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"Only nitro?" he said severely. "Nitro-nine-a? Xyz?"

"Doctor." Vael nodded along the street.

The six new guards were slowly advancing towards them. In the other direction, the Process was beginning to reopen the fracture in the attic wall.

"So much for the chat," muttered the Doctor. "Which do you prefer, Ace? The frying pan or the fire?"

"Are you still Wilby?" she said angrily.

"It's getting dark. That wall won't last much longer."

"Or are you really the Doctor now?"

He glanced at the stars again. At the zenith, the sodium giant guttered like a candle in a draught. Something was happening. He could feel the whole place closing in, fraction by fraction. "Not yet, Ace. Not even Will be the Doctor. Not until I have my ship back."

It was tightening around him. He had seen the buildings shifting against the string of his plumbline. Guards were closing in. A monster was breaking free. All in his TARDIS. In his head.

"Just now, I've a nasty feeling I may not even be a Maybe."

She glanced at the guards. "OK, so we make a fight of it. What I need, Professor, is . . ."

"Wait." It was no good holding out any longer. His memory had reminded him of a couple of items, particularly nasty concoctions, he had found some time ago in the TARDIS laboratory when he was repairing the toaster. He had confiscated them when she wasn't looking. Two small test tubes that were clinking in his voluminous trouser pocket even now. A miracle they were not smashed. He fished them out and passed them to her. "Here, I found these."

"I know," she said. "They should be well stewed by now."

"Just one," he said and pointed towards the shuddering wall. "A diversion."

"What?"

"Let it out." The guards were getting too close to argue.

"You're joking."

"Do it, Ace!"

"But that's Shonnzi and the Phazels!"

"No, it isn't," snapped Vael. "They're only on the first Phase now.

"But they . . ."

The Doctor snatched back one of the test tubes. "Gardyloo!" he shouted. In one extraordinary movement, enough to make Nijinsky jealous, he gathered Ace under one arm, flung the test tube directly at the base of the wall with the other and executed a neat jeté clear of the blast.

The landing was less than dignified. The explosion ripped out the wall, barrelling them into a heap among the lush growth of new plants.

"I didn't see!" objected Ace.

"Good," said the Doctor. He smiled to himself. "And that State of Grace circuit still needs looking at."

The roar of the explosion echoed up around the City. The guards were falling back as the Process came wriggling out of the smoke.

"Don't move!" whispered Vael. He was crouching beside the Doctor. "It has lousy eyesight."

The leech was crawling on its fins, searching with one foothead, while the other, streaked black with blood, trailed behind it. Attracted by the movement and chittering, it moved hissing in rage towards the guards.

The Doctor watched his enemy go. Three Phases of the City, but only two Processes. What did that mean? Young, older or eldest? Space in his ship was crushing inwards around him and Time was being snatched away, driving him ever further back to the Beginning. Or to the new Beginning where everything he knew might end.

"In here. Quickly!" urged Vael.

The Doctor found himself shuffled through a hidden door in the street walls. Only later did he realize that the voice had been in his head and that Ace had not heard.

There was a darkness in Vael, a lurking energy that came through clearest when he smiled. And he was smiling now.

Ace watched beside the Doctor as the crippled leech scattered the guards before it. She saw the figure that had been Shonnzi stumbling away from the monster. She wanted to drag him clear, and tear off the filthy helmet that had smothered him. He was rude and funny and made her angry when he wasn't there. And under it all, he really cared.

And she hadn't stopped thinking about him since he'd first collided with her. She didn't believe he was gone.

And if the Doctor had to save his TARDIS, then she had to save the other Phazels. The grumblies. Because