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'Thank you.' The Doctor wandered out through the kitchen door, his nimble fingers already dismantling the delicate mechanism of the brain.

'This Doctor fellow seems to lack the graces necessary for mixing with the higher-ranking Firbolg,'

Daffyr told Bathsheba, looming over her. 'I like him!'

Stuart followed the Doctor out to his car. 'What are you up to, Doctor?'

'Just acting on a hunch which ... ' he extracted a small piece of electronics from the brain, 'seems to have been justified. There we are - a receiver-transmitter for electromagnetic disturbances of a similar wavelength to those your car radio uses. If I can combine the two and power them off your battery then I may be able to get something done.'

'Like what?'

'Well, I may be able to get in touch with Goibhnie. It occurred to me that these dragons may be his eyes and ears throughout the land of Tír na n-Óg.'

'Not very subtle for bugs, are they? You couldn't exactly hide them in a phone.'

'Maybe he doesn't want to pick out subtle details, just broad trends. Follow the results of his misdeeds. Gloat. It's often the way.'

'You've had prior experience of megalomaniacs?' Stuart suggested.

'Mmmm, lots of them. Always follow the same pattern. Genius with deviant childhood, forced to eat liver, too much vitamin A, becomes ambitious, develops a taste for power. Before you know it they’re trying to take over the universe and looking for someone to gloat at.'

The Doctor tweaked a wire out of the bowels of the radio and twisted it around a projection on the small component the brain. ‘Of course, sometimes they just become traffic wardens. Genius traffic wardens with hypervitaminosis A, admittedly, and they do still get the chance to gloat but traffic wardens all the same.' He paused and looked up at Stuart. ‘I don’t want to run down your battery, so if you'd just start the engine running.’

Stuart did as he was told and then gazed closely at what the Doctor was doing. The Doctor seemed somewhat disconcerted by this and after chewing his lip, he looked up at Stuart and gave a smile.

'Perhaps you could go and put your ear against one of the speakers. If there is a return signal it may be quite faint.'

Stuart clambered on to the back seat of the car and watched the Doctor from there. Another wire was extracted from the radio which was then turned on. A low hiss emerged from loudspeakers.

'Nothing yet,' Stuart told the Doctor.

'I haven't actually started.'

'Oh, sorry.'

'Never mind.' The Doctor began to tap the wire against another part of the brain component in a complex rhythm:

‘Will this Goibhnie be able to understand Morse code?’

‘It isn’t Morse code. Just listen to the speakers.' He repeated the tapping. 'Anything?'

'No, nothing.'

'We'll have to give him a chance to notice us, I suppose.' The Doctor went through the motions again ... and again ... and again.

‘Nothing,' Stuart told him.

‘Ah well, another brilliant piece of ad-lib microtechnology wasted.' The Doctor tossed his gadget into the foot-space of the passenger seat. He got out of the car and found Daffyr standing over him.

'Doctor, Bathsheba tells me you attempted to get to Goibhnie's island but were unable to do so.'

'That's right. And we've failed to make contact with him. We shall just have to go there and shine lanterns across the water or something. If it comes to the worst I could always swim to the island.'

Stuart protested. 'But there are those demons in the water.'

'Doctor, Doctor,' Daffyr laughed, 'there's no need to go to such extreme measures. There is a simple way to get to Goibhnie's island.'

'There is?'

‘Of course. Wait for the sea to go out. Have you never heard of tides on Earth?'

'How could I be expected to know there was a submerged causeway out to the island?' the Doctor protested.

'If we'd stayed around till the end of the feast in the first place, Daffyr might have told us then.' Stuart gave a grunt as the car hit a stone and rocked unsteadily.

'Is this what you wanted?' Bathsheba asked. She held