Amidst the hustle and bustle of a revolutionary headquarters, three disarmingly ordinary-looking figures made their way along a hallway, herded by several armed Bolsheviks.

 A brooding Doctor led the way, hands in coat pockets, his sight turned inwards. Jadi and Wil trailed along not far behind. Their guards, though not vicious, were quite insistent.

 Trotsky had not accompanied them, merely waving the guards to their work. As they had left the drawing room, the three time travelers had glanced back at the revolutionary leaders, at the messengers coming and going, at the co-mingled excitement and tense fatigue. Lenin was still kvetching about the lack of progress in the capture of the Winter Palace. "Nothing is yet attained; nothing is yet assured! What are they *doing* over there?!" was the last exclamation they heard as the guards prodded them on their way.

 The Doctor came out of his funk long enough to ask the guards if they knew anything of Angela's whereabouts.

 "Ne zhanio, giday ona**," one of the guards, a tow-headed fellow in his twenties replied. "Eezveenitye."

 "Yeeyor zovoot Angela Ferris***," the Doctor added hopefully.

 They shook their heads. At the Doctor's lugubrious sigh, one of the other guards, short with a shock of brown hair and a beard, clapped the Time Lord on a shoulder, laughing, as he flinched involuntarily. "You miss her, eh? Petrograd is ours; I'm sure you will see her again soon."

 "We're not really supposed to be here," the Doctor told them, his other hand stealing up to rub gently at his healing shoulder. "We want only to find our friend and leave."

 "All in good time," tow-hair told them. "For now, you must remain, by Comrade Lenin's order."

 The Doctor opened his mouth as if to protest, a mulish look on his face, then seemed to think better (or worse) of it. Jadi and Wil looked at each other, then glanced at the Doctor, but he'd sunk back into his brooding fit.

 *How apt,* she thought idly, watching the leaves scatter, thinking of her short-term acquaintances. Very like Mikhail and his friends.

 Her earlier burst of outrage had subsided, leaving her subdued. She thought of the dying Ivanov and Mikhail's family, waiting for someone who would never return. She ought to go and tell them what had happened; she really ought to. It was the least she could do.

 She strode several meters away from the group before she heard a shout. "Miss! Where are you going? The headquarters are *this* way."

 The sound of footsteps, a hand on her arm. She turned quickly to see one of the Loyalist escorts peering at her in concern. "Ma'am, it's this way..."

 "I have something I have to do first." She turned to go, but the arm remained on hers, insistent. "Ma'am, it's not safe..."

 Angela turned and Looked at the young soldier. He flinched imperceptibly, and she said reasonably but firmly, "A friend died. I must tell his family. His dying wish." Not strictly true, but close enough. The Goddess would forgive such a stretching of the truth.

 The man bowed his head a fraction, then released her and stepped away. "Godspeed." The little group hurried on its way.

 Angela turned back and began her journey through the semi-deserted afternoon streets, following the map her memory had made of Petrograd.

 The decor was minimal and gentiley shabby: one rickety wooden chair, a threadbare rug in a shades of red, no table. Pale yellow plaster walls, through which a few faint cracks meandered. There was a fireplace, but empty of anything combustible.

 Wil, slumped against the wall near the door, watching as Jadi prowled the room, fretting the loss of his sidearm, which the guards had taken and examined with only moderate interest. The Doctor was standing at the window, staring out.

 The former Jester gently tried the door, but it remained closed. Any hidden panels? A few desultory pressings and proddings on the blond wood paneling around the fireplace yielded nothing. He strolled to the center of the room, hands on hips and said: 'What're you reckon; the 'help guard my friend is sick' ploy?"

 His two companions glanced over, Jadi rolling his eyes, the Doctor somewhat more amused by Wil's sally and the bounty hunter's reaction. Jadi didn't know that Wil and he had successfully employed that very trick with the help of several other people, when they'd first met on Paracastria.

 "What's the matter?" Wil asked the Doctor, crossing to his side. "At least no one's shooting at us... Er, anymore."

 "Oh, it's just the Irony," the Doctor murmured, looking back out the window. "An almost bloodless transfer of power, and for it to come to what it does..." He shook his head.

 "Bloodless?" Wil said in disbelief.

 "Oh, yes. This is nothing," the Time Lord replied, gesturing at the shoulder that had been wounded earlier that day. "Despite what you might think, blood-thirsty Bolsheviks aren't storming through the city, slaughtering anyone who stands in their way; many people have already been won over to the Bolshevik cause by the sheer power of words -- in many cases, specifically Leon Trotsky's. He changed his name, you know. He was born under the name of Bronstein, but took the name of the head warder when he escaped from a prison in Siberia and needed an alias."

 Wil smiled, used by now to the Doctor's rambling stream-of-consciousness style of conversation. "Good for him, then."

 "Yes. Pity he changed." At Wil's raised eyebrows, he elaborated. "He's had his differences and fallings out with Lenin, but especially after today he realizes that Vladamir's become the figurehead and wholeheartedly throws in his lot with Lenin, becomes rather more zealous. When he was as instrumental in this revolution, more in certain ways, than Lenin was. At least he won't be as bad as Stalin, though."

 Jadi had wandered over and his eyes narrowed at the sound of that name.

 "Right back to their tradition of absolute rule. That's the real irony -- the Bolsheviks wanted to institute a real change, but in the end, the communists *and* the people fell back into the same pattern of autocracy and acceptance, of ruler and oppressed, that has been a part of the Russian character for so long."

 "After all this revolution, the people just accepted that?" Jadi asked, scorn in his tone. Wil was looking unusually thoughtful.

 "It's the isolation. And their vulnerability to invasion, with few natural protective features, like mountains and seas and rivers. The Mongol invasion especially left quite an impression -- they've since preferred to be safe, even at the expense of personal freedom."

 "Mongol Invasion?" Moderately interested.

 "Six centuries ago."

 The bounty hunter blinked. "Talk about long memories..."

 The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "A mere drop in the bucket."

 "Sounds a bit like where I grew up, " Wil decided. "Out in the boondocks and all..."

 The Doctor's head snapped up, from where he'd spent the last few moments staring at a red splotch on the carpet, and he smiled broadly, taking on a mischievous air.. "Still, it's an exciting time for them right now. I doubt they'll remember about us until the morning -- let's sneak out. We can find Angela, then sneak back in time for the Second Council of Soviets, later this evening. We can hear Trotsky speak..."

 A noise at the door belied the Doctor's sudden, forced enthusiasm. The knob turned as the door creaked open.

 It was Stalin. His eyes slid over the three prisoners, then alighted on the Doctor, who looked back at him, expressionless.

 "I would speak with you, Doctor, the Georgian said flatly. "Come with me."

 "I was rather enjoying the view here." The Doctor turned away towards the window, disinterested.

 The faintest *click* of a pistol trigger. The Doctor turned back to look, weary with the predictability of it all.

 Wil was calm but pale. With his self-protective ways, he'd always been able to quickly suss out the most dangerous people around him, and his personal 'safety alarm' was in full alert now. Jadi stood with a hard look of instinctive antipathy on his face, caught and frozen in the act of taking a step towards the revolutionary leader.

 "But, as you ask *so* politely..." The Doctor walked to the door and through as Stalin stepped aside to let him pass.

 There was no sign of life, no children waiting, no faces peering out of the windows.

 No expectations.

 Steeling herself, she pushed open the exterior door and stepped within.

 They passed down the hall and around a corner. Down a staircase, and into another long, dusty corridor in a less-used part of the old school.

 "Stop."

 The Doctor did so, then started to turn.

 "I did not say to turn around."

 The Doctor stood, waiting.

 A few moments of silence, then a hand clamped itself onto the Doctor's right shoulder, violently wrenching him around. "Who *are* you?!" the revolutionary demanded.

 The Doctor looked calmly back at the man. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

 Eyes narrowed. A hand reached forward to wrench at the Doctor's marred coat. "You were wounded -- what happened to the wound?!"

 The Doctor winced. "It's still there. But I'm a fast healer."

 "Perhaps I should try again."

 The Doctor regarded Stalin with equanimity. "Did what I say earlier bother you so very much?"

 "What bothers me is you and your associates, slinking around, mocking us and spying on us!"

 The Doctor smiled sadly. "Mocking you? No. You've already won, Koba. The Bolsheviks will take power."

 The Georgian said nothing, eyes blazing, frozen by that old, old nickname from his youth.

 "You really just wanted to be a hero." The Doctor sighed, shaking his head. "If you had only been inspired by some other, less ruthless character from that story... I wonder... Well, no matter, now."

 "Yes, Doctor," Stalin replied very calmly. "No matter now." He gestured at the empty hallway stretching ahead. "Move."

 The Doctor noted the icy control that had descended over the Bolshevik leader. Something had been decided. As he turned and began to walk, he suddenly recalled something from a book not yet written. An Englishman named Orwell, inspired in large part by the man standing behind him, would write one of the great classics of 20th century dystopic fiction.

 Something about how it always happened when you least expected it, when you were walking down a corridor.

 The bullet to the head.

 The Doctor stopped. Some small, unidentifiable noise came from behind him.

 "If you're going to kill me yourself in cold blood, Josef, you'll have to do it to while facing me." The Doctor composed himself, then slowly turned.

 To Be Concluded.

 *Trotsky recorded this as being quoted by Lenin early on October 26. (Referring to the Bolshevik's sudden, successful seizing of power).

 ** "I don't know where she is; sorry."

 *** "She's called Angela Ferris." (Literally: "Her they call Angela Ferris.")