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prepared cage, via a pendant. You were trying to open a cage, lift the suspended animation field, and release the… occupant – in other words, more or less reverse the process. The sonic screwdriver enabled you to do that – but it didn’t know where to stop. I strongly suspect it amplified the signal, connecting back through the pendant to the central computer, removing all suspended animation fields and feeding inverse coordinates to every animal in a sort of teleportation power surge.’

‘You mean…?’

‘That all the creatures have ended up back where they came from, yes. Luckily I hadn’t been teleported from anywhere, so I wasn’t affected.’

But I was still thinking about the other animals. His words had given me the tiniest sliver of hope. ‘Back where they originally came from, right. Exactly where they disappeared from. Exactly. The same time, I mean,’ I added, just to make it absolutely clear.

But he shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. The museum doesn’t have time travel. Not even having the sonic screwdriver in the mix could help out there.’

So I’d sent back billions of extinct animals to twenty‐first‐century Earth.

‘Can we reverse it?’ I asked. ‘Reverse the reversal, send them back?’

His nose crinkled up. ‘Possibly. The question is… even if I can do it, do I want to?’

That didn’t make sense. ‘You what?’

‘Better to die in freedom than live in a cage…’ he said.

‘Better to be eaten by a dinosaur than live out your normal twenty‐first‐century life?’

For a second I thought he might argue, but he said, ‘Good point.’ Then he sort‐of smiled. ‘Well, let’s see what we can do. After all, we like a challenge, don’t we, Martha? Something to get our teeth into!’

Talk about unfortunate phrasing. ‘And there’ll be a load or dinosaurs down there, getting their teeth into people!’

‘Old dinosaurs, dying dinosaurs. And the way the land masses have changed, half of them will land in the sea anyway…’

Way to pile on the guilt, Doctor. ‘So now I’m the person who wiped out the dinosaurs! Was it a comet, was it climate change, no, it was Martha Jones mucking around with an electronic tool that makes a silly noise!’

The Doctor looked offended at that. ‘It’s not silly! It’s –’ He broke off in mid‐sonic‐screwdriver defence as the TARDIS juddered to a halt.

‘But what are we going to do?!’ I asked. ‘We can’t track down 300 billion creatures… can we?’ I mean, with a TARDIS, I guessed anything was possible.

‘That would be mad!’ he said, grinning, which meant he’d been considering the idea. ‘Tell you what, though, let’s see where the old girl –’ he patted the console – ‘has brought us while I think up a Plan B.’

Then he turned to me. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ The smile slipped for a second and there was an expression so intense I couldn’t bear to look at it. I remembered the Chinese girl, how she was willing to do anything to save the person she’d loved. And I realised that whatever I’d done, whatever the consequences might be, I’d dragged the Doctor out of hell. And how could I be sorry for that?

THE ISPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES

PHORUSRHACOS

Phorusrhacos longissimus

Location: South America

The head of this giant flightless bird is out of proportion to the rest of its body, being a similar size to that of the horse, equus caballus. It stands approximately two metres high, and has a large hooked beak. It is a predatory carnivore.

Addendum:

Last reported sighting: 20 million BC.

Cause of extinction: competition for prey due to joining of continents South and North America; climate change.’

ISpyder points value: 800

THE ISPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES

Creature Points

Subtotal 35499

Dodo 800

Megatherium 500

Paradise parrot 500

Velociraptor 250

Mountain gorilla 500

Aye‐aye 900

Siberian tiger 600

Kakapo 900

Indefatigable Galapagos mouse 1500

Stegosaurus 500

Triceratops 550

Diplodocus 600

Ankylosaurus 650

Dimetrodon 600

Passenger pigeon 100

Thylacine 250

Black rhinoceros 300

Mervin the