‘I’m, er, I’m . . .’ The obvious thing to do would be to make up a name but for some reason the only name Nicola could think of was Nicola.

‘I’m Ni – Ni – um – Nilly!’

‘Nilly?’ frowned Topaz.

‘Nilly,’ repeated Nicola miserably. A million names now flooded her head. Anne. Sara. Louise. Diane. And all she could come up with was Nilly.

Topaz sniffed loudly. She took her handkerchief from her tunic pocket and blew her nose again.

She said, ‘You’re that Earthling, aren’t you? Your name isn’t Nilly. It’s Nicola. Nicola Berry.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Nicola. ‘But –’

‘You’re the head of the Space Brigade. Enrico hired you to kill me.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Well go ahead.’

‘Go ahead?’

‘Go ahead and kill me.’ Topaz sneezed again and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘I was just thinking that someone might as well bump me off. So go ahead. Do your job. I won’t even try to defend myself.’

‘Oh, but Topaz!’ Nicola remembered the photo she’d seen in Enrico’s file. Topaz had seemed so full of passion and life. Now she seemed sick and miserable, her eyes flat, her voice bitter.

‘Come on! What are you waiting for?’

‘Topaz, I don’t want –’

‘Hurry up! Get it over with! I’m not afraid!’ Topaz lifted her chin and closed her eyes.

Nicola almost laughed. She said, ‘Well, it’s actually a bit hard to kill you when I’m trapped in this ball.’

‘Oh.’ Topaz opened her eyes. ‘But don’t you have special Earthling powers? I was expecting you to shoot laser beams out of your eyes or something.’ She almost seemed disappointed.

Nicola said, ‘I don’t have any special powers and, actually, if you don’t help me out of this thing soon, I might die first.’

All the time they’d been talking her ball had continued rolling back and forth. Now it was teetering on the edge of the cliff once again. Nicola gritted her teeth.