The Doctor felt the hood being lifted from his head.

'How do you do,' his captor said. 'I am Dr William Hark. Please, call me Bill.'

The car drew inside the gates.

'Marvellous hospital,' said Hark.

'Obscenely used,' the Doctor spat.

He was escorted inside by the soldiers, and taken up several flights of stairs to a huge, empty ward, where his handcuffs were removed.

The soldiers left.

'You have the freedom of this floor,' said Hark. 'The top floor. I shouldn't try to escape, the windows are barred and there's a guard on 149 each side of every door with orders to shoot if you try anything.

Remember, we can still learn a lot from you dead.'

He left, and the Doctor slumped back onto one of the beds.

The anger he had felt earlier at Ace's fate was less acute now, the sadness greater. And the uncertainty. He felt the tangle of the time lines around him, leading him deeper into their appalling net. Was he making things better or worse? He looked around him. Worse, by the look of things.

'Doc?'

His head snapped around, and he smiled.

'Davey...'

Davey O'Brien, in a pair of striped pyjamas.

'You escaped the attack then. Good.'

'We all did, Doc. It was weird no-one had anything but a few bruises. I spent a day in sick-bay, then they sent me here.'

He looked around and shuddered. 'Gives me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s, this place.'

'Yes, said the Doctor. 'I've been here before. Are we the only, uh, patients?'

'There's an old chappie in the next ward. They keep him sedated.

I've never got two words that made sense out of him, poor sod.'

'Why did they bring you here?'

'Don't know. They keep doing tests on me blood tests, word a.s.sociation tests, ink blots... I think it must be some kind of military nut-house. Maybe I cheesed my shrink off.'

'Yes,' said the Doctor slowly 'Dr Hopkins, wasn't it? Would you describe him?'

O'Brien shrugged.

'Old feller, slight, thinning grey hair, very gentle voice. Funny, sort of, slow way of blinking...'

'George Limb,' said the Doctor. 'Everything leads to him, whatever it is he's up to.'

O'Brien raised the transistor radio he was carrying.

'I found this under one of the beds the neatest thing.'

The Doctor frowned. Sony Walkman, circa 1980. It was Ace's. She must have dropped it when they were first here. Its radio crackled quietly in O'Brien's hand.

'What's been happening, Doc? No-one told me anything after the crash. I just heard they're accusing Khruschev of acts of sabotage they're not saying exactly what, of course '

The Doctor let out a sigh of exasperation.

' and Khruschev's accusing us of cooking up warmongering propaganda.'

150.

'And if I can't get anyone to listen to me, this planet is going to blunder into another global orgy of destruction!'

A male nurse pa.s.sed through the ward.

'I need to talk to Dr Hark,' the Doctor muttered. 'Excuse me...'

'Yes?' The nurse smiled, but kept on walking.

'He'll be going to give the old boy his pills,' whispered O'Brien.

The Doctor trotted off after the nurse, past the guards into the next, identical, ward. Again, there was only one patient, in bed, propped half-upright on pillows.

'I need to see Dr Hark,' he said.

The doctor will be doing his late rounds in an hour or so.'

'I don't have an hour or so' The Doctor sounded petulant. He watched as the nurse popped a pill into the old man's sagging mouth and tried to hold a cup of water to his lips.

'Come on,' the nurse said gently. 'I know they catch... There's a good chap...'

He closed the old man's mouth and strode out, smiling at the Doctor as he pa.s.sed. Immediately the Doctor went up to the old man and, slipping his arms behind the man's back, flexed sharply with his fingers. The old man hiccupped and the pill popped up.

'Diazedrine,' muttered the Doctor. A powerful sedative. He popped it into his pocket.

'Uh,' the old man mumbled. 'Uh...'

The Doctor stared deep into the old man's eyes. They were half lidded, vacant and unfocused. Only then did the Doctor recognize him.

Chief Inspector Mullen.

He looked years older, thin and pale.

'h.e.l.lo again, old friend,' the Doctor whispered sadly. 'I'm going to try and sort things out if I can.'

He didn't know how. The formerly doughty policeman looked too frail to move. An escape attempt with him was out of the question.

'Ah yes, you two are old friends, I take it.'

Hark was back.

'What have you done to him?' the Doctor snarled.

'Really, nothing,' Hark replied. 'He's just... given up. I think he wants to die.'

'Then why don't you release him?'

'He knows too much, Doctor. We treat him comfortably.'

'You're keeping him sedated and waiting for him to die!'

'Oh come, come. I find this all rather sanctimonious. If it wasn't for programmes like ours, you yourself wouldn't exist.'

'What exactly is it that you think I am?'

151.

'You're a marvel of genetic engineering. Two hearts, a blood type that contains antibodies that I have never before seen... Who made you?'

'You're wrong,' said the Doctor. 'n.o.body made me. I'm not an augmented human being - the onceit of it!'

'Then what?'

'I am an alien,' said the Doctor. 'I come from a planet called Gallifrey in the galaxy Kasterborous, 29,000 light years from here.'

He could see Hark weighing this up. Hark smiled slightly.

'A little green man from Mars...' His smile broadened. 'Yes, I suppose it would have to be a fairly bizarre cover story to explain your physio-nomy. I'm sorry, but 29,000 light years? I know genetic manipulation is theoretically possible, but travel over that distance... I would like to believe you, really.'

He glanced at his watch.

'They will be around to feed you soon,' he said. 'Try to make yourself comfortable.'

'All right,' said the Doctor. 'I'll tell you what you want to hear. I was made out of slugs and snails and puppy dogs' tails in a laboratory underneath Moscow. I am the next generation of Russian spy, of Russian soldier. And the West doesn't have a prayer!'

Hard had sat back on one of the empty beds.

'Incredible...' he whispered.

'Impossible!' snapped the Doctor. 'Do you believe the Russians could build a living being like me?'

'We've... had access to one of your comrades. Him we understand a man-machine hybrid. Tremendously sophisticated, but the sort of thing we've been working on ourselves. And I've been shown inside your rocket - remarkable.'

'Yes, and that wasn't built by the Russians either! Why won't anybody listen to me? The world is about to slip into a nuclear war Over a complete misunderstanding!'

Hark continued to stare at him. He shook his head.

All right, said the Doctor, 'if you believe that I and the ship are constructs of Russian technology, then surely you must realise that you can't win any war against us. Peace is your only hope. You must take me to the authorities. Please!'

Hark smiled again.

'Not our only hope, I believe, said Hark.

'What do you mean?'

'I believe General Crawhammer has a plan to stop you in your tracks. Then, given time, we'll catch up with you, believe me.

152.

'What plan?' spat the Doctor. 'The only thing that could stop '

He looked hard at Hark.

'A nuclear first strike. That would be the only way...'

'Indeed,' said Hark. 'That would be my guess.'

The Doctor let out a long sigh.

'And you approve?'

'What I think makes no difference,' said Hark. 'Unless I can come up with a valid alternative... If you were to co-operate with me, think how many lives might be spared. But if not... who knows what might happen?'

'Are you a family man, Dr Hark?'

'Certainly am, Doctor. Wife and two beautiful daughters.' He fished a photo from his pocket. 'That was last summer in Broadstairs.'

'Lovely,' said the Doctor. 'Do you really want them to grow up in a nuclear desert? a.s.suming they aren't among the millions who are vaporised when the things fall? The Soviets will respond to any first strike, you know.'

Hark's face darkened. 'I lost my family in the Blitz, Doctor. All of them. My mother and father, two sisters and a brother. Grandparents too. I was away at medical school, studying to save lives, while they were being slaughtered.'

He sounded momentarily angry, then steely.

'I've got a new family now, Doctor, and no enemy's going to take them from me.'

He gazed deep into the Doctor's eyes.

'What are you?' he snarled. 'I'll get to the bottom of you, rest a.s.sured. Even if I have to cut out every organ in your body.'

He strode out. The Doctor turned his attention back to Mullen. He looked close to death. His blankets were raised on some sort of frame over the s.p.a.ce where his legs ought to be.

He wouldn't be here if not for the Doctor's intervention at the bomb-site. Had not he and McBride blundered in there, dragging the walls of reality behind them...