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'Doctor?'

The Doctor blinked. It seemed the wall was talking to him.

'Do you know anything about wines?'

The Doctor allowed himself the smallest of smiles. A little.' He peered under the tapestry, as a door opened inward and Fitz stared out at him.

'Get yourself in here, then,' Fitz said.

***

When Lucy reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw the swinging tapestry but no sign of the Doctor.

Cautiously, she moved towards it. A dangerous man, this Doctor. None of the tricks they'd tried on Cynthia, Bulwell and Roley seemed to work on him. It was as if he put up some kind of barrier around his mind to keep them out.

'A mouse,' Mrs Kreiner said, weakly. 'In the wainscoting. He went through there."

Silently, Lucy looked for herself. Well, well. A door in the wall. One way in and no way out.

She shut her eyes and summoned the others. They'd all want to be in on this one.

***

Fitz looked glumly at Azoth's head in the Doctor's arms. 'What did you bring that for?'

'I thought it would make a nice punch bowl,' said the Doctor. 'Now, quickly, what can we use as a barricade? They know where we are, now.'

'Well...' Fitz made a great show of looking about him. "There's one or two bottles of wine lying around.'

'We'll use the racks. Good idea.'

Together, they hefted some of the empty racks and wedged them up against the door.

'That'll hold them for about two minutes,' said Fitz, surveying their handiwork.

'Then I'd better see if I can beat my record for stripping down positronic brains,' answered the Doctor, using the intelligent scalpel he'd used to cut out Fitz's leech to score a large hole in the blackened head. 'About three point two four minutes, if I recall correctly.'

'That thing is really dead now, I take it,' said Fitz.

'I hope not. I'm relying on a couple more dying breaths,' said the Doctor, airily, glancing up. 'If he is dead, then so are we.'

***

Sam clutched hold of the door to the butterfly room for support as she ventured out into the corridor. She hated feeling useless, weak and ill.

She'd seemingly done little but recuperate lately; after Janus Prime, Belannia, Proxima n. She was sick of being sick, and on current form she'd need a hefty convalescence period to cope with that realisation too.

Her head swam about her as she reached the console room. She called for the Doctor, but he wasn't there. She'd put the kettle on, make him a cup of Darjeeling. Just as soon as she stopped seeing two or three of everything, anyway. She'd make it across to the armchair, rest easy for a couple of moments...

***

Watson sauntered along the landing to the hallway. The Doctor had wasted their time, made a fool of them all. His death would be long and leisurely. It was the early hours of Sunday now, after all. The day of rest.

He took in the police box, standing incongruously by the stair rail. It was ludicrous - how could something like that possibly move anywhere at all?

Then he noticed the door was ajar.

***

'What are you trying to do, anyway?' asked Fitz.

'I'm glad you asked,' said the Doctor, brightly. 'I approve of an inquiring mind. It's my sonic screwdriver.' He inserted a short, wandlike instrument into the hole in the robot's head. 'Azoth's final solution. I've discovered what it is.'

'Go on then,' said Fitz, wearily, swigging from another bottle of wine and smacking his lips.

'It's crude, but horribly effective. A bioelectrical pulse, transmitted from Azoth's brain. A bit like lobotomising with a cleaver - it switches people off, just like that.' He clicked his fingers as he finished speaking. 'And it's self-replicating, increasing exponentially. The energy released by the pulse shutting down the brain propels it telepathically to whoever's nearby.'

'Your critical-mass theory, again,' noted Fitz. Suddenly, he did a double take. 'Jesus, it can do all that and you're trying to get it started?'

'Not exactly,' said the Doctor, making