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Yet Dexeter was a loyal citizen, and so he suppressed these thoughts, and indicated the bench microscope. 'Take a look at this. A sample of riverfruit. I've placed the slide.'

Draith peered into the microscope eyepieces. The cell-patterns he perceived made no sense to him. He looked up at Dexeter. 'What am I supposed to be seeing?'

Dexeter removed the slide from the microscope and held it cautiously. 'This sample contains an embryo spider... one which should grow to a length of between one and two feet.'

Nefred and Garif strove to find something to say, but could not.

Draith and Dexeter stared levelly at each other. Draith said, quietly, 'Dexeter, take me with you to one of the harvest sites. I want to look for myself. Then I'll decide whether the order should be given for everyone to be recalled to the starliner.'

Dexeter was aghast. 'But Decider, on the basis of this evidence, surely you have to make an immediate - '

'I'll meet you in the boarding area in fifteen minutes.' With that, Draith turned and left.

Dexeter sighed, resigning himself to the situation. 'The man's impossible,' he said. 'He's going to hang on until the last moment.'

'We all have to accommodate our acquaintances' short-comings, Dexeter,' Nefred chided.

Dexeter muttered something under his breath which Nefred didn't quite catch, and, as he destroyed the slide specimen with a few droplets of acid, remarked, 'You know, from a scientific perspective, I find myself almost hoping that this is Mistfall.'

Garif smirked, without humour. 'You're too young to remember the last one, Dexeter. But it's not something I look forward to.'

'Nor I,' Nefred concurred.

As Dexeter regarded the smouldering mess where once the spider embryo had been, he found himself trying to imagine what it would have looked like fully grown.

And then he tried not to imagine.

'We can't take off until we find out precisely what's happened to the TARDIS,' the Doctor had said, and had then immersed himself in the internal workings of the console. Despite the occasional bang and fountains of sparks, he had insisted that he knew what he was doing, and insisted that Romana leave him alone. So now she sat on the grass outside the TARDIS doors, enjoying the sun on her face and the colour of the landscape.

It struck her as odd that despite the sun the air felt very cold.

Dismissing this thought, she considered their situation.

The scanner had continued to show the Gallifreyan desertscape, and Gallifrey it certainly was. The co-ordinates were aligned to the precise settings. K9 reaffirmed time and again that the navigational systems were working perfectly. And yet when they stepped out of the door they were in a forest on some alien planet or other.

Contemplating the problem, Romana in time fell asleep.

And, in sleep, she was unaware of the probing tendrils of grey vapour squirming menacingly through the nearby foliage.

They were called Outlers because in the starliner community neat classifications were always desirable. Classifications made things identifiable, made them tangible and thus less frightening.

They were in actuality youngsters with few principles of behaviour other than that they had totally dissociated themselves from the way of life in the starliner community. Regarded as outcasts, they lived by their wits. The community supplied them infrequently with riverfruits. The supply was laughably small and they had to make regular raids on the riverfruit harvests to keep themselves alive.

Of course, the raids weren't always successful. Like the one this morning. They had been spied hiding by the riverfruit store and had been chased through the forest by the furious citizens. They had only just managed to escape.

Their way of life was hard - their 'home' was a cave overlooking the valley which housed the starliner. Old boxes, crates and some conveniently placed stones constituted the cave's meagre furnishings.

Adric stood in the middle of the cave floor in his