Steely glare again.

‘You don’t really care much about my finger-paintings, do you, Ariadne? Can’t say I blame you. Not much good.

D-minus. Four out of ten. Harsh, but probably justified I always think. So, what do you study?’

Ariadne Holt ignored him and looked past him to Doctor Crossland. ‘Wrong Smith, you old fool,’ she said.

‘This one’s not the author.’

Crossland glanced at the Doctor. ‘What is he then?’

‘I’m right here,’ the Doctor said.

‘Ha!’ snorted Donna, remembering the taxi ride.

‘A fool,’ Ariadne Holt replied. ‘Droning on and on about finger-painting and Italian food.’

Donna gave the Doctor a double thumbs-up and an exaggerated wink.

He gave her a look that should’ve turned her to ice.

She grinned widely.

Crossland looked at the Doctor, then at Wilf. ‘Thought you said the chappie was an expert, Mr Mott?’

Now it was Wilf’s turn to look like a rabbit caught in headlights, because he was out of his comfort zone. The best he could come up with was ‘He is.’

Crossland harrumphed.

‘Actually,’ the Doctor said, ‘I think you’ll find “the

chappie” is a bit of an expert, especially on your so-called Chaos Bodies.’

That got their attention.

The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘It’s not a star, you know.’

‘We know it isn’t,’ said Ariadne.

‘Just don’t know what it actually is,’ Crossland said.

‘I do.’

Everyone turned to look at him. ‘It’s lovely Ariadne that gave me the final piece of the puzzle, with that…

unique blouse she’s wearing.’

‘Go on,’ she said.

But the Doctor stopped momentarily, because he was looking at Henrietta Goodhart.

Netty was not taking part in the conversation, though no one had noticed. Instead she was staring straight ahead, like she had zoned out for a while.

Donna caught the Doctor’s gaze and nodded slightly, and the Doctor gave a sad smile to her. Then he drew the attention back to himself, giving Donna time to stand Netty up, briefly resting a hand on Wilf’s shoulder to stop him following. As they began to move away, the Doctor caught Donna’s eye and he mouthed a ‘thank you’. Then he resumed his explanation.

‘It’s not a star so much as a superheated ball of psionic energy which acts as a containment protective field around a malign intelligence. An intelligence that wants to dominate and expand and survive. Something it’s fully entitled to do in its own little corner of space where it normally can’t hurt anyone. But when it crawls out of its

little dimension and enters ours, when it drags itself halfway across the universe to this planet, at this time, then I get interested. Interested and intrigued. Well, I say intrigued, I mean angry. And a bit scared. You see that Galileo star map thing reminded me of when I first encountered it, back in the fifteenth century and foolishly brought a sliver of it here, to Earth. Italy in fact. Near Florence. Well, that region. Anyway, a few slivers have found their way here now and again ever since because it’s quite fascinated by Earth and this solar system.’

‘You. Are. Mad.’ Ariadne said quietly.

‘It was the “fifteenth century” bit, wasn’t it?’

Crossland was nodding. ‘That. And the rest.’

Wilf tapped Crossland’s arm. ‘You should listen to him, Mister Doctor Crossland CBE, Sir, cos the Doctor is usually right.’

‘Aww, thank you, Wilf,’ the Doctor beamed.

‘My pleasure, Doctor,’ he replied.

‘So, Doctor,’ said Crossland. ‘What do you call this fanciful ball of energy then?’

‘Oh, that’s simple,’ the Doctor said. ‘One word.

Mandragora.’

As the Doctor said ‘Mandragora’, the Chaos Body began pulsating out in space. The other lights nearby pulsated in rhythmic response. And moved closer. On a mission.

As the Doctor said ‘Mandragora’, seven people sat bolt upright in an SUV parked in a car park at Heathrow airport, as if they’d just been switched on: the newlywed DiCottas; three students, their professor and his assistant,

just arrived from Rome; and a Greek farmer, just in from Athens.

The Greek farmer was in the driver’s seat. He turned the key in the ignition and switched on the lights, and the SUV began to move forward. On a mission.

As the Doctor said the word ‘Mandragora’, Donna Noble was sitting in the outer bar at the Royal Planetary Society with Netty, holding her hand, when she saw Gianni, the Head of Hospitality, stop pouring a drink. He opened his mouth as if about to speak. Words were being formed but no sound came out, until he gasped and finally spoke. But he spoke so softly Donna wasn’t even sure he had said anything at all.

As the Doctor said the word ‘Mandragora’, Mr Murakami was sat in First Class on a JAL plane bound for Narita, drink in hand, eyes closed, listening to a compilation of 1960s tunes by Hibari Misora he’d downloaded onto his prototype M-TEK.

By the time he’d realised that beneath the music there were subliminal messages about MorganTech, it was too late. Something in his mind was screaming, yelling, realising exactly what the amazing ingredient was within the M-TEK, but he also knew he’d never be able to break free and warn the world.

‘A drink Murakami-San?’ The flight attendant offered up a choice of wine or spirits.

With a smile he opted for a glass of red wine. He tapped his earphones. ‘Marvellous singer, died early. I always say it’s a tragedy when so many people have to die with so much unfulfilled potential.’

With a nod, the attendant moved on to her next passenger.

Mr Murakami continued to listen to the music, his mind gradually being corrupted by all the subliminal messages being fed into it, and there was nothing he could do.

As the Doctor said the word ‘Mandragora’, Madam Delphi waveformed into excited life in the Penthouse Suite of the Oracle Hotel beside the Brentford Golden Mile.

‘Dara Morgan,’ she exclaimed. ‘He is aware of me!’

Dara Morgan thought the computer would have shaken with glee if it had been possible. ‘Who?’

‘The Doctor. After all these aeons, after all this distance, the stars were aligned exactly as I predicted.

Tomorrow’s horoscopes will be very different now.’

And on Madam Delphi’s website, read by people all over the world, Sunday’s predictions for every sign of the Zodiac rewrote themselves.

All that they now said was ‘Welcome Back! Your life will change during the next 48 hours in ways you could never imagine. Embrace this change, and prepare for the next, greatest, phase of your life as Mandragora swallows the skies, and smiles down upon you all.’

Within fifteen minutes, a man in Cape Town had put these words on a T-shirt. A woman in Paris was creating a Facebook group for Mandragora. And in Milwaukee three youths graffitied the word ‘Mandragora’ across the walls of their school.

The Doctor was getting exasperated with Cedric

Crossland, and that other barmy woman, Ariadne something, was doing Wilf’s head in, so he left them to it and took a wander back to the outer bar area.

He spotted Donna and Netty, and he knew immediately that Netty was gone, off into her own world. And Wilf’s heart pounded a bit harder because, although he’d seen this a number of times, every time he did so, he asked himself a question.

What would he do if this was the last time? What if she drifted away and never came back?

Donna smiled up at him as he approached, her arm wrapped tightly around this old woman she barely knew but had taken under her wing just because her daft old granddad liked her.

Wilf pulled up a stool and sat facing them both.

‘You’re very good, Donna,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to do this. She’s not family.’

‘Yeah, maybe not, but she’s important. To you. And I reckon, deep down, to Mum as well.’

‘Oh, you know your mum, always moaning, always complaining but underneath all that…’