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Suddenly the old woman began to speak. "The cave...' she whispered,

'rocks and crystals, sparkling in your eyes even when you shut them... Oh, it's so warm, the sky's like one big sun, bright and yellow...'

'Extraordinary,' breathed Roley. 'It's her dream. Yet listen to the coherency of speech. She's still describing it just like the others.'

'Is she still in the trance?' asked Maria.

'She must be, but there's not a trace of catatonia...' He turned to look at her and gripped her shoulders. 'You know what this means?'

The Doctor grabbed the man's own shoulders and spun him round to face him. 'Tell us, Dr Roley. What do you think this means?'

'It means I'm right.' Roley's eyes were gleaming. 'Really right. These people aren't suffering from some straightforward schizophrenia: it's something else.'

'Go on,' said the Doctor.

'It's as if they're suffering from some kind of Tourette's syndrome -wildness, violence, dark thoughts... A disturbance in the very oldest parts of the brain, Doctor, the hypothalamus, the limbics...'

'Spare me the lecture,' interrupted the Doctor. 'Your theory?'

'The excitor transmitters in the brain have been stirred up, altering the personality of each of the subjects, bringing about this delusion. A shared delusion. Don't you see, man? These people's minds are different from the norm: they're "wired" in a different fashion. Something, some common event in these people's lives, has resulted in a neuronic pathway resolving itself into some sliver of man's racial unconscious!' Roley noticed Maria was nodding with fierce loyalty, although her face was blank, and sighed.

"Those affected interpret their journey along that path as a walk through a cave. Now, imagine if we could tap into it further!'

Maria joined in, apparently now on surer ground. 'Find the event that triggered it all -'

'- through hypnotic assault and regression therapy?' the Doctor mooted.

She tried again. 'Find that event and the breakthrough is made.'

'We'll be able to chart specifics in the great unknown of the collective unconscious,' said Roley. 'Can you imagine it?'

'Oh, I think so. But I think the question is, should we?'

'We'll learn again what has shaped us as we've evolved, learn what it is that makes us men.'

'Or learn what it is we’ve made ourselves forget in order to stay men,'

countered the Doctor, his voice rising.

Maria simply smiled, demurely. 'Charles Roley will be a bigger name than Freud.'

The Doctor stared at them both, shaking his head almost imperceptibly, his expression impossible to read. Then he glanced down at Mrs Kreiner, who had stopped her murmuring and seemed to be sleeping peacefully. From time to time, her right arm would twitch, as if being tugged by an invisible thread.

'I think you're wrong,' said the Doctor.

'What do you mean?' said Bulwell, affronted.

'I mean I don't think you're right.'

'Don't be obtuse, Doctor,' said Roley, irritated.

'You believe nature has left these poor souls with the key to the door that we've slammed on our unconscious?' said the Doctor. 'That some chance event affected all of them and pushed them through that door? That they've tried to rationalise that event as being taken into some sort of cave?'

'That's it exactly.'

'Is it, Dr Roley?'The Doctor sat softly on the bed by Mrs Kreiner's side.

'Suppose, as I do, that that cave is real, that it exists.'

'Nonsense,' sneered Bulwell.

'Just suppose . If the cave actually exists, it follows that the affliction your guests share could’ve been induced, or stirred up, deliberately.'

'By what?' asked Roley.

'By whatever was in that cave,' said the Doctor.

3.4

Sam had recovered consciousness a couple of times in the cab, but she hadn't made much sense. The driver had believed Fitz's story about her having one too many - why wouldn't he? No, no one suspected a thing.

He'd wait and see how much Sam remembered, then sort out what his next plan of action would be.

His mind raced with the possibilities.