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'Wel ?' said Tegan, 'is no one going to answer me?'

'It's made from polygrite, isn't it?'

The Doctor nodded.

'But from such a primitive society?'

'Certainly not from this one.'

'Please, Doctor,' said Tegan becoming quite annoyed. 'What's going on?' 'First things first.' The Doctor crossed to the bottom of the loft ladder.

'You don't mind if I look up here, do you?'

Mace felt unnerved, but said, 'As you wish, sir.' However, he wasn't taking any chances.

The small flourish of his hand, which seemed to endorse his agreement, casually petered out on the handle of one of his pistols.

The Doctor started to climb the ladder. 'Are you fit, Adric?' The boy flexed his leg and, barely limping now, crossed to the ladder.

'He ought to rest, Doctor,' Tegan protested.

But Adric had already started to climb. 'Don't worry, Tegan. We Alzarians are different.

We heal much quicker than you.'

Mace smiled. He had pin-pointed his uneasiness about the Doctor and his friends.

Foreigners, he thought, wondering where exactly Alzarians came from. At least that explained their strange costumes. He glanced at Tegan's knee-length skirt.

'Come on, Tegan. We can look around down here,' said Nyssa.

'And what are we looking for?' The air hostess was still annoyed as no one would tell her what was going on.

'Anything anachronistic.'

Tegan snorted. 'I assume that excludes us?'

The Doctor and Adric clambered into the loft and started to rummage among the thin layer of straw covering the floor.

'How could an ornament made of polygrite have got here, Doctor?'

'Make your own guess.' The Doctor coughed as dust wafted up from the disturbed straw. 'A comet that shouldn't be there, a meteor that doesn't look like a meteor -

whatever the phenomenon was, it certainly wasn't natural.'

'A space craft landing?'

'Or burning up in the atmosphere.'

Adric straightened up. 'But for the ornament to be here, some of the crew must have survived.'

'Not necessarily. The ornament is hard enough to have endured the crash. But should we find something more delicate...'

'. . . then there are survivors,' said Adric.

'Right.'

'Doctor!' It was Nyssa. 'Is this what we're looking for?'

The Doctor leaned over the makeshift pole put up to act as a guard rail. Below, Nyssa stood with arm outstretched, the flat of her hand upwards. In her palm were three flat discs. 'Powerpacks,' she said proudly.

'Wel done, Nyssa!' The Doctor bounced down the ladder to examine the find.

Richard Mace cleared his throat to attract the attention of these excitable foreigners.

'May I ask what is going on?'

'Questions later,' the Doctor said urgently. 'First, tell me, who owns this barn?'

Gravel crunched underfoot as the Doctor walked briskly up the driveway of the manor house, a highly agitated Richard Mace in tow.

Two masked villagers, still following the Doctor's party, reached the main gate of the drive just in time to see Tegan, Nyssa and Adric catching up with the irate actor and the Time Lord, who were now arguing heatedly. Bewildered, the two masked men concealed themselves behind the gate and observed their quarry, wondering what they were up to.

The Doctor increased his pace, but in spite of his heavy build Mace refused to be shaken off.

'Surely you are aware that there is a certain protocol involved when approaching the gentry?'

The Doctor didn't reply.

'Even if you are ignorant of that fact,' he continued to scream between loud rasping intakes of breath, 'you must realise that the nobility do not take kindly to being knocked up and questioned on the contents of their barn.'

'Then I will humour them.' the Doctor said over his shoulder.

'Sir, your humouring will earn all of us a horse-whipping. And I have a particularly sensitive skin!'

At last the actor's lungs gave out and he gently drifted to a halt in the middle of the drive.

'I thought highwaymen were bold and brave,' said Tegan.

'You forget, madam, I am also an actor. My bravado is as cracked as my wind.'

The Doctor