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‘It’s over,’ he told Chris.

Chris started clambering to his feet, his ankles shaking under his weight. The eyes remained resolutely open, staring off across the desert. The TARDIS was visible there, a blue rectangle embedded in one of the dunes.

‘I made the decision,’ Chris said. For a second, his voice sounded like Catcher’s, fractured and twisted; but it was just nervous exhaustion, the Doctor realized, nothing permanent.

‘Yes. You made the decision,’ said the Doctor. And then, more quietly, ‘Thank you.’

Chris nodded. Dumbly. He glanced up at the Carnival Queen, but he seemed to be looking right through her. Staring at nothing on the far side of everything. He nodded again, and began to take slow, stumbling steps towards the TARDIS.

‘I made the decision,’ he muttered as he walked away.

– Well. It was a nice idea.

The Doctor turned, his face angry. Then his eyes settled on the many potential faces of the Carnival Queen – and who could say how many of those faces he could see? – and the fury just blew away on the wind.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

– I know, said the Carnival Queen. – But if defeats really meant anything to me... if I could be disappointed, even after these billions of years... then I’d be a Watchmaker. These things happen... perhaps some other time...

‘What will you do now?’

– Funny. You asked that automatically. Without thinking.

You ask that of everybody you leave behind, don’t you?

‘What will you do now?’ the Doctor repeated.

– Oh, the usual things. Try to send a few more good ideas out into the Majestic Clockwork. Influence. Inspire. Eke out an eternity.

‘I’m sorry.’

– You said. Nicely manipulated, Doctor.

‘Manipulated?’ The Doctor watched Chris amble away over the dunes, becoming a stick-figure as he neared the TARDIS. ‘No. Not this time. Chris made the decision himself.

It was all a question of trust.’

– Oh, really? And I suppose it’s a coincidence that the memory of his father and the bank-robber should pop into his head at that precise moment? And such a sickly, sentimental memory, non?

The Doctor’s body tensed up. Instinctively. ‘What are you suggesting?’

– Doctor, you saw what he was remembering. A bank at...

where was it? The Shoptronic Mezzanine? His father throwing a robo-frisbee. ‘Law and order are in our blood’. The credo of the Watchmakers.

The Doctor shook his head. ‘I don’t see...’

– Christopher comes from the thirtieth century. By his time, all financial transactions are performed by computer. That’s my understanding, at least, though my knowledge of history is predictably shaky. Do I have to spell it out for you, Doctor?

There aren’t any banks in the thirtieth century. And no bank-robbers. That memory was false. A fraud. A fake. When did you plant it, exactly?

The Doctor’s expression was unreadable.

‘I have to go,’ he said, hurriedly. Then, once more, ‘I’m sorry.’

And he darted off across the desert, following the footsteps of Christopher Cwej back towards the TARDIS.

Behind him, the Carnival Queen slowly shook a hundred thousand million billion heads. Sadly.

‘Are you okay?’ the Negress was asking.

Marielle Duquesne didn’t recognize the room she found herself in, but she knew that she had to be back inside Christopher’s miraculous time-ship. Everything was solid, though, no longer fuzzy at the edges. Her head was full of memories, but she couldn’t arrange them into a coherent sequence; a restaurant in Paris, Christopher on the guillotine, a machine breaking open, the sensation of being part of something so much bigger –

‘We dragged you in,’ the Negress said. ‘You were standing outside, and then you just fell over. Chris says you’re okay now. Demonic possession or something.’

Marielle looked up. Christopher was there, leaning against a platform that she took to be the ship’s helm. His eyes were empty and bloodshot.

‘How are you?’ he asked, mechanically.

‘Well. Well, thank you.’ Marielle wanted to tell him about her spine, about the fact that it had gone completely numb, that it seemed to have just