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The officious clerk had left the cell an hour later, his notebook stained with apple juice, sweet wrappers stuck to his suit and a halfeaten stick of rhubarb in his hand, none the wiser as to who the Doctor was, or where he came from.

And so the day had gone on: an endless procession of faceless military officials, all asking endless military questions, all jotting down the Doctor's decidedly unmllitary replies, no matter how bizarre. The Doctor had always prided himself on his ability to bamboozle the opposition. He had hoped that by being so uncooperative with this stream of middlemen, the man he really wanted to see Lazonby would eventually be forced to deal with him personally.

The Doctor pulled out his pocket watch again. It was late in the afternoon. Outside a hostile alien force was planning to... The Doctor frowned. That was just the point. He didn't know what they were planning to do, and he wasn't going to find out locked up in a cell. He snapped his watch shut, irritably, and paced around the table. He had been the perfect uncooperative guest surely Lazonby would have to get around to him soon.

With perfect timing a key scraped into the lock again, and Lazonby strode into the room, immaculate as always. The perfect officer. The Doctor watched as he took off his cap, placing it on the table and smoothing back his hair. He pulled down the jacket of his uniform, straightening the creases, and settled into one of the chairs.

'Sit down, Doctor. It is time that you and I had a little chat.'

'Yes.' The Doctor pulled up a chair opposite Lazonby. 'I'd rather like to know what you've done with that head that you took from me.'

The young officer smiled. 'It's being well looked after.'

The Doctor leaned across the desk, his eyes drilling into Lazonby's.

'You really have no idea what you are dealing with.'

'Rubbish! The scientists that we have assembled here are some of the finest minds in Britain. I'm more concerned with how the Germans have managed to catch up with our research so quickly. No doubt the secrets that you and your accomplices have been passing on to your Nazi paymasters have been of great benefit.'

The Doctor snorted, contemptuously. 'Is that what you think I am? A Nazi spy? Believe me, Major, the paltry scientific research of your war effort is of no interest to me whatsoever. I am concerned with a far greater problem.'

Lazonby regarded the little man slouched on the other side of the table, a shambolic patchwork of paisley and question marks. His clothes were all slightly too large and from a dozen different styles, his hair was unruly and his smile was crooked. An agent of chaos. An enemy of the Crown. Lazonby clenched his fist. He would happily order the execution of this vagrant now, were it not for the head. There was still the question of the head.

Lazonby knew that scientists didn't always cherish the same ideal of order, knew that sometimes, from chaos, leaps of intuition were possible. Lazonby didn't like that harsh fact of life, but he wasn't so regimented that he would ignore it either. He looked at the Doctor again, his eyes narrowing.

What scientific knowledge did this man possess? If there was any possibility that this little tramp could help them unlock the secrets of that silver head... He had to know.

'Where did that head come from?'

The Doctor paused, unsure of how much of the truth to tell this strange young army officer. There was a fanatical glint in his eye that worried the Doctor. A glint that he was all too familiar with, but, at the same time, that fanaticism was likely to make him susceptible to ideas, to suggestions.

'Tell me, Major, do you believe in life on other planets?'

Lazonby gave a short, barking laugh. 'Don't be preposterous, Doctor. I am well aware of the hysteria that that young actor, Welles, perpetrated in America the other year, but that sort of nonsense isn't going to happen here.

The Americans are well known for their flights of fancy.'

'Really. Whereas