'Now, I'll just go over the basics. You might have heard this before, so stop me if I'm going a little slow, all right?' He continued, "The planets in your system seem to have been suffering from what in layman's terms can be described as anomalous gravitic behaviour, a more precise definition of which might be that the quantum ma.s.s-temporal event which is the star Bel - that is your sun - is in fact currently undergoing translocation along, as far as I can see, eleven... hmm, no, wait a minute, is it eleven...?' The Doctor did some quick adding up on his fingers. 'Yes, at least eleven of its transdimensional axes, which of course has the rather unfortunate effect of rendering its relationship with its immediate current-real-s.p.a.ce environment -to whit, your solar system - somewhat... er, inconvenient, shall we say? Yes,' he went on, without stopping for breath, 'let's call it inconvenient, because that's what it is. Thousands dead, millions more homeless, one moon destroyed and an entire planet devastated by tidal waves you could float a continent on. Now where was I? Oh yes, the situation being what it is, and given that you do not have interstellar s.p.a.ce travel, and also given that it would be impossible to convert enough ships to interstellar travel to take even a meagre fraction of your populations to safety in the time available, I would therefore hazard a guess that the projected life expectancy of your solar system and therefore every living soul in it is in the order of, oh, say, at a rough guess... well... next Friday.'

Silence.

The Doctor frowned.

'You do have Fridays, don't you?' He paused, pulled out his fob watch, flipped it open, shook his head, snapped it shut and put it away. 'Sorry,' he grinned. 'Silly of me. I mean Quarnday. Next Quarnday.'

There was instant pandemonium.

'Yes, yes, I know about all that. Just... no, if you'd just... I can a.s.sure you there's no need to... oh for goodness' sake will you just shut up for a moment! .'

Silence again.

"Thank you. There. That's better. Now we can all hear ourselves think. With or without ears. Now. Where was I? Oh yes. Saving your solar system. In case you were wondering, I think it's possible. We have to stabilise your star of course, and that's a big job. Also, we can't do it until we know what the cause of its current somewhat irritable temper is. So in the meantime I have taken the liberty of installing a gravitic stabiliser in orbit around your planet. Now this is a device that has the ability to instantly detect gravitic fluctuations above a certain magnitude and generate a cancelling wave form of its own in the surrounding area of local s.p.a.ce. It's a bit complicated but I can show you how to make them, and then you can install them in orbit around the inhabited planets and moons of your solar system. Of course it's not a permanent solution - if your sun goes nova or simply ceases to exist in this dimension that's pretty much that - but it will buy us a small amount of breathing s.p.a.ce to sort out what we might be able to do about it in the meantime.' The Doctor punctuated his speech with his first breath. 'Now then, in order to smooth things over and generally chivvy things up a bit IVe taken the liberty of devising a set of work groups. President s'Vufu will head one. First Elect Delaltnil of the Hanakoi, if you could head the second, that would enable us to get started on the two main areas, that is to say, investigating the cause of the problem and devising a solution.'

He added quickly, to forestall any of the more obvious protests, 'Yes I know what you're going to say. There are many theories as to what is wrong with Bel: the wrath of G.o.d, the wrath of an invading alien species, the wrath of nature rebelling against five hundred years of dumping biological waste by s.p.a.ceship into the sun; you've both already got enough responsibilities, children and dirty linen to seriously increase the ma.s.s of a modest-sized singularity - but this is important. The most important thing you will ever have to do. You have to prioritise. Or die. It's really that simple.' He hesitated for just long enough to fish in his pockets before extracting a rather damp and bedraggled lily.'Um,' he said, 'I don't suppose anyone knows where one might obtain some reasonably priced plant food?'

Sam groaned. When was he going to learn to grow up? The Doctorclaimed he was several centuries older than she was, yet he was behaving like a little kid; a rich kid, with too much money and no common sense, abandoned by irresponsible parents to amuse himself at the expense of the local townsfolk. When was he going to learn? You didn't earn respect by being irresponsible.

Beside Sam in the gallery there was a small commotion. "There he is! Sehnadi! My G.o.d, there he is! He's safe!'

Sam turned, feeling a warm sensation in her stomach. She shivered. Someone had found someone they thought was lost. There was some good in the world after all. The speaker was a middle-aged man accompanying a slightly younger woman. They were moving towards her. She shuffled aside to let them pa.s.s. They changed course, arrowing in on her through the gallery. No, not on her. Danny. They were looking at Danny.

His parents.

She blinked. They stopped beside her, faces lined with concern, reaching out to touch their child's sleeping face. Then Sam frowned. How did she know who they were?

"Thanks. Thank you so much,' said the man. I don't know what... we thought we'd lost him... oh, G.o.d, he's safe...'

Sam hesitated. 'Er, yes, quite,' she said as she marshalled her thoughts.'And you are?'

'Oh, I'm sorry. This is Masari and I'm Denelden. Masari and Denelden Oleen. We're Sehnadi's parents. And you found him. Thank you so much... Miss... ?'

'Just Sam, Denelden. But look. Sorry to ask you this but... well... how do I know you're who you say you are, or that Danny here is who you say he is? Do you have any ID?'

'Our pa.s.sports were stolen. We have temporary ID from the Hanakoi Administration.We have dual citizenship you see. But... well, we don't have a picture of Sehnadi. It was stolen along with our baggage.'

"Then how do I know you're his parents?'

There was a puzzled silence.

Sam waited.

The puzzlement changed to anger.

'What?' Masari asked, shocked.

'When I found Danny he was injured. He'd been abandoned. We got caught in a riot. He was crushed, he nearly died. I didn't go through all that just to hand him over to a couple of strangers. I mean, if you really were his parents you wouldn't thank me for being that irresponsible would you? Not after saving his life?'

Masari shivered. 'What do you mean, crushed ? Nearly died ? What do you mean ? What have you been doing with my child? Den, call the Peace Corps now. Get them here now. This woman is a raving lunatic!'

'Now, wait a minute,' said Denelden. 'If they were caught in the refugee riot, anything could have happened. You know what it was like in there. Let's hear her out.'

Sam was shaking herself by this time. The people in the gallery had opened up around them, leaving them slightly more s.p.a.ce than was really comfortable.

'Well?'

'Oh. Well, I found Dan-I found Sehnadi in a fuel hatch. His leg was... I don't know, it could have been broken. There was blood. He couldn't walk.' Masari caught her breath. Denelden was chewing his lower lip distractedly. Sam continued, 'I couldn't leave him there. I picked him up. Tried to get to the administration building. He needed medical help.'

'And?'

'We got caught in a fight... a kind of mini-riot. Someone was hurt. There was a man with a knife. The crowd was too much... I fell... Danny was trampled - I'm sorry. He was badly injured. Dying.'

'I don't understand. If that was the case how -'

"There was a man. Eldred Saketh. He's a priest. He... I don't know. He saved Danny. He gave him something to eat and... Danny got well again. Saketh saved his life.'

'How?'

'I don't know! I saw Saketh on the moon of Belannia VI. He stood unprotected in a vacuum and didn't die. He says he can live for ever. For heaven's sake, he says he's immortal and now Danny is too. I'd have thought you'd have been grateful!'

Sam realised her voice was near a shout when Danny stirred in her arms and began to wake. He blinked sleepily, looked up at Sam.'Mum,' he said. His little face tilted to look at Masari.'Mum!' his voice was a shout and suddenly he was struggling in Sam's arms.'Mum, Dad!'

Sam surrendered the child to his parents. She felt stupid. Really stupid. Her face was burning. Worse, there was a yawning chasm opening up inside her. She felt cold. She clutched her arms about her stomach to try to recover some of the heat of his body.

Denelden said,'Look, we're sorry for the fuss. You understand we were frantic...'

Masari looked up with vicious eyes.'You let a complete stranger perform some religious ceremony on my child. I'm going to have a doctor check him over at the first opportunity and I swear, if there's anything wrong with him, I'll...' She seemed to have difficulty finding words to express herself. 'How could you be so irresponsible ? With our child !'

Sam found herself experiencing a sequence of emotions that left her numb. She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Cry at the unfairness of it. Scream for the loss. She felt drained. She reached out to touch Danny's - Sehnadi's - face, to rea.s.sure him, to say goodbye. Masari turned away before she could make contact. Denelden had the grace to look extremely embarra.s.sed. Then they were moving away, Masari without a backward glance, and Sam simply let them go.

She really had lost Danny this time.

She felt a presence beside her. 'b.u.t.terfly lives. Here tomorrow, gone today. I know what it's like.'

Sam turned to the Doctor, drawn by the need for the stability and familiarity he provided in this insane world and yet driven away by his immaturity, at once attracted and repelled by the very qualities she herself sought to outgrow.'Do you?'

A sigh.'More than you could possibly know.'

Sam shook her head. 'You sound just like my dad.'

'I'm sorry. I don't mean to. It's just that... well... we're all scared of admitting things that are important to us. Take me. I was in my early nineties before I could bring myself to admit that I still liked to play with my perigosto stick. The other students ribbed me mercilessly about that for... oh at least a haltcentury or so.'

Sam smiled tearfully.'What did you do?'

'Oh... I justbounced back '.

Sam looked blank. The Doctor said,'Perigosto stick... er... pogo stick. That's it. Pogo stick. Bounced back. It's a pun.'

'I know.' Sam tried to keep the disappointment from her voice. It wasn't easy.

'Surgeon Major Conaway and I are going to Belannia XXI. Apparently there's a big military dump there. The Belannians have been chucking their biological and chemical weapons into their sun for some decades now. I want to see if there's a correlation between that and the gravitic anomalies.'

'How can there be a link between germs and gravity?'

'Occam's Razor. "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."'

'That's a cliche.'

'Only if it's true. I have a little saying of my own. "When you eliminate the improbable, what's left, no matter how impossible, is much more fun." Anyway,' he added brightly, 'we were wondering if you'd like to come with us.'

'No, thanks.' Sam was surprised to find she did not need to think about the answer. "There's some stuff I need to do here.'

'Oh?'

'I can't explain. You wouldn't understand.'

'Oh?'

'Yes.'Why did she suddenly feel on the defensive?

'Because I'm a man and you're a woman?'

'Yes, actually.'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows.'But I'm not a man.'

Sam opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.

He continued,'I'm not even human. Not even close. Not unless you count the ears.' He wiggled them to make his point. Then he handed Sam a large, brown, leather bag. It looked very much like an okHashioned doctor's bag, the kind you might see in a bad TV series.

'What's this?'

'Oh, just some stuff I thought you might need. Saving planets is a risky business.' He looked at her probingly.'Sam?'

Sam refused to look at the Doctor and join in with his impish grin. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the bag.'Thanks. I'll see you around.'

He nodded. 'I do hope so, Sam.'

Sam didn't trust herself to reply. She turned on her heel and walked away.

The Doctor watched her cross the Parliament gallery, a mixture of gawky elegance, pride, stupidity, stubbornness. All the things that attracted him and that, now he came to think of it, reminded him so much of himself.

A smile played about his lips.

'b.u.t.terfly lives...' he murmured. 'Short, ultimately pointless but spectacularly beautiful.'

He took out the lily from his pocket, drank in its fading beauty for a long moment and then thoughtfully tucked it through the b.u.t.tonhole of his lapel. Celery, he thought. Change, he thought. Fear, pain, death, he thought. Sam, he added to himself after a long moment of consideration, stroking the lily as if to draw comfort from it, and, failing.

Sam stamped angrily down the sweep of main stairs outside the entrance to the Parliament building, sat cross-legged on the edge of the nearest ornamental pond, scooped half a dozen small bits of soil up from the garden and began to throw them angrily at the lilies.

'Thinks he'sso smart.'

Splat!

'Thinks he can wind me round his little finger.'

Splosh!

'Thinks I'm still a ruddykid , I'll bet.'

Ker-plunk!

'Thinks he's being sonice about it.'

Sam bent to scoop another handful of dirt.

'Can't let you do that, I'm afraid.'

Sam straightened up sharply, her face a burning mixture of anger and embarra.s.sment. Standing a short distance away was a small man with bright orange hair and the curiously elongated face of the Hanakoi. Sam frowned. The Hanakoi she had seen so far had been tall. Very, very tall. This fellow came only to her shoulders, or would have done if she had been standing. He was holding a pair of shears.

'Oh, really?' Where had that hideously truculent tone of voice come from? Was it really down to her? 'You can't, eh? And precisely how, may one enquire, do you plan to stop me? a.s.sa.s.sinate me with your hover mower?' Sam shook her head.'Oh please, just go away. I'm trying to sulk.'

'Don't want to go away. Want to look.'

'What?'

'Heard you were an alien. Never seen one.Wanted to come and see for myself. Told there are a lot of them about these days. Thought it was time to move with the times, so to speak. So I came here. To see you. Put off tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a hedge that's got a bit above itself, I did, too, so you better be worth it.'

Sam blinked. 'You've never -' she frowned - 'seen an alien before?'

'No.'

Sam found herself thinking back to the time she spent on Earth before meeting the Doctor.'Well... what d'you reckon then?'

The ginger man shrugged, snapping the blades of his shears together distractedly. 'Dunno what to think really. Thought I'd be impressed. Thought you might be able to fly or something.'

'Fly?'

'Yes.'

'No.'

'oh.'