'You know, it's not too late to give you a shot. I can send for the orderlies.'

'Why? I'm remaining calm. I'm answering your questions.'

'True. But maybe with these fanciful dreams of yours suppressed, you'll feel like answering them truthfully.'

'I'm not dreaming. Wanna know why?'

Tyko sighed and pa.s.sed a hand over his eyes. 'Tell me why, Mr Harkness.'

'Captain. And the reason I'm not dreaming is that I don't have have to dream because I made all to dream because I made all my my dreams come true. You're so keen to know about my childhood well, guess what I wanted to be when I was a kid? A bigtime crook! I wanted the romance, the glamour, the adventure, the thrill of the chase. And you know what? I got all that, but better.' dreams come true. You're so keen to know about my childhood well, guess what I wanted to be when I was a kid? A bigtime crook! I wanted the romance, the glamour, the adventure, the thrill of the chase. And you know what? I got all that, but better.'

'Even if I believed you, Mr Harkness '

'Captain.'

'Even if I believed you, it would not justify your actions. You've no right to spread such stories to the populace. The truth can be as harmful as a lie if it's so far beyond the experience of the listener that it seems like one to him.'

'Yeah, I get that, I do. So take the cameras into my ship. We'll broadcast the evidence to the world, let them see for themselves. Come on, Cal. You think I've harmed all these people, so let me put things right. Show them the pictures, then they won't have to imagine them, will they?'

'That is quite impossible. I simply don't have the authority '

'No, I'll just bet you don't cos that's the last thing you want, isn't it? You, the police, the media... You tell everyone that fiction is dangerous, but the truth is you just don't want them to think about anything anything they don't have, whether it's real or not.'

'And why do you think that might be, Mr Harkness?' asked Tyko primly.

'To keep them down, in their place. You might not have a government, but I'll just bet there's someone getting very rich and fat somewhere, while the rest of you accept your lot and don't ask for more.'

'You've met some of our other guests. Did they seem rational to you? Did they seem connected? What about the gentleman who was brought in with you? What about him, Mr Harkness?'

'I've told you, it's Captain. And... OK, I don't know. Maybe you're doing something to them. Maybe...'

Tyko had hit on the flaw in Jack's argument, the very point on which his faith had become more and more shaken ever since 'Hal Gryden' had turned out to be a phoney.

'You must realise how paranoid you sound.'

'So I don't have it all worked out yet but I know one thing. I know there's nothing wrong with having a dream.'

'And that's what you've been doing, isn't it, Mr Harkness? Dreaming. Picturing what's not there, what is not real to you. Maybe you've been reading about the s.p.a.ce pioneers and ignoring the warnings, imagining what it would have been like to have flown with them. Or perhaps you've been watching Static. You've been using the right side of your brain, haven't you, Mr Harkness? And you know the right side is the wrong side.'

Somehow, without his words or mannerisms having become any less polite to a fault, Tyko seemed to have become a far more sinister presence.

'What about you?' asked Jack, in a more reasonable tone. 'You must hear stories like mine every day. If fiction's so scary dangerous, how do you cope?'

'Mental discipline, Mr Harkness.'

'I can do that too.'

Tyko glared at him suspiciously.

'Tell me a lie,' said Jack, 'any lie, and I'll show you I can disbelieve it.'

Tyko nodded thoughtfully. 'I suspect that might be the truth.'

Jack leaned forward eagerly. 'Then you accept it can happen? That there are people out there who can can tell the difference between fact and fiction without your drugs or your "mental discipline"?' tell the difference between fact and fiction without your drugs or your "mental discipline"?'

'In rare cases,' Tyko admitted. He reached for a vidphone and punched in three digits. 'And that being being the case,' he continued, 'I think we can treat you a little differently from our usual guests, Mr Harkness.' the case,' he continued, 'I think we can treat you a little differently from our usual guests, Mr Harkness.'

'That's Captain,' said Jack.

They came for him in the corridor.

He'd thought Tyko was taking him back to the common room, but suddenly there were orderlies swarming all over him. Before he knew it, he'd been manhandled onto a trolley and they were strapping him down.

'What's going on?' he protested.

'You've convinced me, Mr Harkness,' said Tyko, as politely as ever. 'You've convinced me that you aren't fantasy crazy.'

'And?'

'And that means your crimes were committed not in a state of confusion but with premeditated malicious intent. You cannot be helped, Mr Harkness but our laws do allow us to act in the interests of the public, to ensure that you don't offend again.'

'What's that meant to mean?' cried Jack, struggling against his bonds.

'Surgery, Mr Harkness. We are going to burn out the part of your right brain that allows you to visualise, and sever its connection with your language centre on the left. And, as this is a relatively simple procedure and a theatre is available, we are going to carry out the operation immediately. Cheer up, Mr Harkness. Look on the bright side. The average stay of a patient in our facility is three months and two weeks. You'll be free within the hour.'

ELEVEN.

Rose fidgeted impatiently as her taxi hovered in a queue of traffic. Over the past hour she'd come to the conclusion that it would have been quicker to walk, but at least the taxi driver knew where she was going.

Or rather, her cab's navigation system did. Every few seconds, it relayed an instruction in a clipped, female tone, occasionally adding a warning, 'Please do not attempt to visualise this route.'

The driver thumped her horn in frustration, swore loudly and revved her hoverjets so that gravel chips flew up from the road to spatter the windows.

None of these aggravations mattered, though, because the Doctor was back.

Just the sight of him, sitting alongside her, made Rose smile. She still had that flaming itch in the back of her brain, somewhere to the right, but she wasn't confused any more. The Doctor made everything seem clear.

She'd felt a bit guilty about abandoning Domnic, but the Doctor had insisted. 'He's another Mickey,' he had said, 'or an Adam. Like most of the apes that evolved from your planet. He wouldn't cope.' Rose had been torn, as she always was when he said things like that, between feeling slighted at the insult to her species and flattered because he had made her an exception.

He had soon cheered her up. She had laughed at his efforts to flag down a cab, jumping, waving, even haring out into the roadway and hammering on the windscreen of one that was stuck at a junction. It was as if the drivers couldn't see him. As if he was invisible. She had stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled and a black vehicle had pulled up straight away.

'Where's it to be?' the driver had asked from the other side of her gla.s.s part.i.tion as they'd climbed into the back.

'Where are we going, Doctor?' Rose had mumbled.

'Big White House,' he'd said.

'Eh? Didn't catch that. Speak up, luv.'

'The Big White House,' Rose had repeated loudly.

'So what's the plan?' she asked the Doctor now.

'Depends what we find when we get there.'

'But the usual, yeah? Beat the monsters, put things right, set everyone free.'

He grinned. 'Oh yeah.' And he took her by the hand, and she felt electricity flowing through her body, and she was grinning too.

'So why the Big White House?' she asked.

'No government,' he said, 'so who d'you think is keeping the people down, enforcing the status quo?'

'The police?'

'Guess again.'

Rose thought for a moment. 'The media. The newspapers and the TV.'

'Bingo!'

'Like on Satellite Five.'

'If you like.'

'Is that what's happening? Is it the Jagrafess again?'

'Doubt it. Wrong time period. Anyway, when we last saw the Mighty Jagrafess of the Hadroumsomething Maxawhatchamacallit, he was cooked meat. Doesn't mean he was the first alien monster to cotton on to the power of the human media.'

'As a brainwashing tool, right?'

'As a means of spreading ideas, reinforcing a selective viewpoint. The question is, whose ideas? Whose viewpoint? If the media controls the people, who controls the media?'

'Bet Hal Gryden knows.'

'I'll bet he does. He's playing the official channels at their own game. S'pose he knows what he's doing. I prefer the direct approach myself.'

'The TV studios,' realised Rose. She thought for a moment, then looked at the Doctor. 'Only, that's not where we're going...'

It took him a moment to answer. Maybe he was just giving her time to work it out for herself. 'There are too many studios, too many publishing companies, too many people between us and the real power. This way's faster. If you want to find a tyrant, follow the dissidents.'

'To the Big White House.'

'That's where they take the people who still dare to dream. That's where some of them learn to toe the line, and the others... Well, let's see.'

'Big White House,' said the taxi driver in a surly tone, bringing them to a halt on a surprisingly quiet road. 'And I hope you've come to check yourself in, luv. All that talk of satellites and jagra fish...'

'Oi,' said Rose, 'that was a private conversation. You weren't meant to be listening.'

'Couldn't help hearing your side of it, luv. That'll be two credits thirty.'

The Doctor dug out his card wallet. 'I think this explains everything,' he said, flashing it in the driver's direction. She said nothing, just continued to glower at Rose. The Doctor looked chagrined. 'Psychic paper's not working, Rose.'

'Well, try something else,' she whispered, squirming under the driver's glare.

'Two credits thirty,' she repeated sternly.

'Haven't you got any money?'

'Hadn't really thought,' said the Doctor.

'Oh, that's enough!' snapped the driver, starting the engine again. 'I knew I shoulda left you standing one look and I could tell you were fantasy crazy. Well, you're coming back to the depot with me, luv. We'll sort this out there, give you a proper taste of reality.'

'Doctor! What do we do?'

'When all else fails, Rose... leg it!'

They reached for the doors but at that moment Rose heard the solid thunks of safety locks engaging, and the taxi's engines screamed as it sped away from the kerb with an acceleration that pushed her back into her seat. Simultaneously, a steel shield slid down in front of the driver's part.i.tion.

'Sonic screwdriver!' cried Rose.

'Out of juice,' said the Doctor. 'I've been meaning to recharge the power pack.'

'Fat lot of use you're being today!'

He was hammering on the window in his door with both fists, to no avail.

'Here, brace me!' said Rose, twisting around in her seat until she could attack the window next to her with her feet. The driver let out a cry of protest as her third doubleheeled kick did the trick. She manoeuvred herself back into a sitting position and knocked shards of gla.s.s out of the frame with her elbow.

The taxi took a corner wide and came up against another traffic jam. While it was stalled, Rose reached through the broken window and fumbled for the handle outside. To her relief, the door gave, and she and the Doctor spilled out onto the pavement.

'You won't get away with this, you crazy geek!' the taxi driver was screaming. 'I've got your DNA on my seat, I'll find you!'

They raced back in the direction of the Big White House, a stream of curses ringing in their ears.

'You sure you can do this?' asked the Doctor dubiously.