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scouring pad.

She had left Fitz downstairs in the bar, intriguing the waitresses with his accent and swapping band minutiae with the barman. Probably he was still there. With a sigh, she turned on the light, dressed and went downstairs.

There were still a number of patrons in the bar, but Fitz wasn't among them. The barman thought he'd left 'a while back'. Anji wandered into the homey, low-key lobby with its rocking chair and dark floral carpet. No one was officially manning the desk this late, but the inn's co-owner and chef, a slim, not-yet-forty woman, was in a side office going over the restaurant's dinner receipts, and she remembered seeing him leave 'maybe an hour ago'.

'But there's nowhere else to go this late,' said Anji.

'Maybe he got a ride into Manchester,' the woman suggested, shoving a stray piece of her hair, which was damp with kitchen heat, behind an ear.

'Not that there's much of any place to go there, tell you the truth. Oh, wait -

Boy, I don't know what he was up to. I remember now he borrowed our garden shovel."

'Shovel?' Anji repeated faintly.

'Well, a spade, really. You know - not flat-ended, pointed. For digging.'

Dupre scuttered back from the Doctor, bumping into one of the skulls and knocking it over. 'But you you '

'You're on fire,' said the Doctor helpfully.

Dupre jumped up, stared at the burning hem of his robe, and started batting at it with his hands. This only made him yelp in pain. He hopped around, ripping the robe off. The Doctor took the opportunity to pull furiously at his chains. He succeeded in spraining his left wrist. That hand wasn't going to be much use for the immediate future. Given that, he decided he might as well use it to try to smash the bottles that Dupre's excitations had knocked within his reach. In spite of the pain, this felt good. He was very angry.

'Stop that!' Dupre stomped on his hand again and the Doctor yelled again. 'You'll ruin everything!'

"That's the idea!' the Doctor shouted. 'In case you haven't noticed, we aren't working from the same agenda!' Dupre had got die fire out and his robe off. The Doctor was relieved to see that he'd been wearing clothes beneath it.

Dupre grabbed his hand and examined it frantically. 'What have you done?'

He picked at the shards of glass. 'Which bottle did you break?'

'Let go!' yelled the Doctor, but Dupre already had. He found the bottle the Doctor had succeeded in shattering. His shoulders slumped with relief.

'It's a neutraliser. No harm done.'

'Says you,' the Doctor grunted.

'Your blood's the wrong colour,' said Dupre wonderingly.

"That depends on your point of view' The Doctor stopped fighting with his bonds, sagging defeatedly. Dupre stared down at him, agape. 'Close your mouth before a toad jumps out.'

Dupre's mouth clapped shut. He glowered and kicked the Doctor in the ribs, then jumped back as if he expected an explosion. The Doctor only groaned. Dupre still looked cautious.

'Have you travelled the universe?' he whispered.

"The universe,' the Doctor said jadedly. 'the obverse, the reverse. The inverse, where everything has to rhyme. The freeverse, where nothing ever does. I'm well versed'

'Your race your species must have enormous levels of psychic power.'

'It's not psychic power,' the Doctor snapped, 'it's artron energy' Artron energy? he thought, as he heard the words come out. What was that?

'What's artron energy?' said Dupre.

'I don't know,' said the Doctor boldly, 'but it's what I've got. Do you really want to muck about with it? There are things man is not meant to know, et cetera.'

Dupre considered this, expressionless. 'Yes,' he said finally.

The Doctor sighed to himself. That was the trouble dealing with fools. They had a poorly focused sense of self-preservation. He stared intently into Dupre's dark eyes. Dupre just looked back blankly. And the trouble dealing with semi-psychotics was that they couldn't be hypnotised. 'Dupre, seriously, think