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Why are you shouting?'

'What happened to universities as institutions of learning,' the Doctor declaimed, waving his arms about a bit, 'open to all for the free flow of ideas and the transfer of knowledge? This,' he gave the door a couple of hefty kicks,'is not how it should be.'

"That's giving them the big picture, Doctor,' Barry said wryly. 'I'm sure it'll make a major difference in the long run.'

'Just getting their attention,' the Doctor said.

Barry said, 'It's a fully automated system. What makes you think anyone will be watching?'

"There's always a manual override,' the Doctor said. 'And where there's a manual override there's usually a man.'

Barry turned away. "That's like saying there's always a key under the flowerpot.'

'There usually is,' the Doctor said. He addressed the doorway. 'We're here to discuss Professor John Finer's connection to the Clearspring Water Company,' he waved the print-out above his head, 'and his student Josh Randall's enhanced psi abilities. We feel the two are not unconnected.'

'We do?' Barry said softly. When did we feel that? I thought it was tap water we were here about?'

We haven't got an appointment,' the Doctor went on loudly, 'so we'll wait.'

'This was to be my last boohoo, 'Barry said. 'That's like a last hurrah only more miserable.' He pushed at the unrevolving door. 'They're not going to open up. We'll have to find some other way to do this.'

'Or,' the Doctor said loudly, we could go to my police friends. I think they'd be interested in what I've got to tell them.'

'You have friends in the police?' Barry said.

'I have friends everywhere,' the Doctor said. 'I'm very likeable. You like me don't you?'

Barry sighed heavily. 'What am I doing? I'm following a loon -'He interrupted and corrected himself,' an eccentric, I'm following an eccentric about the place. I'm taking suggestions from some passing eccentric. I'm madder than you are. Friends in the police: as if. How often have you spent the night in the cells, Doctor?'

'You'd have to define what you mean by cells,' the Doctor said smiling. 'I've been locked up, incarcerated and trapped in any number of different ways in many different places. Different planets, different time lines, different regenerations'

'Different regenerations?'

'It's a sort of reincarnation. This is my fourth I think. It's quite difficult to remember sometimes.'

Barry turned away, shaking his head in painful disbelief.

'Mad as a snake,' he muttered to himself. 'King Mad of the Mad people.' He began to walk away, back to the path that led to the main blocks. 'I should be working on my CV not wasting time here.'

In front of the Doctor the revolving door began to turn again. He stepped into it and followed it round into the bright foyer where Josh Randall was waiting.

'You wanted to talk to Professor Finer,' Josh said.

The Doctor beamed at him. 'I knew there was a flowerpot round here somewhere,' he said. 'Would you like a jelly baby?' He pulled the battered paper bag from his coat pocket and proffered it.

'No thanks. And you can drop the mad act, it's not fooling anybody'

'Least of all you, I imagine,' the Doctor said.

'You're probably overestimating my paranormal powers,' Josh said.

'I hope so,' the Doctor replied, but he could see from the student's casual arrogance that he was not.

'I'm not arrogant,' Josh said, mildly. 'I'm just different.'

'And I'm not acting,' the Doctor said. 'I'm different too.' It was going to be difficult to keep his thoughts to himself, he thought.

'Try impossible,' Josh said. 'This way.'

He led the Doctor to an escalator on the far side of the foyer. It was descending very slowly, and it looked to the Doctor as though its incline was so shallow that it was going nowhere. When he stepped on it the surface was solid and reassuring and for a moment or twoit continued its slow progress.

Then almost imperceptibly the escalator gained speed, folding itself up behind the Doctor so that he found