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Reogus Teleem Lacott, the Battery of the Scaphe, a big-framed hulk of a man, tall as a Pythia, on whom all the telepathic energetics of the crew were focused, channelled into the ship's drive impulse. "I lay odds they don't tell us when they do it. A depak to a dumpling the Pythia smothers the opposition before we get back."

His fingers were linked between the couches with Chesperl's, low down where the others could not see. "And you"11 miss Rassilon's public stoning," her thoughts teased at him. "I'm sure his head'll still be on a pole when we get back. Or we could always go now."

"And who's going to persuade the Pilot?" interrupted Amnoni. There was a note of disapproval in her thoughts.

"The Pilot is the only one concentrating," said a voice out loud.

It was a habit that Vael had picked up to annoy them when they excluded him from their thoughts. He watched them from his couch with the air of a dispassionate sneer.

They stared back awkwardly, hiding their feelings behind smiles of concern. Chesperl put out a thread of warmth and friendship. It was turned away.

In his playpen at the heart of the ship, the Pilot had become very quiet.

At that moment, Pekkary caught the first intimations of approaching danger. Since he sensed it, they all knew.

With a smirk, Vael turned on his couch. Pulling at the monitor leads on his arms, he knelt up and looked over the top of the hollowed hub at the Pilot.

"Hello, little one," he said coldly. "Still missing nanny?"

The child, knowing things that grown-ups forgot, had been gazing up at the lights in the spheric pool. He stared at his tormentor with widening eyes and pulled his toys in close for protection.

The ship's lights guttered and the hum of the power drive fluctuated for a moment.

"Vael." The warnings the crew sent out were ignored. The Pilot whimpered in anticipation of a blow.

Vael's hand darted out and snatched away one of the toys.

The child's eyes filled with a hatred that was frightening in one so innocent. The Time Scaphe lurched as the guiding concentration fell apart.

Pekkary struggled to assert an order. But "We travel" was lost.

Reogus launched out of his seat. "Leave him alone, you little sheetsnacker!" he shouted, pulling Vael away by the head.

The Pilot screamed with fright. The chamber lights dimmed and the spheric pool filled all the chamber with the streaming light of the vortex.

4: Inside Information

"Come on, sir, can't you come up with a better story than that? It'll never wash down at the station, you know."

The young WPC studied the Doctor and Ace with an implacable formality. If Ace had been on her own, they would have had her down the nick and stitched up without a second thought. The Doctor, because he was old and dressed like a well-heeled weirdo, got a bit of respect. The policewoman was oblivious to the helter-skelter clouds that Ace saw racing across the livid sky above the houses behind her. She nodded to her colleague in the car and he climbed out to join her.

The Doctor shivered. He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and said wearily, "What do I want a station for? I don't want a train. I want my ship back." He leant back against the police box and slid down its length until he reached the undulating pavement. He sat there, trembling and muttering, "No way in." A film of perspiration glinted on his forehead.

"We'd better get him to a doctor," said the policewoman to her colleague.

"He is a Doctor," snapped Ace. She crouched beside him. She could still hear the scrabbling from inside the TARDIS. Again, the distant chimes of the ice-cream van sounded.

"Ace," he said, his voice trembling, "I need time to think."

"Right. I'll deal with these two."

She turned to face them, but the Doctor tugged at her arm. "It's just beyond perception," he said.

"What is, Professor?"

"The door. Wherever you stand, it's always on the next side round. The TARDIS dimensional defence systems are being altered from inside.