'Ironic that it's just my body. I can't get the experience at the same time.'

She shrugged. 'Lots of girls like older men,' she said with a feeble grin, but still didn't look directly at him.

He carried on, as if he hadn't heard. 'But, well, Cheynor's bound to get his own ship when we get back to Lightbase now, and he's pretty sure he can get me for his first officer, so long as I can manage it.' He sounded ridiculously cheerful. 'As for this old heap...' He thumped the nearest console. It was a tracking post. McCarran's. 'I'll miss her.'

Ace looked up. She couldn't see him clearly and she knew she was going to have to get out of the bridge, before she went and said or did anything stupid. It was crazy, but she knew she couldn't look at the blue eyes behind his grey quiff or she might end up staying after all.

'I have to go,' she said. 'You know that.'

Strakk rubbed his ear with his good hand. 'Yeah,' he said. 'Yeah, I know. I was just... passing time.'

'The Doctor hates goodbyes. Take one from me for him.'

'Will do.'

'You see ' It was no good. She had to look him in the eye. 'I left him once before, a while ago, when something between us was half-finished. And even if I might end up topping him in a fit of rage, I can't walk out again.'

'I know.'

'I have to find out what he's about. I have to know what's really happening.'

'I know,' he said again.

She realized what he'd said. 'What?'

'I know you're going with the Doctor. He told me.'

Ace could have got angry. But she stored it. Maybe that would make sense later. Once it was really all at an end.

She nodded towards the baby. 'You got charge of him?'

He shrugged. 'I think I'm what they call in loco parentis in loco parentis. Until we trace his family.'

Ace smiled. 'Look after him. Not many people get a second go at life.' She sighed. 'That's why I have to leave in the TARDIS. I could be able to come back and see you. But with him I only get one chance.'

Strakk seemed to understand.

Professor Rafferty's telephone was designed, he said, not to go off between twelve midday and two o'clock in the afternoon. It was what he called a lunchtime guarantee.

The Professor was serving the Doctor a plate of his finest Parma ham and bean salad. Tom, in the other armchair in the study, was already well into his.

The Doctor was trying to explain something to Tom, with the aid of drawings on table napkins. 'You see, the force-field on its own wouldn't have been enough.'

'Why not?' Tom asked.

'The Garvond would simply have re-absorbed the energy and fired it back out with redoubled force. No, I had to rely on Q4's defences having been patched in by the time I had the Garvond trapped, where I wanted it. Where it couldn't use its power.' He heaved a deep sigh and leaned back. 'Poor Romulus. If I'd been there, of course, I could have shown him and Vaiq how to set it up on remote.'

'Helina was quite upset,' ventured Rafferty, passing the Doctor a knife and fork.

'Yes,' said the Doctor quietly. 'She'll get over it.'

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

'Pleased to see you've got your appetite back, young Mr Cheynor,' said Rafferty dourly as he poured the Darjeeling.

The Doctor looked up from his first forkful. 'Voracious eating is perfectly normal in humans who've recently been possessed by alien entities, James. Replaces lost salt and protein. Take it from me.'

Tom nodded happily, and made indistinct noises of agreement.

'What, ah,' Rafferty ventured, handing the Doctor his cup of tea, 'what exactly did did happen to him?' happen to him?'

'Ask him,' said the Doctor. 'He talks. Volubly,' he added with feeling, remembering Tom's incessant admiration of the TARDIS on their way back to twentieth-century Oxford.

Tom waved his fork in the air. 'It's fascinating, Professor.' He embarked on the same explanation which the Doctor had given him earlier. 'I was a channel between two unstable points in the space-time Vortex where the Time Soldiers were breaking through. And my link with the future was my great-to-the-power-of-something grandson, the acting captain chappie on the Icarus Icarus who I was who I was forbidden forbidden to talk to, I might add.' Tom glowered at the Doctor, who smiled inscrutably. to talk to, I might add.' Tom glowered at the Doctor, who smiled inscrutably.

Rafferty sat down in his favourite chair. 'As usual, with the Doctor,' he said, 'nothing really makes sense when you look at it. I mean, you took those Survey Corps chaps home to base, in the right time?'

'Of course,' said the Doctor.

'And they were only sent out in the first place,' Rafferty said helplessly, 'to investigate a crisis on Q4.'

'Yes.'

'Which we averted.'

'Yes.'

'So they wouldn't have been sent out!'

'James,' said the Doctor, sipping his tea, 'you'll never progress until you forget all the sensible sensible things you've learnt. Analyzing time-paradoxes from your armchair is like trying to read a book by staring at the dust-cover. Trust me. It works out.' things you've learnt. Analyzing time-paradoxes from your armchair is like trying to read a book by staring at the dust-cover. Trust me. It works out.'

Rafferty shrugged. His hangdog expression seemed to have grown a little longer. 'I'd imagine all this has to be kept under wraps? People notice notice eccentrics who claim to have travelled in Time.' eccentrics who claim to have travelled in Time.'

'Even in Oxford?' asked the Doctor innocently.

'And another thing, Doctor I've got to try and tell the Vice-Chancellor exactly why the President appears to have taken extended leave without notice.'

The Doctor leaned back in Rafferty's chair. He might have been smiling 'Ah, yes,' he said. 'Epsilon Delta. You know, I think it's sad when a Time Lord doesn't realize he's as susceptible to Time as anyone. The Garvond offered him some sort of deal... energy to revitalize his TARDIS, and then power over Earth and Gallifrey. He was convinced, by his own ego, that he was the Garvond's equal in the plan, when actually he was a pawn all along. One of his aliases, one he'd set up almost casually, was the Home Office Minister. It struck me when I had a good look at the photograph in the paper. And so all that time, the time-disruption that the President was plotting was his own assassination.'

'So he's dead?' Rafferty asked.

The Doctor spread his hands. 'He and Amanda fulfilled their purpose for the Garvond. They were disposed of, like everything else in the Garvond's way.'

'Am I meant to tell the Vice-Chancellor that?'

'I'm sure you'll think of something.'

'Hmm,' said Rafferty, and lapsed into a moody silence over his tea.

Tom leaned over to the Doctor. 'What's up with him?' he whispered.

The Doctor smiled. 'He's already said goodbye to Benny. I think that might have something to do with it.'

Bernice was sitting in the reading room of the Taylorian, deep in a copy of Sur Racine Sur Racine by Barthes. Even allowing for her fairly recent acquisition of pre-expansionist French, she wasn't all that impressed so far. by Barthes. Even allowing for her fairly recent acquisition of pre-expansionist French, she wasn't all that impressed so far.

She sighed, put the book down on the pile beside her, which consisted of a copy of Don Quixote Don Quixote and a paperback, and a paperback, 500 Exciting Recipes with Root Vegetables 500 Exciting Recipes with Root Vegetables, that she'd found there on the table.

She took out a coin from her pocket, studied it. The head of the Queen, the year, 1993, and the words Decus Et Tutamen Decus Et Tutamen on the side. Tom had told her earlier that one of those could buy you two-thirds to three-quarters of a pint of bitter, or two packets of biscuits, or one-thirteenth of a compact disc. It was about to buy her something else. on the side. Tom had told her earlier that one of those could buy you two-thirds to three-quarters of a pint of bitter, or two packets of biscuits, or one-thirteenth of a compact disc. It was about to buy her something else.

Benny flicked the coin into the air, watching it spin through the dusty sunbeams. It reached optimum height, and began to fall.

This time, it was Ace who was standing by the pond in the Botanical Gardens. She was polishing an apple on her leather jacket. The shadow of a question-mark fell over her, and then the umbrella itself was planted in the gritty path at her feet.

'Reflections,' said the Doctor. 'They make you think backwards.'

She shrugged. 'They overestimated themselves. Didn't know their own strength could be turned against them.'

'Teamwork defeated them. Ours. Not that I'd get you to admit that just now... Anyway, that's not all I meant. The Time Soldiers were humanoids, once, you know. Or you'd guessed.' He held up a hand. 'No, don't say anything. Earth people, Gallifreyans, Tharils. Voyagers salvaged from the flotsam of Time, turned into ghosts. Shadows of themselves.' He tried to peer at her expression, frustrated as ever. 'That bothers me. It certainly ought to bother you.'

'They were evil,' she said, her voice flat. 'I saw what they did to Quallem and the others. They deserved to die.'

The rooks cawed high in the trees, and buses chugged in the High Street.

The Doctor took a deep breath of the November air again. 'Well, now I'm here... Out of all great evil must come something good, as someone said once. No, the Time Soldiers were pawns. The Garvond, that was an artificial creation. A creature feeding in all that was hated, feared. Nourished on minds from the Panotropic net and born through... a mistake.'

'You mean you thought you'd destroyed it.'

'Did I say that?' The Doctor pondered his reflection for a moment. 'Rather that I'd prevented it from coming into being. By removing something rather vital from the Net when I ' He stopped. There were things which not even Ace was yet ready to be told. 'Well, never mind when,' he muttered a little grumpily.

The Librarian looked up sharply at the clattering sound.

Bernice made a gesture of apology, before looking at the coin.

Heads it was, then.

She returned the books, descended the stone staircase to the busy street, and headed back to St Matthew's.

There, in the quad where it had been left, the TARDIS was waiting for her.

There was silence for a moment in the gardens.

'It shouldn't have happened, you know,' he said.

Ace seemed irritated by his continued presence. She chomped into her apple.

'I knew you'd ask me what,' he said. 'Shuffling the pages of history, that's what.'

'Which you never do, of course,' said Ace indistinctly.

'This is different,' snapped the Doctor. 'First that alternative Earth with the Silurians, and then this. Those breakthroughs from a time-shift in Oxford shouldn't have happened. Nor should the Garvond's reactivation. Not if everything was as I left it. Not if everything was as I left it.'

'Everything where?'

'In my past.'

There was another silence, broken only by Ace's munching.

'A pattern's emerging, Ace. Someone's playing games. Only this time I haven't been explained the rules.' The Doctor drew air in through his teeth. 'I may have to invent my own. Something that can control the Garvond can't be a fair player.' He turned to go. 'What are you doing now?'

'I'm going to the Queen's Lane coffee-house. Tom's promised me breakfast.'

'Don't be too long. We leave within the hour.'

He strode away, his mind a whirl of thoughts.

This time, the Doctor had cleared parking permission with the Head Porter, provided that he didn't use the grass.

He stroked the paintwork of the police box affectionately. 'Things will go better,' he murmured. 'You'll see.'

He took the key out and inserted it into the lock. We are both old, he thought. An Earth saying had come into his mind 'Something old, something new...' How did it go after that? Then he remembered, with the result that he was wearing a broad smile when he entered the console room.

Bernice was perched on a turned-around chair, reading A Brief History of Time A Brief History of Time. A piece of wrapping paper and a ribbon were discarded on the floor at her feet. She glanced up as the Doctor entered and placed his hat on the time rotor.

'Ace coming?'

'Soon. Talk amongst yourself.' He was inspecting an upraised panel in the console.

Benny placed the book aside. 'What's your your excuse?' she asked suddenly. excuse?' she asked suddenly.

'Hmm?'

'The Garvond creature was a distillation of evil. You said so yourself. Sounds like it didn't have much of a free will struggle about killing, you know, no conscience and all that. Bit like the Daleks. But what about humans, and you?'

'You're implying,' the Doctor said, 'that we know better, yet we still do it.' He answered wearily, as if he had been expecting something like this.

'That's rather astute. I saw them die, you didn't. Did we have the right to do that to them?'