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By Root 339 0

she’d passed the arboretum at least twice – unless, not implausibly, the TARDIS had two – and was on the point of giving up when she felt the unmistakable shuddering vibration of the ship’s materialisation. Wherever they’d been heading, it looked like they’d arrived. Bugger the book, she thought, and turned on her heel to head back to the console room. As she did so, she noticed a door in front of her that hadn’t been there a moment before. Silently, it swung open, and there was the library, in all its gloomy glory. Ace paused. At this very moment, the Doctor could be popping his hatted little head outside to sample the air of a strange alien world, while she, like a spinsterish librarian, was poking around for some medical textbook. But the Doctor had sent her here for a particular book, and presumably one relevant to where they were going. It would only take her a few seconds.

Inside the library, the shelves stretched impossibly upwards, disappearing past the hanging light fittings, and away into the distance, into the musty darkness. She patted her pocket for her torch – and noticed the lights magically brighten and swell above her. The air smelled of history and lost knowledge, and she felt the potential in the room that hung in the air like static. She reached out and ran her fingers along the shelves on both sides, almost expecting an electric shock as she did so.

‘Alzheimer’s, Alzheimer’s, Alzheimer’s. .’ she muttered to herself, scanning the rows. ‘Come on, help me.’

She lifted her fingers to brush the dust from the spines of the books on her left – and there it was, right under her fingertip! She blew a kiss at the TARDIS, pulled the heavy, leather-bound volume out, and headed back – just as she heard the sound of the TARDIS taking off again.

When she got back to the console room, she was surprised to discover that the door was stuck. Ace pushed harder, cradling the book in her arm. No it bloody well wasn’t. It was locked. Or at least deliberately jammed from the other side. She threw the book down with a thump and a cloud of dust, and hammered at the door.

‘Professor!’ she bellowed. ‘ Doctor!’

There was no answer.

Joyce had got as far as scanning the contents page of the magazine and wondering whether she was missing out on something by never having had four kinds of orgasm, when Doctor Menzies coughed discreetly at her side. Flustered, she shut the magazine.

Doctor Menzies was everything you could want in a doctor –

greying hair, neat, clipped moustache, gentle Scots brogue and warm, caring eyes. She knew it was probably carefully cultivated, but it was no less welcome for that. She’d briefly met Doctor Kale on her previous visit, but hadn’t taken to him: he’d seemed a little cold and distant, slightly nervy. Perhaps the atmosphere in the place had finally gotten to him. Come to think of it, she thought absently as Doctor Menzies sat down opposite her with a nod, there seemed to be a marked lack of staff since the last time she’d been there: she remembered a couple of bright, cheery care staff and a smiley – if rather patronising – woman, whose name she couldn’t remember but whom she couldn’t avoid thinking of as ‘Matron’. But none of them seemed in evidence now. Probably just their day off.

Doctor Menzies smiled at her. ‘Hello Doctor Brunner.’

‘How is she?’ She winced at her own over-eagerness, but he appeared not to have noticed. He clasped his hands on his knee, leaned forwards just a tad. ‘It’s too soon to tell whether the treatment’s working yet, but the good news is that Norma is showing no adverse reactions to it. As you know, about eight or ten per cent of patients show immediate contraindications – um, bad responses –’

She nodded sharply, a little more impatiently than she’d intended. ‘It’s all right, I do know what contraindications are.’

‘Quite, quite... Well your mother, you’ll be pleased to know, isn’t experiencing them – which bodes well for her treatment.

It’ll be a couple of days before we know whether the amyloid plaques in her brain tissue are starting to break down; but we should