story?’

His tone was light, unthreatening. He watched the tension drain away from Sandra, and her face seemed to brighten. ‘They made a mistake. Oh, I mean, I can understand it, don’t get me wrong. I’d gone back to the flat for one last attempt to talk Guy out of his stupid plans… But he wasn’t there, and they thought I was working with Tony and Guy.’

‘The hairdressers?’ frowned Owen.

Sandra rolled her eyes at him. ‘Tony Bee and Guy Wildman. My diving buddies. So I don’t blame your colleagues, it wasn’t their fault, really.’

‘You’re very forgiving, for someone who we shot.’

‘When I tell you what I’ve been through, you won’t think that.’

Owen smiled reassuringly. ‘I’m hard to surprise.’

Sandra’s eyes flickered between Owen and Megan, as though quickly assessing their mood. Then she closed them, and drew in a deep and shuddering breath, before releasing it like a slowly deflating tyre.

‘It started,’ she began, ‘when we took our scuba-diving trip out in the Bay. If we’re diving locally, we usually take a boat out of Porthcawl, maybe get out as far as Lundy Island to see the puffins and grey seals. But Guy could only take a short weekend, so we decided to explore out into Cardiff Bay.

‘Easy enough to charter a boat locally. Nice clear day, not far, nothing too adventurous we thought. Until we saw the hatch poking out of the sediment. First thought, of course, was that it must be discarded debris. When it wouldn’t budge, then you start to think it’s a wreck — but this clearly wasn’t anything like the wreck of the Louisa out there. This had a dull shine, even that far down. Modern, not nineteenth- century. Not even twentieth-century. When we opened it up, it was an airlock. But what kind of modern submarine would be buried down there?

‘One of us should have stayed outside. I’m the most experienced diver, I should have known that. But we all went in — it was an unbelievable space, more like a hallway than an airlock. And once we were in, the door shut behind us and the place started to fill with gas.

‘Do you know what I mean when I say that the military instinct kicked in, Dr Harper? For me and Tony, I mean. Checking for exit options, areas of danger, ensuring our backs were covered. Even unarmed, we were ready. Guy was starting to panic, though — scraping at the exit door with his bare hands, tearing off his own mask. That’s when we knew it was oxygen, and we could breathe. Our relief didn’t last long, because when the inner door opened what we saw made us abandon all that hard-learned military training.

‘It wasn’t human, that much was obvious. I mean, like with the hatch, your first thought is to make it normal: it’s a bloke in a mask; we’ve stumbled into a film set; it’s a weird kind of scuba gear; it’s a trick of the light.

‘It wasn’t. It was alien. Tony’s a big guy, you know, six-three. But this thing dwarfed him. Easily strong enough to force me and Tony further through that inner door. Guy was curled up in a corner, whimpering, terrified. It picked him up with one of its claws and threw him after us into the ship. The alien ship.’

Sandra swallowed hard at this point.

‘The next bit is all a bit hazy now. I prided myself before all this that nothing could faze me. But it’s not like the uncertainties of a combat zone. My first commander told me that the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. Let me tell you, no amount of readiness training could have prepared us. Maybe I was starting to react like Guy had, I don’t know. All I remember now is being surrounded by alien machinery, and an agonizing pain in my back, and then I must have passed out.’

Owen pointed up at the wall, where the light-box still displayed her X-ray images. ‘That thing was inserted into you. I think it’s a tracking device.’

Megan stared at them, incredulous. ‘What is this, The X Files?’

Owen touched her lips gently with his finger, and encouraged Sandra to continue. ‘What do you remember next?’

‘When I came round, Tony was pulling me towards the exit. Guy was helping him. The pain was still intense, as though I’d been knifed in the middle of my back. Yet there was no blood. I was able to stumble out with them. Tony got us back through the airlock. Don’t ask me how. There was a lot more of the ship visible around the airlock when we got out, as though the sediment had started to fall away around the prow of some dull grey rocket.

‘I don’t remember much of the journey home, Tony seemed to handle that. Maybe my mind blotted it out, maybe it was like post-traumatic stress

— we’ve seen that in the services, of course. “The invisible injury”, it’s called. Not a mark on you physically. But PTSD isn’t something the Army likes to admit to.

‘We spent the rest of the weekend at Guy’s apartment, out in Splott. Tony explained to us that we escaped because the alien ship was failing. Its crew was dying, and couldn’t stop us from escaping. And that’s when Guy Wildman had this crazy idea. That we could go back. Reactivate it, maybe. Or cannibalise it, at least.’

Owen was surprised to hear Megan laughing. ‘And that was the crazy thing, was it?’ She stared at Owen and Sandra, wide-eyed, mouth open, daring them to contradict her. ‘You are talking about alien ships as though they’re real. And you Owen, you’re just encouraging her! I don’t think she needs our medical attention, I think I should be calling the psychiatric nurse!’

‘Listen to what Sandra has to say.’

‘Going back there? Cannibalising this alien ship? Just popping back underwater to grab some extraterrestrial spare parts?’

There was a note of frustration in Sandra’s voice now. ‘With Guy Wildman’s professional contacts in the international scientific community, who knows what he could do? He certainly knew all about Torchwood, and didn’t want to involve them. He’d have found some way of selling the stuff on.’

‘Well,’ said Megan, ‘it doesn’t sound like the kind of thing you could stick on eBay, does it?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ muttered Owen, and waggled the Bekaran scanner at her. ‘It was only because Tosh was checking online for a pair of shoes that we first came across this thing.’

Sandra had sunk back into her propped pillow, like she’d received a physical blow. Owen reached out to touch her arm, a human touch to restore her confidence. ‘I understand, Sandra. Now trust me for a moment. I need to show Megan this. Lean forward, if you can.’

Sandra levered herself forward carefully. She started to part her hospital gown at the rear, but Owen stopped her. He beckoned Megan to watch while he passed the Bekaran scanner between Sandra’s shoulder blades.

‘Look at this.’

The screen image revealed the vertebrae in Sandra’s spine. But it wasn’t the grey murk of an X-ray that needed close study to properly decipher its contents. Not even the artificial colours of an enhanced MRI scan. This was eerily like a post-mortem image, but the vertebrae and discs were still moving naturally as Sandra stooped forward and breathed in and out. From the sides, the vertebrae looked like white cubes in the red surrounding flesh. From the rear, the bones resolved into the familiar saddle-shaped structures that straddled the off-white intervertebral discs. ‘See,’ urged Owen, ‘between T3 and T4, just to one side. Attached to the spinal column, but not within it.’

It was almost shocking to see. A sphere of metal, like burnished chrome, with a soft inner light somehow pulsing within it.

‘Not a bullet,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve seen it for yourself, Megan. What is there not to believe any more?’

She looked like she might be about to cry. Seemed to shake herself a little, rolled her shoulders. Looked directly at him. ‘What do I do, Owen? I don’t know what to do any more. I don’t think I even know how to feel.’ She let him hold her close, and he felt her shiver against his chest. ‘Shouldn’t we take this to someone? Shouldn’t you have gone to the authorities, Sandra?’

Sandra settled into her pillow again. ‘You’re the one who said I needed a psychiatric nurse. What do you think the army would have said? PTSD, combat neurosis. And then kept me out of the way. The end of my career, whatever happened.’ She watched them both cautiously. ‘So I’ve come to you. To Torchwood. And I know what happened to Guy and… and Tony…’

She covered her face with both hands, and began to weep silently. Dry sobs heaved her shoulders. Owen put a hand gently on her arm, calming her, while he quietly explained to Megan about the deaths of Bee and Wildman.

‘So it’s over, then,’ Megan said. ‘They won’t be going back to this alien ship… I can hardly believe I’m just

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