The door opened and Tim virtually fell in.

Dent and Polly shoved him towards the Doctor and fled, leaving the door open.

248.

'Not much room for two is there?' The Doctor edged towards the door, clutching the time vector generator behind his back.

'I thought this was a s.p.a.ceship of sorts?' Tim stared at the metallic blank walls.

'Actually, it's a time/s.p.a.ce capsule. Of sorts,' said the Doctor. And jumped through the door, slamming it shut.

Breathing heavily he tried to relax.

And then staggered as Tim launched himself against the doors from inside. The Doctor looked at the time vector generator. 'Can't keep you out for long, can I, or we'll never repair the damage.' He looked across at the others. 'Dent, Ben, Professor, your strength, please.'

'Typical man,' muttered Mrs Wilding. 'Only men have strength apparently.'

Polly smiled. 'I'm sure the Doctor is right. ' she began.

Mrs Wilding ignored her and went to add her weight to the door.

Inside the TARDIS sh.e.l.l, Tim stopped pounding on the door. 'Say goodbye to your ship, Doctor,' he muttered. Tim opened his mouth and let out what ought to have been a devastating high-pitched shriek. It went nowhere except into the TARDIS walls and bounced back into the centre again.

Atimkos, or Tim as he had let himself be known on Earth, ceased to exist as his own sonic scream separated his atoms from each other and blasted them into nothingness. The whole procedure took less than a second.

'I made an anechoic chamber of the TARDIS exo-sh.e.l.l.

Instead of absorbing sound and then spreading it around, it merely bounced it straight back.'

'Is he dead?' asked Mrs Wilding.

'Yes. I'm rather afraid that the Euterpians are represented only by the two of you now.' The Doctor opened the door and wandered into the TARDIS, followed by Ben. He knelt down and reinserted the time vector generator into a tiny hole in the floor. Instantly the familiar TARDIS console 249 room popped back into existence. 'I do hope nothing got too scrambled,' said the Doctor. 'Polly wouldn't like to find her room at the bottom of the tin-mine, would she?'

'What tin-mine?' asked Ben.

'Oh. Haven't I shown you that?'

'Doctor!' Dent's call stopped them both. 'Polly!' they said together and dashed outside.

Sure enough, Polly was standing in the distance, Aysha holding her in a throat-lock, a stubby hand-blaster aimed at her forehead. Professor Bridgeman was trying to talk Aysha down but to no effect. She was carrying the mechanical RTC unit Aall had brought in her hand.

'Give me the energy globe, girl, or I'll kill you.'

'Why do you want it, Your Majesty? How would you utilize it in your engines? Chosan obviously understood more about the RTC unit than Fraulein Thorsuun realized, but does Chosan know how to convert that amount of energy?'

'Do you really think me that foolish, Doctor? Of course she does. I'd be a very stupid Queen if I took this much power aboard one small ship if I wasn't confident that we could use it safely.'

'Oh. Fair enough.' The Doctor pondered, then smiled. 'All right, Polly. Let her have the globe.'

Polly's eyes widened. 'Doctor!'

'No, honestly, it's all right.' He whispered to Ben, 'Ever played cricket?'

'Not since the fourth form.'

The Doctor slid a cricket ball out of his coat pocket and into Ben's hand. 'All you have to do is knock the globe out of her hand.' The Doctor turned to Dent and Mrs Wilding.

'If one of you would do the honours?'

They both nodded.

The Doctor cleared his throat. 'Right. Well, Queen Aysha, if you'd like to activate your RTC, the link to your ship is still strong. It'll bounce you straight back there - now the coordinates are fed in, you don't need my TARDIS.'

250.

Aysha studied him, weighing her newly acquired energy globe. 'I don't trust you, Doctor. This is too easy.'

The Doctor shrugged. 'That's the problem with world conquerors. You get paranoid so easily. Believe me. I'm not going to hurt you.' The Doctor held his hands out. 'Honest.'

Polly squirmed free and fell into Bridgeman's arms. He smiled at her.

'Now, Ben!' yelled the Doctor.

The cricket ball sped from Ben's hand and struck the globe and was instantly vaporized. But the surprise made Aysha instinctively back away as Dent shrieked, capturing the globe in another sonic net. Quickly he vocally dragged it back to himself.

Aysha stared at the victorious group. And smiled. 'You win, Doctor. Watch your back, though. I'll be watching for you.' She activated the RTC unit and a yellow glow began to envelope her and the machine. Both vanished.

A blast of yellow energy shot upwards into the never-ending whiteness until none of them could see it.

'Report!'

Jodi looked up from tactical. 'Sorry, Commander, but I cannot evade it.'

'Science?' Chosan looked up at Tamora.

'It's energy of some sort, on a direct bearing for us.

Impact in twenty seconds.'

Chosan stared at the bridge crew. Then at Jodi again.

'Blast it. Whatever it is, stop it in its tracks.'

Jodi nodded and fired the ship's weaponry.

Mingled together the two blasts of energy flared briefly but the incoming burst flared brighter, absorbing, enveloping and reversing the ship's firepower.

It sped straight back again.

'd.a.m.n,' muttered Chosan as it hit the ship. There was a flash, and Chosan watched as, almost in slow motion, the interior of the ship sparkled. Webs of yellow energy arced across it, disintegrating sections as it went. Out of the corner of her eye, Chosan saw the immobilized forms of Tamora at 251 science and Tensing drafted into nav were surrounded by the energy as it traced the contours of their bodies and stations. Then they, along with the hull integrity, vanished.

Dimly aware that Jodi at tactical was mewling in pain as the energy killed her, Chosan thought she saw a face etched into the energy arcs that destroyed her.

Queen Aysha, screaming in pain.

The battle-cruiser of the Cat-People flared yellow and exploded into billions of tiny fragments.

Dent stared at Mrs Wilding. Without saying a word, she nodded.

'Return to your TARDIS, Doctor. We will get you to Earth eventually.'

'When?' asked Polly.

'As soon as we can, my dear,' Mrs Wilding replied.

'No, literally when?'

'Now?'

'How about -' Polly glanced at her watch, 'how about yesterday afternoon, just before the Grange was destroyed?'

Mrs Wilding nodded. 'As you wish. Goodbye.'

The Doctor pushed Ben, Polly and Bridgeman into his TARDIS. At the last minute he turned back to the last two Euterpians.

'Are you sure about this?'

Dent nodded. 'We'll be together. Who knows, we might find a physical form as well. Either way, we'll be alive.'

'But trapped, possibly floating around Earth non-corporeally? Is that what you want?'

Mrs Wilding smiled. 'Goodbye, Doctor.'

He looked at them a little sadly. 'Goodbye.'

Seconds later the TARDIS began to dematerialize.

Udentkista kissed Tarwildbaning and let the globe drop.

The white nexus ceased to exist.

The TARDIS rematerialized.

In the Ex-Room.

Inside the Ex-Room, the students were on the floor.

252.

'He's taken the Doctor's book,' Simon was crying but the others could not hear him. The gla.s.s in the window shattered and Carfrae screamed simultaneously. Peter was reaching for the equipment, to try and set up an Ex-Area that might shield them, but with a bang, the electrical components exploded - and a huge blue box appeared between Peter and the console.

'Jesus Christ,' Simon muttered.

A door on the box swung open. 'Simon! Quick! In here!'

'Professor?' yelled Peter.

Ben and Polly ran towards them, Polly helping the shaking Carfrae up. Ben was the last one in just as the Ex-Room, along with the Grange and a large section of the clifftop, were consumed by a ma.s.sive burst of Earth's natural energy.

Ben bit hungrily into his McDonald's burger.

Polly stared at him, disdain on her face. 'You've got tomato sauce on your chin, Ben Jackson.'

Simon, Peter, Carfrae and Professor Bridgeman were at the next table, discussing their plan of action. How to tell the university they were alive. How to explain the disappearances of Kerbe and Thorsuun. How to explain the Doctor's involvement.

Carfrae touched Bridgeman's arm. 'Whatever has happened, Professor, it's done you a lot of good, hasn't it?'

'Yeah,' said Simon tactlessly. 'Yeah, you've stopped stuttering.'

Bridgeman laughed. 'Do you know, that's the only evidence I have that this isn't just some awful dream. Mrs Wilding made me . . . accept things in my past. Come to terms with myself. Some evidence. That and the Doctor's help of course -'

The others were staring at a half-eaten burger left on the table.

'Where've they gone?' Peter wondered.

253.

The TARDIS was where it had first arrived, in the trees - now burned - by the Gatehouse. Or rather, the large hole where the Gatehouse had been.

Polly stared at the cliffs. 'He really played with my memories, Doctor. Made me forget all this until shock forced me to remember.'

'Tim was not a nice man, Polly, despite his pretences. He killed a lot of innocent people.' The Doctor opened the TARDIS door and Ben slipped inside. The Doctor looked at Polly and she smiled.

'One moment.' She dug into her pocket and took out the tarot pack. The tarot of the Cat-People.

The Doctor took it from her. 'Tim's RTC unit. If only I'd known you had it.'

'It's a horrible weapon, Doctor. You didn't see what it did to that poor young man in the nexus. And G.o.dwanna herself.'

'People always end up destroying themselves, Polly. And usually with their own weapons. Don't shed too many tears for G.o.dwanna.' He pa.s.sed the tarot pack back, patted her arm and disappeared into the TARDIS.

Polly looked at the cards. 'If only they'd known there really were Cat-People,' she murmured, then drew back her arm and threw the pack as far away as she could. 'Bimbo yourself!' she yelled.

It bounced across the charred lawns and landed beside the ma.s.sive split in the ground from which the energy had been released. The box split open on the final bounce, sending most of the cards spiralling into the chasm. Of the few that remained, one lay face up in the blackened gra.s.s.

The Lovers.

They sat around campfires, telling the stories of the Dreaming and the Songlines. Remembering their history, their culture and their heritage.