‘Priority Call for you, sir.’

Clifford handed the synopsis to Margot. ‘Tell me if you find anything. It looks to me as if we’ve been wasting Tony’s time.’

He left them and went through to his study.

‘Ah, Gorrell, there you are.’ It was Thornwall Harrison, the attorney who had taken over Clifford’s office. ‘Who the hell are all these people trailing in to see you night and day? The place looks like Colonial Night at the Arena Circus. I can’t get rid of them.’

‘Which people?’ Clifford asked. ‘What do they want?’

‘You apparently,’ Thornwall told him. ‘Most of them thought I was you. They’ve been trying to sell me all sorts of crazy vacation schemes. I said you’d already gone on your vacation and I myself never took one. Then one of them pulled a hypodermic on me. There’s even an Anti-Cartel agent sleuthing around, wants to see you about block bookings. Thinks you’re a racketeer.’

Back in the lounge Margot and Tony were looking out through the terrace windows into the boulevard which ran from the Gorrells’ villa to the level below.

A long column of vehicles had pulled up under the trees: trucks, half-tracks, huge Telesenso studio location vans and several sleek white ambulances. The drivers and crew-men were standing about in little groups in the shadows, quietly watching the villa. Two or three radar scanners on the vans were rotating, and as Clifford looked down a convoy of trucks drove up and joined the tail of the column.

‘Looks like there’s going to be quite a party,’ Tony said. ‘What are they waiting for?’

‘Perhaps they’ve come for us?’ Margot suggested excitedly.

‘They’re wasting their time if they have,’ Clifford told her. He swung round on Tony. ‘Did you give our names to any of the agencies?’

Tony hesitated, then nodded. ‘I couldn’t help it. Some of those outfits wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

Clifford clamped his lips and picked the synopsis off the floor. ‘Well, Margot, have you decided where you want to go?’

Margot fiddled with the synopsis. ‘There are so many to choose from.’

Tony started for the door. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it.’ He waved a hand at them. ‘Have fun.’

‘Hold on,’ Clifford told him. ‘Margot hasn’t made up her mind yet.’

‘What’s the hurry?’ Tony asked. He indicated the line of vehicles outside, their crews now climbing into their driving cabs and turrets. ‘Take your time. You may bite off more than you can chew.’

‘Exactly. So as soon as Margot decides where we’re going you can make the final arrangements for us and get rid of that menagerie.’

‘But Clifford, give me a chance.’

‘Sorry. Now Margot, hurry up.’

Margot flipped through the synopsis, screwing up her mouth. ‘It’s so difficult, Clifford, I don’t really like any of these. I still think the best agency was the little one I found in the Bazaar.’

‘No,’ Tony groaned, sinking down on a sofa. ‘Margot, please, after all the trouble I’ve gone to.’

‘Yes, definitely that one. The dream bureau. What was it called—’

Before she could finish there was a roar of engines starting up in the boulevard. Startled, Clifford saw the column of cars and trucks churn across the gravel towards the villa. Music, throbbing heavily, came down from the room above, and a sick musky odour seeped through the air.

Tony pulled himself off the sofa. ‘They must have had this place wired,’ he said quickly. ‘You’d better call the police. Believe me, some of these people don’t waste time arguing.’

Outside three helmeted men in brown uniforms ran past the terrace, unwinding a coil of fuse wire. The sharp hissing sound of para-rays sucked through the air from the drive.

Margot hid back in her slumber seat. ‘Trantino!’ she wailed.

Clifford went back into his study. He switched the transceiver to the emergency channel.

Instead of the police signal a thin automatic voice beeped through. ‘Remain seated, remain seated. Take-off in zero two minutes, Purser’s office on G Deck now—’

Clifford switched to another channel. There was a blare of studio applause and a loud unctuous voice called out: ‘And now over to brilliant young Clifford Gorrell and his charming wife Margot about to enter their dream-pool at the fabulous Riviera-Neptune. Are you there, Cliff?’

Angrily, Clifford turned to a third. Static and morse chattered, and then someone rapped out in a hard iron tone: ‘Colonel Sapt is dug in behind the swimming pool. Enfilade along the garage roof—’

Clifford gave up. He went back to the lounge. The music was deafening. Margot was prostrate in her slumber-seat, Tony down on the floor by the window, watching a pitched battle raging in the drive. Heavy black palls of smoke drifted across the terrace, and two tanks with stylized archers emblazoned on their turrets were moving up past the burning wrecks of the studio location vans.

‘They must be Arco’s!’ Tony shouted. ‘The police will look after them, but wait until the extra-sensory gang take over!’

Crouching behind a low stone parapet running off the terrace was a group of waiters in dishevelled evening dress, lab technicians in scorched white overalls and musicians clutching their instrument cases. A bolt of flame from one of the tanks flickered over their heads and crashed into the grove of flamingo trees, sending up a shower of sparks and broken notes.

Clifford pulled Tony to his feet. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. We’ll try the library windows into the garden. You’d better take Margot.’

Her yellow beach robe had apparently died of shock, and was beginning to blacken like a dried-out banana skin. Discreetly averting his eyes, Tony picked her up and followed Clifford out into the hall.

Three croupiers in gold uniforms were arguing hotly with two men in white surgeons’ coats. Behind them a couple of mechanics were struggling a huge vibrobath up the stairs.

The foreman came over to Clifford. ‘Gorrell?’ he asked, consulting an invoice. ‘Trans-Ocean.’ He jerked a thumb at the bath. ‘Where do you want it?’

A surgeon elbowed him aside. ‘Mr Gorrell?’ he asked suavely. ‘We are from Cerebro-Tonic Travel. Please allow me to give you a sedative. All this noise—’

Clifford pushed past him and started to walk down the corridor to the library, but the floor began to slide and weave.

He stopped and looked around unsteadily.

Tony was down on his knees, Margot flopped out of his arms across the floor.

Someone swayed up to Clifford and held out a tray.

On it were three tickets.

Around him the walls whirled.

He woke in his bedroom, lying comfortably on his back, gently breathing a cool amber air. The noise had died away, but he could still hear a vortex of sound spinning violently in the back of his mind. It spiralled away, vanished, and he moved his head and looked around.

Margot was lying asleep beside him, and for a moment he thought that the attack on the house had been a dream. Then he noticed the skull-plate clamped over his head, and the cables leading off from a boom to a large console at the foot of the bed. Massive spools loaded with magnetic tape waited in the projector ready to be played.

The real nightmare was still to come! He struggled to get up, found himself clamped in a twilight sleep, unable to move more than a few centimetres.

He lay there powerlessly for ten minutes, tongue clogging his mouth like a wad of cotton-wool when he tried to shout. Eventually a small neatly featured alien in a pink silk suit opened the door and padded quietly over to them. He peered down at their faces and then turned a couple of knobs on the console.

Clifford’s consciousness began to clear. Beside him Margot stirred and woke.

The alien beamed down pleasantly. ‘Good evening,’ he greeted them in a smooth creamy voice. ‘Please allow me to apologize for any discomfort you have suffered. However, the first day of a vacation is often a little confused.’