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'No,' Bill Parnaby said, politely. It's nothing to do with security. His status is an academic matter, it has nothing whatsoever to do with you.'

'He hasn't got a status,' the security supervisor snarled, 'and I don't have to listen to him or take his word for anything.' He sat back and folded his arms.

Barry had to admit that the security supervisor might be shouting and banging but he did have some good points. It was a relief to see that the policeman didn't seem to think so.

'I intend to talk to John Finer,' Simpson said, 'as a matter of urgency. You are going to give me access to his department, Fred. You're going to dig out the access codes and you're going to do it now.'

The security supervisor kept his arms resolutely folded.

'You'll need a warrant.' He said it flatly, so Barry could see that he was confident of this.

'Drugs,' the detective constable said. He definitely sounded a bit vague and mumbly to Barry. Coffee would be a good idea for him, he thought. 'If we have reason to believe there's drugs involved,' the constable went on, 'we don't need a warrant.'

'What drugs?' the security supervisor challenged.

Oh please, Barry thought. This is a university. But saying it aloud didn't seem sensible at that moment.

'What about the ones you were looking for, Fred?' Simpson suggested. 'Did you have a warrant for that search by the way?'

'I had the parents' permission,' the security supervisor blustered.

Barry wasn't sure what this exchange was about, but it was certainly unsettling the security supervisor. He had unfolded his arms and was leaning forward in his chair.

'I suppose I could check that,' Simpson said. 'While I'm waiting for the warrant.'

The detective constable caught Barry's eye and grinned a slightly bleary grin.

It looked to Barry as though the security supervisor was beaten. They were going to find out what had happened to the Doctor after all. And maybe he could get to help him too.

Chapter Fifteen

'Are you ready?' Finer said as he hurried into the control and monitoring chamber. 'Did you take the booster dose?' All around him the gauges and meters were registering rapidlyescalating power levels and fast-developing system connections.

Josh was standing in the middle of the floor with his eyes closed and his arms held out from his sides. I have been ready all along,' he said. 'I have been ready before and after and now.'

'Have you established a full link with him? Are you focused?' Finer adjusted a monitor screen so that he could see what was happening within the power stream that was blazing more and more coherently between the projector and the break-through zone. He could see the Doctor hanging there, motionless at the launch fulcrum. Everything was perfectly poised and waiting for the moment of criticality.

'I am focused.'

The Doctor was suspended, balanced by the power, held upright and spread-eagled in the centre of the first of the pulse-tunnel hoops. There was no pain. There was hardly any physical sensation at all. The static noise had gone. The throbbing pulse had gone. He was almost at peace. At the end of the tunnel he could see the kaleidoscopic multiples multiplying, the flat dark blocks and turning trees, dividing round themselves and whirling downwards into vortices and splitting and reforming and twisting and rolling. It was a mesmerising display. He could feel himself beginning to drift with the patterns. He could feel the possibility of being one with the patterns. Perhaps that would be best. Perhaps he should let his consciousness be taken into sleep. Perhaps he could lose himself in sleep.

Perhaps it would be easier to face what was about to happen if he didn't have to face what was about to happen. Again he thought he saw the TARDIS, not a multiplying TARDIS but just one faithful TARDIS, one solid, unshakeable constant in a nightmare of chaos. It was comforting. It was comforting to think his beloved