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"Then you should be afraid."

At first there was a hint of suspicion in the way he eyed her.

"Come on, Professor. You're needed," she said.

"Kneaded? What do you take me for? A loaf of bread?"

His voice was weary and slow. He had not moved from the chair. His hair was dishevelled and there were silver beads like mercury in the crossply of his pullover. "This is too soon," he muttered. "Much too soon."

His eyebrows furrowed as he studied her. She wasn't convinced he knew who she was. She crouched in front of him and attempted a comforting smile — the sort doctors use. It came out completely forced.

"Take it easy, Professor. It's me, Ace. You've had a bit of a shock. We both have. I don't know what happened to the TARDIS, but I reckon we can find it again if we both keep . . ."

She tailed off. He wasn't listening to her. He stared at the floor with a blank expression.

"I don't know what you've been up to," she heard herself saying. "But you didn't half stir things before you disappeared. You got yourself a reputation."

She stopped again. She was babbling uselessly, just to get some response. But she had never seen him so frighteningly passive. She brushed a cobweb off his shoulder and touched the back of her hand against his forehead. "You don't have a temperature anyway."

"I don't?" He suddenly looked alarmed and pressed his own hand to his head.

"I mean it's normal, that's all," she stuttered.

"Oh . . . normal." A gentle smile played across his face. "How strange. I'm not sure I've ever been normal before." He looked directly at her and then his eyes twinkled.

It was like a signal. She flung her arms around his shoulders and hugged him. "Where've you been?" she choked through her tears. "You don't know the things I imagined."

After a moment his hand patted her cautiously on the shoulder. She pulled back and studied his face — just checking that all the details were still there.

"Tell me about it," he said.

She had grown used to this. His little tests, designed to build up her skills and awareness. Or so he always said.

"Right," she agreed and sat down cross-legged at his feet. "You know about the City, yeah?"

After a moment, he said, "Tell me from your point of view."

"Right." She fathomed her thoughts. "It's well weird out there. It's not just one city. It's like the same city again and again. Like the past and future all mapped out alongside each other. Time and Space must be seriously scrambled . . ." She paused, waiting for him to wince at her vernacular, but the idea was more important than the correct scientific appraisal.

He was pulling intently at another strand of cobweb. "Concurrent Time strands," he suggested.

"That's right. Like living next door to last week. It's all tumbledown — a sort of grey no-go area. And there's two really gross megaworm things that control it from a big tower that's like an accident in a Meccano factory. And these worms, they're called Processes or the Process or something, are looking for the Future."

He raised an eyebrow. "The Future?"

"Pretty stupid, eh?" she grinned. "But they've got a slave gang out there taking the place apart. I mean how can you search for the Future?"

"Why not?" he said and leaned back in his chair. His smile intensified as he mused on the conundrum. She could almost see his mind starting to gallop. "These Process creatures of yours must be metaphysicians of a high order. I wonder if they'd spare me the time for a little chat."

"You've got to be joking, Professor," she exclaimed. "Hold them up to the light, not a brain cell in sight. I'll tell you what though. I reckon it was them that attacked the TARDIS."

"The TARDIS," he said slowly.

"And they've had it in for you since the Beginning."

"They have?"

"You had a fight with one of them. You must remember. They say it's you that nicked the Future in the first place."

"Me?" he said, checking his trouser pockets. "Did I?"

She grinned. "You've got a bit of a reputation out there."

"Good or bad?"

"Depends. But I've been working on it."