Ace tossed the tracking device to Ryan to who caught it clumsily, almost dropping it. ‘OK, we’ll try two locations and see if we get lucky. Ryan, you go with Chantelle back to Perivale. Yaz, you can come with me. We’ll head back to my place. Will, you should get back to the Space Defence Centre. We need eyes on the ground back here.’

Graham sighed. ‘Looks like you’re stuck with me again, Doc. What do we do?’

‘The dream team!’ The Doctor grinned. ‘We go back to the station and get ready to track Yaz and Ryan. That station collects matter transmitted from Earth and boosts it onwards through the unknown. We need to know where the abductees are going.’

‘What about me?’ piped up Kim Fortune. ‘You’re not going to leave me here, are you?’

Ace looked at him, pathetic in his disposable overalls. The last few hours had certainly taken away the man’s bravado but there was no way she was going to leave him alone here.

‘You need to go home, Kim. Go home and say nothing about any of this. You can go with Chantelle and Ryan.’

‘But surely—’

‘Surely, nothing!’ Ace retorted, recent revelations making her tone harsher than she intended. ‘You talk to anyone about this and you could ruin everything. We’ve probably got one shot at getting those girls back: you do anything to jeopardise that …’

She left the threat hanging. She was in no mood to have to deal with any nonsense from Kim Fortune at the moment.

‘It’ll be all right, Kim,’ Yaz said more softly, putting a hand on his shoulders. ‘You could use some rest …’

Ace almost snorted. Let the girl soft-soap him! She hadn’t been hounded by the man for interviews time and again. Shrugging into another disposable paper suit she helped the Doctor wrap up the dissected body of the Ratt and moved it into one of the laboratory freezers. Yet another alien loose end for her to tidy up once this was over. At least she knew the name of this particular breed.

Once the body was packed away she decanted some of the slime from the creature into a couple of plastic containers. Stuffing one of them into a canvas holdall she was about to turn and call Ryan over for the other one when she found Yaz standing there.

Ace held out the bottle. ‘Can you give this to Ryan?’

Yaz took it, obviously wanting to say something.

Ace was starting to tire of this. ‘Do we have a problem?’

‘Are you certain that your friend’s the best person to pair with Ryan?’ Yaz looked over to where Chantelle was standing. ‘She seems like a bit of an …’

‘Airhead?’ It was obvious to Ace where this was going. ‘Let me ask you something. Do you trust Ryan?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I mean really trust him. With your life.’

‘Yes!’