

Ochre was the first to extend his hand. “Goodbye Cadenza… Eva. Hope it all works out for you.”

She leant across and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Richard. I wish the same for you.” She gave a significant glance at Garnet and smiled sweetly. “Just remember, we’re none of us as unique as we once thought and we’re all lucky enough to have good friends willing to help us cope – with whatever fate throws at us, whenever we need it.”

Garnet saluted and then shook the hand held out to her. Eva smiled at her and hugged her. “Take care, Claudia. I am sure you will go far in Spectrum – although maybe not as far as some expect,” she added in a whisper to the young woman. Garnet blushed.

She turned to Blue and spread her arms. “Come on, one kiss won’t hurt you,” she teased and wrapped him in an embrace. He smiled and returned her kiss, hardly needing to bend his head to meet her lips. “Goodbye, Adam, I wish you all the best for the future. Try and stay out of trouble and look after your family.”

“I sure will. You take care too and… I hope it all works out.” She was more than a little disconcerted by his knowing smile, but there was no time to question him now.

Finally, she turned back to Scarlet. He reached for her hands and smiled into her smoky-blue eyes, pulling her gently forward to kiss her cheek. “Give my love to the ‘real’ Adam,’’ she teased. “Maybe you were right and we would have been friends, I’d like to think so anyway.”

“I will miss you,” he said simply.

“And I will miss you, but neither of us will have to look far … Sonata will still be around whenever I need a friend and I figure Adam will be there when you need him.”

“That’s the way of it,” he agreed. She kissed his cheek and turned to wave at the others before slipping into the fissure and disappearing.

Cadenza stepped out into the corridor and smiled. Sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite was Sonata, with a cushion at her back, a blanket over her shoulders, a magazine in her lap and a pile of sweet wrappers, apple cores and a flask of coffee by her side.

She looked up and grinned “Oh, you’re back… that wasn’t so long. If we hurry we can be in time for the last waltz…”

“Don’t you want to know what happened?”

“Of course I do, and when we’ve got the time to spare you can tell me all about it. Right now, I want to make sure no-one gets that last dance with Jules but me….especially not that tarty little piece from Navigation.”

“Oh sure, got to get your priorities right,” Eva smiled and extended her hand to help her friend up.

They collected Sonata’s things and walked together towards their quarters.

“So,” the dark-haired woman asked as they pushed through the swing doors, “was it fun?”

Cadenza gave a wry shrug. “I wouldn’t call it fun, exactly, but it was certainly an eye opener. Look, Paula, you go to the dance…I really need to speak to the colonel.

“What about Kevin? He’s been frantic about your disappearance…”

“Yes, I imagine he would have been. Tell him… tell him, I’ll see him later – but right now, duty calls.”

Sonata gave her friend a perceptive glance and nodded. “All right, but … well, just watch yourself, okay?”

Cadenza grinned and patted her friend’s shoulder. “The colonel sent me on this mission, Paula; he can hardly crucify me for obeying his orders.”

“That isn’t what I meant…” Sonata muttered as she watched her friend stride away.

Colonel Black looked up from his circular desk and barely acknowledged Cadenza’s presence. She saluted and accepted his invitation to sit on one of the stools that rose from the floor at a touch of a switch. The Perspex surround came down, creating a sound-proof environment. She glanced at the communications desk beyond the raised dais. A young woman in a pale cream tunic was busily entering data. She raised an interrogative eyebrow.

“The new communications lieutenant, she arrived yesterday. Lieutenant Flaxen. Given a decade or two, she might make the grade,” Black said with the driest of smiles.

“Yes, I rather imagine she might,” Cadenza said, placing the shard of the pacifier on the desk between them. “Well, Colonel… it’s like this….”

Black listened intently, not asking any questions until she concluded her report. Then he picked up the metal and examined it. “We must investigate this thoroughly, and it won’t do any harm to introduce security procedures to protect the World Government’s financial interests,” he said briskly.

Cadenza nodded. “Will you investigate if there are any such tunnels under Mount Etna here, sir?”

He glanced at her. “I sent Blue and Grey down there once you had… gone AWOL. They were unable to make any definitive search… the volcano is erupting and a huge flow of lava is currently coating the mountainside. I should imagine that any internal ‘tunnels’ will be plugged.”

“Undue gravitational force from the astral alignment?” she asked quietly.

He shrugged. “The boffins are debating it. I expect they’ll find an answer that suits themselves, eventually.” He put the shard of metal down and looked straight into her eyes. “We, on the other hand, know better…”

She could feel a flush creeping up her face, and said rather breathlessly, “If that is all, Colonel, I’d like to get some rest…”

“Eva… this Captain Black – this other me… he is hated and feared in all these other dimensions?” he asked quietly, as she stood.

“Yes, he is. Because of what happened on Mars.”

Black swallowed and gazed into her pale blue eyes. “Then, for the first time, I am glad I did not go on that mission, for that would have irrevocably placed you and me on opposite sides in this war.”

“Yes, it would have,” she agreed quietly.

“You risked your life to save him, because you thought he was me…?”

“I made a mistake – I should have got the full information and not jumped to conclusions,” she admitted, chastened by what she saw as a rebuke.

“Thank you,” he said. She looked at him in confusion. “I am sure I don’t deserve such loyalty, in the light of my … neglect of you.”

“Conrad, don’t… please. I can cope if you just leave me alone.”

“Do you love Kevin Wainwright?” The stark question was a complete surprise.

“I don’t know… possibly.”

“Do you still have … any feelings for me, Eva?”

“No, Conrad, you ordered me to forget the past, remember?”

“And if I tell you that I cannot follow my own orders? That your absence – and the possibility that you might never be able to return - brought it home to me – without you here, Cloudbase is just another posting on another base. I am glad you are back…my dear.”

“Con, this isn’t fair… “

He reached out and took her unresisting hand. Gently he raised it to his lips and kissed it. “In your own time, Eva, and whatever you decide…”

Lieutenant Flaxen swivelled her chair around and tried to remember which switch was the connection to Spectrum’s Berlin office. She swivelled it round again in surprise as she saw the colonel gently take Cadenza Angel in his arms and kiss her. The Angel pilot’s arms rose to encircle his neck.

“Flaming Nora….” she muttered and whooshed down to the other end of the console. Life in Spectrum’s control room had just got a whole lot more interesting….

~oo0oo~

The atmosphere in the tunnels was tense for some time after Cadenza vanished into the crevice.

“We should have gone with her,” Scarlet repined, “made sure she got back okay.”

“If she hadn’t, she would have come back,” Blue reassured him. “Besides, the local agents have been monitoring the tremors carefully – it should have been a straightforward walk for her.”

“Should have been, oh yes, should have been… like when we ended up in Boston.”

“Paul, you don’t have time to follow Eva. The time-frame for the next big quake starts in less than one hour… you have to be there. God knows what might happen if you miss your Blue this time. Since the pacifier was closed down, the tremors have been far stronger even though they have been – more or less - as predicted.”

“That shouldn’t affect the portals,” Scarlet frowned, “should it?”

Blue shrugged. “I don’t know, but I feel sure it is your best chance to get out of here. And – don’t forget, Ochre and I would like to get out of here before the next big tremor closes the tunnels or drops a roof on top of us.”

Scarlet gave an apologetic grimace. “You are right; I just can’t help worrying about her.”

“Look, Eva’s tough enough to look after herself – wherever she ends up – but I bet she’s bopping away at the Officers’ Dance as we speak.”

“She thought you didn’t like her much,” he confided as he followed Blue across the cavern towards the next exit.

“To be honest… she reminded me of my mother and that was unsettling, in more ways than one.” He sighed. “It might go some way towards explaining why my Dad couldn’t stand the sight of me after she died, though. I never thought I was much like her, until I saw Eva.”

“Did you show her the portrait Svenson gave you?”

“Yes, she said it was her mother, and it was done for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.” Blue smiled shakily. “Sarah’s presence obviously made a big difference to the man I became… and the woman too,” he added.

“But now you have Karen – don’t you?”

“Oh, she’ll come around. I’m sure she will. She knows how much I need her…and she’s not the kind of person to refuse to help someone in genuine despair.” He flushed slightly. “You see, I…I am in love with her, I have been ever since we first met. The hardest part of the whole mission was having to hurt Karen.”

“I know, it is never easy hurting the one you love,” Scarlet sympathised. “With you two it’s the old irresistible force meeting the immovable object – something’s gotta give. Take my advice, Adam, and let that something be you.”

Blue smiled at him. “I have no intention of losing her, Paul, but I know her well enough to understand that I’ll have to take my punishment before I get forgiven. I reckon I’m man enough to grin and bear it. There is too much at stake for me to louse this up…”

They passed a narrow, crevice and a gust of surprisingly cold wind blew across their path. Scarlet hesitated.

“Wasn’t that was the Boston portal?”

Blue nodded. He saw the expression on Scarlet’s face and replied, “We don’t have the time…”

“I just hope he’s okay…”

~oo0oo~

The house was in total darkness and the fitful light from the sliver of a new moon was barely enough to cast a shadow. A tall, dark-haired man rose from where he had been crouching by a freshly dug grave and surveyed the simple wooden cross he had just erected.

He bowed his head in a mark of respect and then wiped the dirt from his hands as he turned to where a slender, blonde woman was waiting, leaning for support against a damaged trellis. Two battered shovels lay at her feet.

“I don’t really know what to say… I’ve always avoided funerals…” he confessed. “But I feel sure he would have liked someone to say something.”

“It was enough for him that we both survived, Paul.” Karen Wainwright stood upright and moved towards him. She looked at the anguish on his handsome face, realising how much he needed the comfort of knowing he had performed the rituals as his best friend would have wanted. If it helped him to come to terms with the situation, she was content to let him do as he wished.

For herself, beneath the numbness of unbearable loss, her over-riding emotion was relief. It had taken all of her courage to hold that once strong and athletic body, now wasted and worn out by the mental and physical torment he had endured, without showing him her grief. It had broken her heart to see Adam like that. Through the long hours of darkness when they had lain together in the makeshift bed and she had felt the tears seeping from his sightless eyes onto his gaunt cheeks, she had experienced waves of pity that almost threatened to drown her love for him. Now Adam’s ordeal was over and in the final days of his life, he had had the happiness of knowing that his closest friends had both survived. Paul had sworn to his dying friend that he would look after her and, reassured, Adam had drifted peacefully into his final sleep.

When Metcalfe reached for her, she willingly clasped his strong hand and allowed him to draw her to the graveside.

He cleared his throat and said:

“I don’t even know where to start, I don’t have a prayer book and I can’t remember the proper words to say. All I can say is - I will miss you, Adam - and you should know that whilst there is any strength in me, I won’t stop fighting. There is one quote I can remember and I can’t think of anyone it would apply to more than you: ‘a faithful friend is a sturdy shelter: He that hath found one hath found a treasure. There is nothing so precious … and no scales can measure his excellence.’ Rest in peace, my friend.”

Karen’s tears started to flow once more and she buried her face against his rough sleeve. Desperate to calm her, he explained, “I read it in my family’s old bible; it kind of stuck with me. I hope it was a suitable thing to say…I certainly meant every word.” She nodded, still speechless. He continued, although he wasn’t sure if he was talking to Karen or to his late partner. “If only I had got here sooner. When Cloudbase crashed, it took a long time for me to recover. Whatever that weapon was that the Mysterons used against my plane, it was very nearly the end of me. After I managed to reach a village, I began to hear rumours that another Spectrum officer had survived. But by the time I found the people who had nursed him and realised that it was Blue – he had started his journey. I was always several days behind him and there were so many calls for help from the devastated communities I encountered, I never made up those few vital days. I would to God that I had. ”

“You did what you had to – what you thought was best, Paul. Adam knew that. You guessed he would come here, much as I did.” She smiled.

“It seemed the only obvious place,” he agreed with a wry smile in return. “And at least I got here in time to speak to him.”

She nodded, remembering the hope that had shone in Adam’s face as he heard that familiar clipped accent. Her eyes filled with tears once more and she bit her lower lip.

“Yet, given the choice, I’d say he was better pleased that you survived and made your way back to him, Karen,” Metcalfe said gently, sensing the depth of her misery. It was still less than twenty-four hours since Adam had died, cradled in her arms, his good hand grasping his friend’s.

“Not at the first he wasn’t. He took some convincing that I wasn’t a reconstruct. He couldn’t really see me - he was already virtually blind by the time I arrived - and it was days before he would relax in my company.”

She obviously needed to talk, and Metcalfe wrapped an arm around her. “Then, on the third night I was here with him - when he had obviously decided that if I was a reconstruct I would have attacked him before this - he reached out to me, held my hand and told me such a strange story, about visitors he believed he’d had from a different dimension. A dimension where the Mysterons had not triumphed over Spectrum and where another Adam and another Paul were still fighting, still believing they could win. He asked me if I was another one – another visitor - I told him I was the same Karen he’d always known. I told him - I was his girl, as I have always been - that I survived the plane crash and when I heard Cloudbase had been destroyed, I made my way to Boston knowing that, if he had survived, he would come here when all else failed him.”

She blinked back another surge of tears and continued, “He touched my face and my hair, as if he wanted to match their contours to the memories he carried. He never said anything and I still wondered if he thought I was a Mysteron. But by the end, I believe he knew I was telling the truth – I have to believe that when I lay in his arms – when he made love to me - he knew I was truly his Karen; for my own sanity, Paul – I have to believe he knew that.”

Her tears started to flow again and Metcalfe tightened his embrace, stroking her hair absently. “Adam knew,” he reassured her. “There is no way he could ever have mistaken you – even for your own doppelganger...”

When her tears subsided he continued, “Now I guess we have to decide what we’re going to do next. We can’t stay here, however much we want to. I have heard that there are pockets of resistance in the far south. I plan to make my way there and see what can be salvaged. It is just possible that, having torn the Earth apart, the Mysterons will leave now and what few of us remain can try to build a kind of life for ourselves in the debris. Will you come with me, Karen?”

Karen Wainwright looked at the newly dug grave and the two more established mounds alongside. She gave a brief nod of her head. “Yes, Paul, I’ll come. There is nothing else I can do for him – except to keep fighting as he did.”

She knelt beside the grave and laid her hands on the wet earth for a long moment. “Goodbye, my love. Wherever I am, my heart will be here with you and to the last breath of my soul I will love you. Wait for me…” she whispered as her tears fell unheeded to the ground. “I won’t be long.”

Captain Scarlet swallowed compulsively as a lump formed in his throat. He now had no hope that one day he might be able to lay down the burden of a life that was becoming intolerable. He had survived the very worst the Mysterons could throw against Spectrum and seen everything he cared about destroyed. Outside of the all too fragile life of this grief-wracked woman, he had no-one. The one woman he had truly loved had been blown from the skies, before he ever took to the air to investigate the numerous ‘flying saucers’ that had brought the Mysterons to the Earth. Half of him hoped that Adam had been right, that somewhere beyond the destruction of this world, he fought on alongside the finest friends and comrades a man could have. He looked down at the wooden cross and whispered,

“So long, partner. See you around, mate…”

~oo0oo~

It took them longer to reach the entrance to the waterside cavern than Scarlet had remembered it taking before. He noticed that Lieutenant Garnet and Captain Ochre were in no hurry to reach their destination. They had been very quiet together ever since they left Cloudbase.

Part of him understood their feelings and sympathised. He knew it would be hard for Ochre to lose his darling a second time, yet he could see no alternative. The thought that Garnet might be allowed to stay was preposterous, even though he knew almost everyone had given it some thought. Besides, however much she thought she loved the man - Claudia barely knew Captain Ochre and could have no concept of what it would mean to her life if she remained here. She’d be better off at home, with her friends and family. and there was always an outside chance she might meet the real Captain Ochre and things might develop from that. He couldn’t risk skewing the time lines.

He was so busy with his own thoughts he bumped into Captain Blue, who had stopped and was looking back to where Ochre and Garnet were dawdling across the cave.

“Sorry,” Scarlet muttered.

But Blue wasn’t concerned. He said, “You know, I’m having serious doubts about those two.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t think she wants to go back with you.” One glance at Scarlet’s face told him more than enough. “Neither do you, it seems,” he added.

“Look, I can sympathise; it’s tough on Ochre and obviously Garnet feels flattered by his attention and all, but she can’t stay here. Think of the consequences…”

“One happy Ochre…one happy Garnet…” Blue made to count on his fingers.

“One bone of contention with Lieutenant Scarlet,” the Englishman reminded him. “And one rocket for me, from my colonel, if I leave her here.”

“Who’s to know you ever found her?” Blue mused.

“She met Adam, don’t forget.”

“And he’s so heartless he’d insist on making her leave?”

“He may have reported finding her to Cloudbase. Colonel White was worried about her.”

“Look, in your World she’s deemed to be as good as dead anyway,” Blue reasoned. “She doesn’t expect to be greatly mourned either, from what she was saying over dinner yesterday. I am sure you could convince Adam not to say he’d seen her – or if he already has - to say she didn’t make it back. My guess is he’s just as soppy as the rest of us, if you ask him nicely.”

“Get thee behind me, Satan,” Scarlet muttered. “I daren’t risk it, Adam.”

Blue shrugged. “No, I guess you are right, but it seems a shame, especially when you know they both want her to stay….” He jerked his head towards the approaching couple. Then he turned to start his trudge towards the portal again.

“Contrary to what you seem to expect – we can’t always have everything we’d like. Life isn’t like that,” Scarlet panted as he strode after him.

“Very profound of you, Captain,” Blue grimaced. He walked on for some minutes and then stopped suddenly. “I think we’re here…”

When Ochre and Garnet joined them, they all peered down into the hazy gloom of the water cave.

Garnet sighed, “It is the right place, there’s the rock fall where I found… the bodies.” She shook her dark head and rubbed her eyes. “It is so hard to believe what’s happened over the past days. I felt so sorry for her and Lieutenant Scarlet, and then he came back – saved by Captain Blue – but Claudia didn’t. Somehow I can’t help feeling I owe her a life – here in this dimension, I mean, since she was deprived of her second chance by Captain Magenta’s assassin.”

“Whatever happened to Lieutenant Garnet in this world is not your fault,” Scarlet insisted. “Claudia, you have to understand that Lieutenant Scarlet’s survival may well have been a fluke anyway – Adam’s presence in the cave at the time must’ve altered the timeline – and we don’t know if that was for good or bad. We have to leave here, every moment we stay we risk contaminating their future…”

“And what if, by leaving, we are doing just that?” she wailed.

“What about your family and friends? Surely you don’t want to leave them?”

“I have no family – I was an only child and my parents died in a car crash when I was fifteen and I stayed with my father’s cousin until I was old enough to leave for college. It may sound strange, Paul, but I feel more at home here!” She reached out to grab hold of Captain Ochre’s hand. “I want to stay here – with Richard!” It was the first time she had openly spoken of her growing dream to remain behind.

“Lieutenant Garnet,” Scarlet snapped, “pull yourself together – and that is an order!”

“S.I.G., Captain Scarlet,” she sniffed, but she held on to Ochre’s hand, nevertheless.

“Don’t bully her, Scarlet,” Ochre said belligerently.

“I’m not! Look, we have to go home – I thought we were agreed on that?”

There was no response from the other three. Even Captain Blue said nothing in support of the argument, despite Scarlet’s unspoken plea to him. Scarlet looked away from the couple. Somehow Claudia had always seemed more at home in this dimension than he ever could hope to be.

“Claudia, if you don’t come now you may never have another chance to get back – if all this … doesn’t work out for you.”

Sensing that there might be a chance she could convince him, however slight, Claudia looked at him with renewed hope.

“There is nothing here that could harm her,” Ochre said gruffly. “I will see to that, you have my word on it, Scarlet.”

“It might do irreparable damage to the fabric of space-time…” he said, failing to convince even himself by his tone and making Blue snort with derision.

Scarlet sighed. “Do as you like, I wash my hands of it,” he said with gritted teeth.

“You really mean that, Captain?” Garnet asked, her expression one of uncertain hope.

“I’m out-numbered, aren’t I? And you obviously all think I’m making a mountain out of a molehill over this. I don’t know what’s right, Claudia – any more than I know that Cadenza got back safely – I’ll just have to take it on trust. If you want to stay, and … the others …want you to as well, who the hell am I to say that they are wrong?”

She came to his side and threw her arms around him, kissing his cheek. “You are the nicest man…” she gushed.

“Yeah, so I keep being told,” he said with some ambivalence. He wondered just how unpopular Lieutenant Scarlet had made himself in this dimension. He was further surprised when Ochre grasped his hand and shook it fervently.

Even Captain Blue was grinning. “Aah, gee,” he drawled, “I love a happy ending…”

Scarlet sniggered. “Shut up, you,” he threatened genially.

Chapter Two

Ochre prepared the rope for Scarlet to shin down and dropped it down into the cavern below them. They could hear the waves pounding on the shoreline and another slight tremor shook the floor. Behind them, rocks crashed down from the walls and the echo bounced around the enclosed space.

Blue glanced at his watch. “They’re getting more frequent. I suspect the big quake will come sooner rather than later, you may not have long to wait, Paul.”

Scarlet nodded and moved to say his farewells.

Once more, Ochre shook Scarlet by the hand. “Goodbye, Paul. It’s been… interesting.”

“Say that again,” Scarlet grinned. “It’s been a revelation. Somehow, knowing I am not the only one the Mysterons… altered, makes it all seem less extreme.”

Ochre nodded thoughtfully. “And maybe what Blue said is true – we don’t react to each other because we are not ‘proper’ Mysterons, after all.”

“Yes, he occasionally gets a few good insights…” Scarlet lowered his voice. “I hope you will try to give him the benefit of the doubt in the future.”

“He’s an annoying s-o-b,” Ochre growled, “but he’s not as bad as all that.”

Scarlet grinned. “At least he can sing….” Ochre’s eyebrows rose in surprised enquiry. “Get Blue to tell you all about it,” he suggested.

He turned to Garnet. She smiled sheepishly at him and then threw her arms around him. He hugged her. “You are sure about this?” he asked her.

“As sure as I have ever been of anything in my life, Paul,” she reassured him. “I told you in sickbay that I felt comfortable with these people, didn’t I? I am sure I can make a good life for myself and Richard here. Don’t worry about me, Paul. I will never forget you…”

“I hope you’ll be happy here, Claudia. You’ll have to deal with Lieutenant Scarlet,” he reminded her.

“I am not the Claudia he loved,” she reasoned. “Just as you are not the same man he is… he’s the one who will have to deal with it.”

He acknowledged the truth in that with a wry grimace. “Good luck, Claudia.” He kissed her, and after a final hug, turned to Captain Blue, who was watching him with a broad grin on his face. He extended a hand towards him. “So long, partner,” he drawled.

Blue grinned and slapped his shoulder. “Yeah, so long, Paul. See you around, mate.”

Scarlet laughed at his execrable attempt at an English accent. “There is so much I could say, but I guess good luck sums it up pretty concisely.”

“You too,” Blue responded with an understanding smile.

The trio watched as he shinned over the edge and down into the cave below. Blue knelt down and peered over the edge.

“You okay, Paul?”

“I’m fine. I guess I just have to wait until Adam gets here.” He reached up to catch the canteen of drinking water Ochre was lowering to him. Then they lowered his air tanks and diving gear.

“You won’t have to wait alone. We’ll be here. If it doesn’t work… if the rescue party doesn’t arrive, we’ll get you back up and try again tomorrow,” Ochre shouted down.

“I don’t think it’s quite that simple,” Scarlet called back. He wandered over to a convenient low rock and made himself as comfortable as he could. He glanced back at the aperture to see that Blue was sitting on the edge, his legs dangling into the void.

“Careful, Adam, if there is another tremor you might fall,” he called.

Blue waved a hand in acknowledgement of the warning, but he didn’t move.

“I should have brought a book with me,” Scarlet remarked casually. He drew the bar of chocolate out of his pocket and broke off a section to chew. He was more nervous about this than he cared to admit – even to himself.

Blue’s voice echoed down from the roof, “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with R…”

Scarlet laughed. “Rocks,” he replied, adding, “You don’t have to wait with me, Adam.”

“I’ve nowhere else I need to be right now. It’s your turn.”

They went through ‘water’, ‘boulders’, ‘sand’ and ‘more rocks’ – which caused some dispute. Blue maintained, with his annoying air of superior logic, that, as the rocks in question were different from the first ones he had ‘spied’, he was entitled to use them, although he conceded, in the face of Scarlet’s amused indignation, perhaps he should have used D R – different rocks – instead. Such inane and good-humoured arguments were so familiar, that Scarlet began to forget his anxiety about meeting up with ‘real’ Adam, and relaxed back into the trivial game with a new found serenity.

Suddenly, he leapt to his feet.

“Watch it, Adam, the ground – it’s moving!”

Blue scrambled back from the edge, Ochre hauling him to safety as the whole volcano seemed to twist and shift. Around the cave, the shingle poured towards the water’s edge and the larger boulders sank down into the heaving ground. Scarlet struggled to keep his footing and to save himself from being swept into the water, which had begun to bubble and swirl in its rock cauldron.

He heard Blue’s voice shouting his name, and yelled back an inarticulate cry, to prove he was still alive. Then, as suddenly as the quake had started. it stopped, and the crashing of the rocks quietened. He raised himself from where he had been lying face down on the shingle and got unsteadily to his feet. He looked up at the aperture, but there was no sign of anyone there. The rope that Ochre had left hanging was gone and he was alone.

Well, I can only hope Adam was ready and that he’ll be here soon, he thought glumly. It had not occurred to him that he would lose contact with his party before his rescue arrived.

Scarlet had another piece of chocolate and sat down to wait. The water was still churning but it wasn’t long before a blond head broke the surface. Adam Svenson emerged from the sea, stumbling up the shingle. He removed the regulator from his mouth. “Hello, Paul, I hope you haven’t been waiting long? I wasn’t sure you would have got the message.”

“Yeah, I got the message. Good to see you, Adam.” Scarlet emulated his friend’s casual tone, but he could sense his partner’s underlying relief at their reunion.

“Captain Tempest is behind me with extra air tanks and Phones is waiting beyond the cliffs with the sea-bugs to ferry you back to Stingray. We couldn’t be sure one of you wouldn’t have been injured. It wouldn’t be so long-winded, if I hadn’t crashed one of the sea-bugs yesterday.”

“I have the necessary diving equipment, but it sounds like you have thought of everything, as usual.”

“I try,” Adam said, with a modest roll of his eyes. Scarlet laughed.

Captain Blue looked around the cavern, a frown appearing between his eyes. “Where’s Lieutenant Garnet? I felt sure you would have met up with her – I met her, with a Karen from the same dimension you were in. Isn’t she here?”

“No, she… didn’t make the trip back,” Scarlet said.

“What happened to her?” Blue asked in concern. “She said she was fine, but that she wanted to come back with you… Karen mentioned some subversives who were causing trouble in Spectrum – did one of them harm her?” he asked angrily. He was momentarily distracted when Captain Tempest broke the water and made the climb out to the beach.

“It’s a long story,” Scarlet said, “but I promise I will tell you all of it – back on the real Cloudbase…”

Adam flashed a brief glance at him and, noticing the caution on his friend’s face, said brightly enough, “Now, it seems like have I heard that phrase before...” He introduced Tempest to Scarlet and the two men weighed each other up momentarily.

“Before we go, Adam, tell me, what’s happened to the pacifier?” Scarlet said, as Blue helped him to strap on the air tanks.

“Nothing. We’ve been picking up such pieces as we can find – but I doubt if we’ll ever be able to get it to work again. Gaspari and Dincerler have disappeared; I guess we can assume they were Mysterons.”

“And the one at Vesuvius?”

“Very badly damaged. The boat house caught fire.”

“As soon as we get to where we can radio Cloudbase, we must have the colonel order its immediate destruction. It has to be smashed beyond repair.”

Blue pursed his lips. “Why? What do you know that I don’t?”

Scarlet told him of the Mysterons’ plan to travel the dimensions, using the machines to annihilate all life on every world.

Standing beside them, Captain Tempest caught his breath. “I never realised these Mysterons posed such a threat, Captain Scarlet. We only hear about the things Spectrum manages to foil and they always seem isolated and unconnected attacks.”

“The Mysterons are a far greater threat than the public realises, Captain,” Scarlet agreed. “I trust you will not discuss anything you hear beyond this cave?”

Tempest nodded. “Every organisation has secrets that are not widely known, Captain Scarlet, even the WASPs has its share.”

Blue laughed. “Oh yeah, I bet you’ve found Atlantis and have a whole undersea civilisation tucked up your sleeve, Troy!”

“Why stop at one?” Tempest managed to joke in return. The Spectrum officers laughed. “Is there no way we can stop the Mysterons – and anyone else - from using these ‘portals’?” he asked as the laughter died down.

“I have some suggestions from the World President and the Commander of Spectrum from the dimension I was in,” Scarlet shrugged. “It isn’t exactly going to be easy communicating with the others though.”

“We should get out of here,” Blue said with a glance at his watch. “The aftershocks will start soon, if they follow the usual pattern. We might get ourselves lost if we’re not careful.”

They moved to the water and Tempest led the way in. Blue smiled reassuringly at Scarlet as the Englishman adjusted the regulator in his mouth.

“Sure is good to have you back, Paul. It won’t be long now before we’re on Cloudbase. I know one Angel who’ll be overjoyed to see you again.”

Scarlet removed his regulator and said, “How is Symphony? I’ve missed her.” He grinned, diving away from the sweep of Blue’s arm as the American laughed.

Seconds later he heard the splash as Blue followed him into the black depths.

~oo0oo~

Atlanta Shore watched Symphony as she prowled the deck of Stingray once more. It seemed the Angel pilot wasn’t going to stop worrying about the men every time they left the sub. Atlanta adjusted her reading glasses and turned the page of her magazine. I have far more confidence in Troy than Symphony has in her young man – that is obvious, she thought complacently.

Symphony glanced at her companion as she caught the sound of the page turning. How can she sit there so smugly? she raged. Doesn’t she have the imagination to visualise what they might all be suffering out there? That quake was the biggest yet… I can’t see the sea-bugs anymore. Oh, hurry up, Adam, or I shall go distracted here!

She reached for the binoculars and trained them on the distant cliffs.

Suddenly the sub began to rock violently. Atlanta jumped to her feet, her magazine discarded in the turmoil. She made her way to join Symphony, who was staring with hopeless fear out into the sea. Around them, the currents tore seaweed from its moorings and tossed huge boulders around, and even Stingray’s powerful stabilisers were not enough to hold the sub steady.

“Any sign of them?” Atlanta asked.

Symphony shook her head. With a supreme sacrifice, she handed Atlanta the binoculars and continued to peer out into the rapidly worsening gloom. The seabed was being raked by the tremor and the water was turning to a fine mud.

“Look!” Atlanta squealed, handing the binoculars back. “Over by those cliffs, I can see a sea-bug. It’s Troy, it must be!”

Symphony squinted through the glasses, “No… looks more like Phones to me,” she said. Atlanta gasped in dismay and reached for the glasses again.

It was Lieutenant Sheridan, wrestling with his sea-bug in the choppy water. Symphony caught the distorted sound of his voice over the radio and went to adjust the setting.

“Say again, Phones,” she shouted. “Say again!”

The words were disjointed, but between them they could piece together the message,

“The entrance to the cave has been blocked by a huge rock fall. Troy and the Spectrum captains are trapped in there! I am on my way back… we must try to clear a way!”

Atlanta watched Phones approach, and grabbed Symphony as the lieutenant was caught by a tide of water and swept further away from the submarine and back towards the rocks.

“It’s a whirlpool!” Symphony watched as the water began to swirl around; dragging Phones and anything else not anchored firmly back towards the rocks. She turned to the control panel and stabbed a few buttons.

“What are you doing?” Atlanta cried in alarm.

“Can you drive this boat?”

“I know how to,” Atlanta confirmed.

“Then fire two rockets at the cliff face, break up the rocks, and with luck it’ll also stop the water’s spinning momentum.”

“There are people out there!”

“Who will be killed if we don’t do something to help!”

Atlanta shook her head. “We might kill them.”

“If we don’t, that whirlpool will. Turn the boat about through 45 degrees and that’s an order, Lieutenant Shore.”

Under protest, Atlanta adjusted Stingray so the missile tubes faced towards the rocks. And whilst she was doing that, Symphony studied the armaments firing system; it was nowhere near as sophisticated as that of the Interceptor jets – but she could see how it worked.

As Stingray came to rest, she set the target co-ordinates and with a silent prayer, pulled the launch lever. Two sting missiles snaked from the submarine and crashed into the cliffs. With an agonising slowness, the tops crumbled under the impact and fell to the sea bed, causing an updraft of water that flung Phones clear of immediate danger and up towards the surface.

Symphony sighed, adjusted the co-ordinates, and, praying her luck would hold, launched another two missiles. The women watched them as they swerved down into the newly opened area of cliff and detonated, the blast wave even making Stingray rock.

As the debris cleared, they could see an opening in the cliffs. It was jagged and irregular, but it was an opening.

“Come on, Adam, Paul, come on…” Symphony breathed.

Atlanta pointed. “There! I can see someone moving!”

Sure enough, a figure was wriggling from the hole. As the dark-haired man hit the open water he turned and appeared to be waiting. A second figure emerged, and even from this distance Symphony could see the fair hair. He turned and went back into the hole.

Symphony bit back a cry of dismay. The first figure grabbed Blue’s legs and tugged, slowly, like drawing a cork from a bottle, Blue emerged from the tunnel, dragging a third body with him.

Phones arrived on his sea-bug, and the three of them manhandled the injured man onto the handles, and Phones headed back towards the submarine.

“One of them is injured!” Atlanta cried. “Troy, oh, Troy!” She hastened to the air-lock and opened it to receive the sea-bug and its passengers.

Symphony continued to watch as the other two divers – one of whom was Adam – made their way slowly to the safety of the submarine. As she heard the airlock open, she turned and went to see if she could help. Atlanta was already there and as Phones helped the patient out, he said, “Here, Atlanta, get him to a couch. He’s hurt pretty bad.”

“Oh, Troy!”

Phones gave her a quick smile. “No, Atlanta, it’s Captain Scarlet.”

“Paul!” Symphony came alongside and helped stretch Captain Scarlet on the couch. They removed the air tanks and fins, whilst she examined him. There was a deep gash across his forehead, disappearing into the black hair. Blood ran freely down his face. Symphony mopped it up, and cleaned the wound.

Tempest and Blue came out to the airlock and walked straight over to where Symphony was busy with Scarlet.

“How is he?” Blue asked.

“I tell you, Adam, he must be dead. No-one could survive being hit by a boulder that size,” Tempest said, as he accepted Atlanta’s fulsome hug of welcome.

“He’s bleeding a lot, but I guess he’ll be okay,” Symphony said, ignoring Tempest and looking with a wan smile at her own beloved captain.

“We were approaching the cave mouth when the second quake hit. There was a jagged overhang of rock and a huge slab was dislodged by the tremor. It came crashing down and I’d have been right under it, except that Paul shoved me out of the way, but it caught him a glancing blow as it fell. He was knocked unconscious, lost his respirator and was swept down away from the exit. I had to get him back and by then the cave mouth was blocked by a rock fall outside. It was good thinking to blast another way out. I guess we all owe you two ladies our lives.” Blue turned to include Atlanta in his thanks.

She blushed. “Actually, Captain Blue, you should thank Symphony, she had the idea and she fired the missiles.”

“But I couldn’t have done it without Atlanta’s help. She lined the sub up and held her steady.” Symphony smiled at the younger girl.

“I’ve always said Atlanta is a great girl,” Troy said with a grin. “And now it seems that the WASPs don’t have the monopoly on great girls… fine shooting, Symphony.”

Symphony was about to give her usual sharp reply to what she saw as any sexist remark, but she caught the pleading look on Blue’s face and merely said, “Why, thank you, Captain Tempest. The Angels aim to please.”

“Aim to please,” Tempest laughed. “That’s a good one!”

On the couch, Scarlet stirred and opened his eyes. “Symphony,” he slurred, “have you had your baby yet?”

“He’s delirious,” she said, taken aback by the remark.

“He’d better be…” Blue remarked caustically.

~oo0oo~

The crew of Stingray were impressed by the speed with which Captain Scarlet regained his health and vigour. Symphony carefully wrapped his head in what Scarlet maintained were enough bandages to have effectively mummified him. She hushed his complaints by explaining that, as he had been bleeding so much, the Aquanauts needed to believe the wound was still dangerous under all the bandages – unless he wanted to explain it away some other way.

Sitting in the rear of Stingray as the sub cruised on the surface, Scarlet gave a heavily edited version of what he’d experienced, concentrating on the potential danger of the pacifiers.

“It sure is a shame those machines are dangerous, Cap’n,” Phones commented, watching the smoke pouring out of the volcano. “’Cause I reckon this one’s gonna blow its top.”

“In a way, I rather hope it does,” Blue murmured. “That way, it ought to damage enough of the tunnels to block most portals.”

“I rather fancied doing some exploring,” Scarlet said with a shrug. “Properly prepared and knowing what to expect, it could be a fascinating experience.”

“Yeah, hundreds of Captain Blacks… remember?” Blue cautioned him.

“That was what was odd, Adam. Apart from Cadenza’s colonel, we only saw one Conrad Turner. The man in the pacifier’s cave was the same Captain Black we all knew – except Cadenza, of course.”

Blue shifted uneasily. “You mean the Mysterons don’t need more than one of him?”

“Perhaps to them every dimension is the real one…”

“That was a nasty bump on the head you got,” Blue jibed, and sipped at his third cup of coffee. “You know, I reckon Spectrum should recruit Lieutenant Shore.”

“Why?” Scarlet could see the amusement in his friend’s eyes.

“She makes a damn fine cup of coffee…”

Atlanta simpered her thanks and blushed prettily as Troy started to protest…

Scarlet met Blue’s eyes and they both dissolved into laughter.

Chapter Three

Colonel White closed Captain Scarlet’s report for the second time and gave a sceptical sigh. He had already read Captain Blue’s report of the rescue mission and the failure of the search to find any serviceable parts of the pacifier. The machine from Vesuvius was also useless. So, although Scarlet had verbally passed on the message from the ‘other dimension’, events on Sicily had rendered it pointless. The newscasts had been full of the devastating eruption of Mount Etna; in which millions of tons of lava had spewed from every vent on the volcano, flowing down and effectively creating a new surface to the whole mountain. If the theory that the Mysterons could function in any number of dimensions was true, they would have to find another way to access this one, at least.

Colonel White was familiar with his officers’ report styles and he had an uncanny ability to tell when things had been omitted. He felt sure now that Scarlet was skating over the fate of Lieutenant Garnet. Captain Blue had reported seeing ‘a Lieutenant Garnet’ who fitted the description he had of Claudia Vecchio – a woman who had refused to accompany him. Captain Scarlet spoke of her as being present in the ‘new’ dimension – right up until his return to the rendezvous with Captain Blue. Questioning had not really provided much more information, although Scarlet would not say outright that she was dead.

The colonel decided on ‘missing in action’ – he typed the words onto the screen he had open on his computer, saved and closed it down. There would be plenty of time later to think of a suitable replacement for her in Naples. He paused to consider the attractive young woman he remembered and mentally wished her well.

He glanced at his desk clock and decided to call it a day. He pressed his communication link to the Officers’ Lounge and asked Captain Ochre to take command for the remainder of the shift. Lieutenant Green was busily working at his computer banks, but he had only recently come back on duty and he was used to working with the other officers when doing night duty. In fact, White suspected, they had a fair old time – swapping stories.

Once he had left the Control Room, he ambled around Cloudbase as was his custom - he always did the rounds of his command, before he turned in for the night – he liked to think of it as part of a long tradition, going right back to Henry V before Agincourt. The ‘little bit of Harry in the night’ that Shakespeare had written of.

His stroll came to its conclusion on the Promenade Deck, as always. He was in the habit of star-gazing for a time before turning in, and had a small telescope mounted on the wall that formed the end of the flowerbeds. As he moved towards it he saw two men - one fair-haired and one dark - both off duty and casually dressed in sweats and jeans. They were sitting dangling their legs over the wall, staring out into the dark night sky and beside them stood an almost empty six-pack of bottled beer.

The colonel made a move to reprimand them, but as he approached, he heard the dark-haired man say,

“I wonder if the others ever do this.”

“Drink beer that’s been smuggled on board?”

“Drink smuggled beer with a good friend and count shooting stars and just generally lounge about.” He took a swig from the bottle in his hand.

“Look, there’s another one! That’s 35 to me and… 18 to you. You’re not concentrating.”

Scarlet drained his beer. “Sorry.”

“Have another one,” Blue offered.

“I shouldn’t.”

“No, I shouldn’t. It won’t affect you at all. Finish it off, Paul, I can hardly take it back and ask for a refund, can I?”

“S’good stuff, where did you get it?”

“That would be telling.”

“How do you always get to know about these scams anyway?” Scarlet asked.

“Money talks.” Blue tapped a finger against the side of his nose and grinned.

“You’d better watch it or that could become your answer to everything,” his friend warned.

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it!” Blue said jovially, in the face of his friend’s sudden solemnity.

“Where on Earth did you pick up that expression?”

“Dianne…”

“Oh, that figures, there’s a woman who knows all about money…”

“And still prefers you to me. Incomprehensible really…” Blue shook his fair head and swigged at his beer.

The dark man laughed and stretched a hand out towards the velvet-black and starlit night sky. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet - somewhere out there, Adam.”

“No, I have all I need right here,” Blue said contentedly. He glanced at his friend and asked the question that had been bothering him since Scarlet first explained about his adventures. “Was I really a woman, somewhere out there?”

Scarlet smiled. “Sure you were, but then so was I and Magenta and Green too. Dianne, Karen and Juliette – if you can believe it - were guys… that took some getting used to.”

“I’ll say.” Blue grimaced and sipped his beer again. His imagination was really struggling to get to grips with some of the concepts.

“Eva is just as uncertain about the fact that her doppelgangers are men, as you are about the fact that she’s a woman,” Scarlet remarked and saw Blue’s eyebrows rise in disbelief.

“She wasn’t really called Eva, was she – you are having me on?” he pleaded.

Scarlet shook his head. “No, she was Eva Svenson. The other Adam didn’t think much of it either, but she was far more ‘laid-back’ about it all. So much so, that she even gave me a kiss for you…” he teased.

“That’s okay.” Adam squirmed. “You can keep it. I’ll take it as read.”

“Everywhere else we went, you were a guy,” Paul reassured him with a smile. He remembered the injured Adam in Boston and frowned. “Not every dimension had experienced the same events as here, or not with the same results, anyway. That was even more disconcerting.”

“From what you were saying, the Mysterons in the other dimension were far more… subtle than those we’ve experience of here,” Blue mused. “Undermining the financial probity of the World Government, infiltrating business organisations, and corrupting politicians, sure beats blowing up oil refineries, and the like, as a means of prosecuting a war of nerves. Maybe we ought to make a case to the colonel, for a squad of officers to perform spot-checks outside of Spectrum? We can’t afford to let them get a toe-hold – far better to stop it starting, than have to stop it once it’s started.”

Scarlet swigged his beer and asked, “You going to volunteer? I can just imagine you sweeping into SvenCorp with a warrant to check the books….”

“Hey – my father may be a complete bastard, but he’s a completely honest bastard!”

“Whoa! Down, boy - it was meant as a joke, Adam! Jeez, you Svensons – you fight like tigers amongst yourselves, but like demons if anyone takes a pot-shot at any one of you!” He glanced at his friend, who appeared mollified by his response. “Joking aside, you might have a point and it could have added benefits too…”

“Oh?” Blue said coolly. The dig at his family’s company still rankled.

“Yes, it could keep Agent Conners out of our hair. If he did the investigating, he’d be far too busy to bother with the likes of us…” Scarlet suggested, remembering the World President’s enthusiasm for the idea.

“Conners,” Blue snorted. “No, Paul, you couldn’t do it. Using him as the investigator would probably contravene several articles of the Geneva Convention, for a start!”

“But wouldn’t it be worth it, just to see the faces of some of those World Senators, when he started investigating their finances?”

Blue chortled. “Well, I’d sure pay good money for a ringside seat.” Scarlet grinned. "But what makes you think Conners would actually leave Spectrum? It’s just wishful thinking, Paul!"

“No, not necessarily,” Scarlet said, deciding to play Devil’s Advocate. “We know Mr. Conners is a man with a sense of mission. I’m sure he could be made to see how vital his participation in a ‘clean-up-everywhere-else’ campaign would be. Who else could Spectrum trust to be incorruptible and dedicated to his task, in the face of what will be undoubted hostility and opposition?”

Blue face was a picture. He raised his hand to his mouth and made a gagging noise. Scarlet laughed. “Well, I guess anything's worth a try, if it gets rid of him, I suppose,” the American conceded.

“If that fails, there is always a strong kick in the posterior whilst he’s standing on one of Cloudbase’s runways. That could do the trick....”

“Well, you’ll have to administer it, Paul. If you fall over the edge as well, we'll pick the bits up later.” Blue teased.

“Thanks very much, Adam, that’s awfully decent of you, old chap!” Scarlet grimaced. “You know; it’s little things like that, that make me really glad I came back....”

Blue joined in the laughter, and they clinked their beer bottles together in a mutual toast to their friendship.

They drained the bottles and sat in silence for a while, and then Scarlet continued, “Do you suppose there is a reality where Conrad never ordered those shots fired? Where the mission to Mars was a success and the Mysterons are our allies?”

“More than likely - there may even be a reality where you and I are not friends.”

“Oh come on, don’t you think that’s pushing things a little too far?”

“Yeah, well maybe….”

Scarlet swigged his beer and said, “Believe me, Adam, just as north is always true, you were always… just the same…despite appearances to the contrary and regardless of what sex you were!”

“God, how boringly predictable that makes me sound.” Blue gave him a horrified grimace.

“Not at all – it’s a comforting certainty, in a strange world, to know that whatever seems to be wrong - the essential decency that is the bedrock of your character will be a constant.”

Blue snorted with laughter, but the colonel could see a blush mounting in his tanned cheeks. He suppressed his own amusement as he heard Blue mutter, “You should get a job as a PR man…I am sure my father could use your talents.”

“I just might at that…” he chuckled.

Smiling, Colonel White turned away and walked silently back to the door. Just once wouldn’t hurt, he guessed, but tomorrow he was going to have to get Lieutenant Green to discover who was smuggling alcohol aboard and then he’d have to deal with it.

Most severely.

~oo0oo~

Paul Metcalfe strode past the abandoned house they had chosen to use as shelter and looked towards the beach. In the distance, he could see the two of them, Karen sitting on the sand whilst the child pottered about collecting shells to decorate the huge, shapeless mound she had made. The breeze brought snatches of her excited prattle back to him. He smiled contentedly.

He had had few expectations about life after the Mysteron attacks but they had managed to do pretty well for themselves. All over the planet there were small communities, managing to survive and starting to slowly rebuild a civilisation that had almost vanished forever. Karen and he had travelled aimlessly, until they decided to see if what Adam had told them about his inter-dimensional visitors had a basis in truth. Now they were here in Sicily, but he did not know if they would stay here much longer. Part of the hunger in his soul was to see his home again, and Karen had always said she did not mind where they went as long as they went together.

He quickened his pace and called a greeting to them both.

Hearing him, they both turned and the toddler began to run to him with the ungainly speed of all infants. He hunkered down and opened his arms to her. She threw herself into his embrace and giggled in delight as he stood and raised her above his head, twirling her around until he began to feel giddy.

“Daddy, I made a castle, a big, big castle. Mummy says it’s the biggest castle she’s ever seen! I’m gonna put pretty shells on it and we can all live there for ever…”

“That’s nice, Hope. Can I see it?”

She nodded and squirmed to be put down. Then she raced off again, her golden hair streaming behind her like a flag.

After he had duly admired the ‘castle’ and the child had wandered off looking for more treasures to adorn their new home, he joined Karen on the sand. They sat side by side in companionable silence for a while, keeping a wary eye on the little girl as she skipped along the beach.

Finally Karen asked quietly, “Did you do what you set out to?”

“Yes, more or less. Adam was right, there are tunnels under Etna and they do seem to connect to ‘other realities’ and with other moments of time. I think his visitors were real ones. There was a series of minor earth tremors whilst I was there, which opened passages to other parts of the volcano. I spent some time exploring them and then, after one ‘quake I met someone…”

“Was it…?”

“No, it was me… well, another me. I didn’t see anyone else,” he lied convincingly. “I told him what we knew – or rather what we believe to be the case. I think he believed me.”

“You are not sure?” she smiled.

“Well, he seemed a rather stiff-necked individual.” Paul smiled. “Not like me at all…”

Karen laughed. “Oh, not at all…”

He grimaced at her. “You have to admit, I’m not as bad as I used to be… Anyway, this guy said he was a lieutenant. He took some convincing, but I think I managed to make him believe me, in the end. He wanted me to go with him to Cloudbase, and I was tempted to, I admit, but I was worried about getting back to you, and so I had to leave him. The first tunnel took me back to the Svenson house – and no, I didn’t stay - the place wasn’t even damaged, so it must have been years ago. I went back into the tunnel and waited for the next quake to re-shift the portals. I didn’t see Lieutenant Scarlet again… the timeframe must have shifted once more.” He sighed and smiled at her. “We have done all we can, sweetheart. We have to hope the other dimensions do all they can.”

“It is still hard to think there are other realities - places where maybe… things are different.”

“You still miss him.” It was a statement delivered without emotion. He had been right not to mention the other Adam Svenson he had encountered. It would only have opened old wounds.

“Part of me will always miss him, Paul, just as part of me will always love him. How can it be otherwise when every time I look at his child I see him?” She reached out and touched his arm, smiling up into his carefully expressionless face. “But it has been almost four years now and you have become so very important to me and to Hope - who adores you.”

Paul smiled. “As I do her, she is a constant delight, Karen. I never expected to have the luxury of a family life. Whenever Dianne and I talked about it, we were always uncertain about having children of our own; we could never be sure what effect my Mysteronisation had had on me, or what it might do to any child of mine. To me, Hope is the daughter I always wanted, I couldn’t love her more if she were my own.”

She kissed his bearded cheek and rested her head against his shoulder as he supported her with his strong arm. “I love you, Paul Metcalfe. I love you for your kindness, your generosity of spirit and your strength, for the way we can share memories and the way we … we have grown… comfortable together.”

“Karen…”

She placed a finger against his lips and continued, “I can accept that I may never mean as much to you as Dianne did and that’s as it should be. But I know neither Adam nor Dianne would want us to mourn forever. I am content with the way things are. I hoped you were too.”

He smiled. “Of course I am.” He looked along the beach to where Hope was dragging a long strand of seaweed back towards them. “We are a family, the three of us.”

“And what if that was about to change?”

He frowned at her. “Change? How?” Realisation dawned as she smiled at him. “Karen, do you mean…?”

She nodded. “We’ll see what the future holds, Paul, but it looks as if Hope won’t have to grow up all alone and that, God willing, you will soon hold your own child in your arms.”

He hugged her, speechless with a fierce and yet anxious joy. As the little girl drew near, calling for her mother, Karen moved towards her daughter and Paul leant back on the warm sand with an absurd feeling of contentment. “You know,” he said conversationally to the vast blue emptiness above him, “sometimes I get surprised at just how wonderful life can be….”

THE END

Authors Notes:

Synchronicity – where to start? This began life in the summer of 2003 as a possible Halloween Challenge Story and developed into a much longer and far more complex story than I have ever attempted before. It suffered as much as from being put aside for me to write stories that did become Halloween and Christmas Challenge stories, as from its length and complexity. The first completed version was revised -and largely re-written- once the earlier parts were posted. My apologies for the delay.

That it was ever finished is due to the unflagging and generous support I received from the usual culprits: Chris Bishop (The Boss), Hazel Köhler, Sue Stanhope, Mary J Rudy and Caroline Smith. They have seen the story twist and turn through innumerable dead-end versions, until it emerged in the present form. I only hope they feel that it was worth their efforts.

My thanks are also due to Hazel Köhler for her impeccable beta-reading, and for her patience with someone who will keep putting capital letters where they do not belong. We won’t mention the commas and semi-colons.

It only remains for me to say – as always – any mistakes are mine alone. I never claim to be an expert, so where I have erred, I apologise.

I have no rights to any of the main characters or organisations used in the story – their creation is entirely the work of imaginations far greater than mine. The Agent Conners mentioned in the story was created by Chris Bishop, as were the members of the Svenson family. Lieutenants Garnet and Flaxen, as well as the Cerise, Mauve and Cobalt mentioned in the story are mine – so are Sergeants Ruffolo and Harcourt. I guess I am also responsible for the alternative versions of the Spectrum Captains and Cadenza and Sonata, with the inhabitants of their respective worlds.

‘Attack on Cloudbase’ remains one of my favourite episodes of the TV series and I thought it would be nice to extrapolate different conclusions to the story – depending on whether Symphony was dreaming or not. The possible results from the event not being a dream led to the scenes in the ruins of the Svenson House in Boston and the final scenes on Sicily. It is not necessarily how I hope, or imagine, the war of nerves ended.

If you managed to read to the end – well done! – and thank you.

Marion Woods

September 2004

Any comments? Send an E-MAIL to the SPECTRUM HEADQUARTERS site