'I suppose you've had a nice rest?' he asked me, his voice full of ironic concern. I sat up. It was morning. I was back aboard my bus.

The Doctor was immaculate. His grey cravat was neatly tied, his hair was swept back and l.u.s.trous. Not even the nap of his green velvet coat was disturbed. He'd been using the dark watch of the night to spruce himself up a little.

Meanwhile, I was a wreck.

I told him that I couldn't remember a single thing about getting here. The last thing in my head was our being in the parliament of birds in the canopy of the forest... and then maybe something about climbing down the burning branches of the trees as the branches were gobbled up by flames behind me... and clouds of smoke... and something maybe about an android, smooth and aloofly beautiful, its organic heart held dripping in a golden chalice.

'Well,' he said.'It's all been happening here while you had your nap.'

I struggled to sit up again. The Doctor is such a soft touch, sometimes.

All I had to do was look a little more feeble than I actually was, and he was eating out of my hand. 'Um... shall we do that funny mind-melding thing and update each other by telepathy?'

The Doctor smiled uneasily, as if this was my way of making a move on him. He needn't have worried, though: I felt far too dishevelled for any such thing.

He came and stood by me, and we became silent, intense - and, in a flash, I saw everything that had gone on around poor old unconscious me. Angela, the bears, the tiny cackling woman in the jar. And I could feel the Doctor probing at me for answers. I let him know that I'd taken my psychic trip and partially smuggled myself off to spy on the Scarlet Empress.

Minutes later, when we disengaged, he looked grave. I was surprised that the first thing he mentioned wasn't my little astral trip.

'You're really very seriously ill, aren't you?'

I nodded. My mouth was suddenly dry. I asked him to go and put the kettle on. He did so, worriedly, and I called after him. 'It's this old body.

I've been in it for too long. But you know how attached you can become.

I just got used to the feel of her. I've run the poor old thing into the ground.'

He settled the pot on the little table and thoughtfully warmed his hands.

He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. Something else new about this Doctor. 'It's funny,' he said at last. 'How, in the end, you can decide you're quite fond of an earlier self.'

'Do they talk to you sometimes?' I'd wanted to ask him this for a while.

Back home this would be seen as a rather tasteless question. Somewhat rude, probably blasphemous. On Gallifrey, regeneration is treated just as s.e.x is on Earth.

'Well,' he said. 'Sometimes. Always knowing better than me. I'm known, among my predecessors, as the young chap. The new boy.' He looked at the teapot. "The tea boy.'

'I can't say I'm looking forward to having this current self as an interiorised voice badgering the future me. She's quite a harridan, isn't she?' He grinned. 'When I become her, the next one I mean, you'll look out for her, won't you? And show her the ropes?'

'Of course. This illness of yours, will you shake it off when you regenerate?'

'I hope so.'

'What is it?'

'Oh...' I could feel myself turning evasive. 'I had high tea with a Draconian prince in his mansion keep in the mountains. For the sake of manners I took the challenge of eating raw, still-live Kaled mutant from the sh.e.l.l. A tiny, beautiful jade flesh. My own stupid fault. I should have known they would be poisonous.'

'And that's caused all this? There's nothing you can -'

I wondered how much to tell him. Suddenly I saw that he'd realised something. His eyes went wide. Beautiful eyes.'She's going to cure you, isn't she?'

'Who?' I poured the tea, looking away.

'You've made a bargain with the Scarlet Empress. And you think she can cure you.'

'You're too quick, Doctor.'

'Iris, if you'd just come clean in the first place... I've been worried about you.'

'You? Worried about me?'

He bristled.'I'm a terrible worrier.'

'Hmm.Well, yes, that's the bargain.'

'She'll help you if you bring back these peculiar characters, Gila and Angela and so on.'

I nodded. 'It's all a bit of an ordeal.'

'And is it to do with that jar Angela showed me? That wizened old lady inside the jar?'

"That's the one.' Our voices were low and conspiratorial.

'Who is it, Iris?'

'It's her grandmother. Her great-great-great-grandmother, raised to the nth power. It's her ancestor, stolen from the vaults deep, deep beneath the Scarlet Palace.'

'I see.'

'And we have to get her back.'

'Major Angela won't like any of this.'

I tutted. "That woman's barking mad, by the sounds of it.'

'Perhaps.'

There was a loud rap on the doors of the bus then. Outside, Major Angela was waiting for us. She was in a crisp white uniform and the hairless bears were a.s.sembled all about her. 'I think she wants a word; the Doctor said.

Chapter Twenty-One.

Something Like a Genie

Sam was sitting by the huge hearth in Angela's dining hall. She watched as the Doctor and Iris were led calmly into the room. Beside her Gila gave a grunt of surprise.

'She's up and about again,' he muttered.

Sam dashed over to them.'You're back,' she said to Iris, who gave her a rumpled grin.

'I always manage to get back somehow, dear.'

'You're as slippery as he is.' Sam nodded to the Doctor.

The Doctor glanced about warily, to the other end of the hall, where Angela was settling herself into a simple wooden throne.'Well, Sam,' he said.'What do you think? You've seen more of Major Angela than I have.

What chance do we stand of getting through this intact?'

She shrugged. 'We stand a better one if someone activates the d.u.c.h.ess.' The cyborg stood motionless beside Gila, as if awaiting instructions. Somehow she knew, though, that the d.u.c.h.ess was a law unto herself.

'For the moment,' Iris said,'I think we're rather dependent on Angela's next move. I wouldn't fancy tackling those bears of hers in a fight; The bearded major addressed them then, and the bears corralled the travellers so that they had to stand before her chair.

'My bears are telling me that our woodland estate has been tainted and ravaged by the presence of the Scarlet Guard.'

Iris took it upon herself to be spokesperson. 'I'm afraid that's our fault.

They were chasing us. But only in order to come after you... and what you stole from the Empress a long time ago.'

Angela snorted. Her beard bristled. 'You speak with refreshing honesty, Ms Wildthyme.'

'Professor, actually,' Iris lied, with a broad wink at the Doctor. 'And I speak as I find.'

One of the bears, quivering with reverence, brought the large gla.s.s jar to the Bearded Lady then and set it upon her lap. She stroked the cool sides. The visitors and the bears stared at the indistinct shape of the creature within.

'You have ruined my solitude here,' Angela said.

'It was bound to happen,' spat Gila impatiently. 'She's out to capture and rule the whole world. You know that, Angela. She wants to map it and chart it and keep it one way for ever - her way. There won't be any place left for you to hide.'

'But you led her guards to me,' said Angela in a low, dangerous voice.

'You brought it on yourself!' Gila cried. 'If you hadn't stolen... that thing!'

'Thing!'Angela shouted,grasping the jar to her thickset body.

'Um,' the Doctor broke in. 'I don't think Gila means to sound so disrespectful.'

'Yes I b.l.o.o.d.y do,' he muttered.

For a second the Doctor was stymied, and then an idea struck him.

'Listen, listen, listen,' he burst, with a sudden wave of his arms.

Oh boy, Sam thought.

'Listen, Angela, you're in a bit of a hole here.You know you can't stay here, what with the Empress encroaching and all. And I know you're not one to run way from a confrontation...'

'True,' she purred, stroking beard and gla.s.s jar simultaneously.

'I think you have an opportunity approaching, an opportunity to prove your... valour.'

'Doctor,' she smiled.'Tell me what you're getting at.'

'You said that the person in the jar is your genie, your own friendly spirit.Why don't we ask it what you should do now? Ask it. Should you stay here and fight - or should you come with us to fight the Scarlet Empress on her home turf?'

Major Angela looked delighted at this easy formulation of the Doctor's.

'What's all this fighting talk?' Sam hissed at him.

'Sometimes,' he replied, 'you have to talk to people in their own language.'

'Come on, Angela,' he jeered. 'Consult the genie in your jar.Why don't you let the cat out of its bag?'

Already the bears were shrinking back against the walls of the dining hall. The air had turned peculiarly flat and dull, as if clouds had rolled suddenly across the sky. 'You,' said Angela,'are a wise man, Doctor.'

Then she slid the flat gla.s.s lid off the jar.

Iris gave the Doctor a funny look. 'I hope you know what you're doing.'

'Maybe,' he said.'But isn't it all fascinating?'

From the jar came a column of sulphurous yellow smoke. The room's lights dimmed and the bears set up a terrible noise of agitation.

The visitors stepped back hurriedly as the smoke poured out and a blaze of light occupied the s.p.a.ce between them and Angela.

'It really is a genie,' Sam said.

'Something like it,' said the Doctor.

The light and the smoke began to coagulate. Angela gave a whoop of pure pleasure.

Within the golden yolky cloud, something was solidifying and taking form. The seething gaseousness drew back a little to reveal a rather short woman who was brushing herself down and surveying them with a guarded and somewhat suspicious gleam in her eyes.

In that moment of manifestation she had somehow gained a quite elaborate golden robe and headdress. Sam sniffed and realised that the air smelled of lemons and honeysuckle. The woman swept the headdress off her head, revealing light, honey-coloured curls, and gave an experimental cough.'Can you hear me?'

She shuddered like a wonky TV picture. It was as if she wasn't quite in the same room as everyone else.'Are you getting me?'

The Doctor took it upon himself to speak for them.'What may we call you?'