‘Perhaps it’s got something to do with those Carnes

boys, Doctor. You said you thought they had aliens in the family.’

‘Oh yes! And how did Joe Carnes know my name?’

The Doctor sighed. ‘Oh Wilf, Wilf, Wilf! You just ruined a perfectly pleasant evening.’

‘I did? How? And, um, sorry.’

‘Because you just spotted a chink, a tiny, tiny flaw in my logic. Mandragora is linked, in a bizarre way, to astrology, not just astronomy.’

‘Astrology’s nonsense.’

‘Well, most of it’s just made up by newspapers. But it dates back to the Dark Times, so there’s probably something in it. Go back to the birth of the universe and you’ll see every society, every civilisation has some form of zodiac, a belief in the power of ancient lights linked to some kind of belief system based around the movement of planets and stars and constellational shift. Astrologers on the planet Hynass swear blind that there’s no such thing as coincidence and have absolute faith in the knowledge that every event since the Big Bang has been divined, is a matter of pre-established fate that no one can ever break out of. Now you might think it’s nonsense and I might think it’s nonsense, but Mandragora thrives on that belief, that unproven system, and uses it. Cause and effect.’

Wilf frowned. ‘But it’s still nonsense.’

‘Oh yes! Yeah, course it is. Nonsense! Well, probably.

Doesn’t stop Mandragora being able to tap into those energies though.’

Wilf shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, Doctor.’

Donna walked over. ‘Granddad, I think Netty could do

with some support against that mad old witch’s opinions on a woman’s place in modern society.’

Wilf nodded. ‘Cheers, Doctor. I hope you’re wrong by the way.’ And he wandered off.

‘What was that all about then, sunshine? You upsetting my gramps?’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘No, Donna, not at all. He’s got me thinking about coincidence and causality.’ He glanced over at Netty. ‘How is she?’

‘Not sure. She just drifted off for a while but then she just seemed to wake up, all smiles and dragged me back here.’

‘It happens, I’m afraid,’ he said, still observing her as she slipped an arm around Wilf’s waist. ‘And don’t forget, she’s used to it herself.’

Donna tapped his hand. ‘And there’s something else. In the bar. That good-looking bloke who showed us in earlier?’

‘Gianni?’

‘Yeah, him. He was going on about someone.’

‘Who?’

‘Dunno, I wasn’t sure he was even speaking at first but it seemed to be something about a man licking a mad dolphin.’

The Doctor shrugged. ‘Could be anything. Probably had too much to drink himself.’

‘Or working with these people has sent him nutty,’

Donna grinned. ‘Oh well. Not sure why you’d lick a mad dolphin, though.’

The Doctor laughed. ‘Nor me. We should think of

heading off soon, though.’

‘Why?’

‘Something to do with a very old and dangerous alien entity suspended not far above your planet that is unlikely to be there sightseeing.’

‘How dangerous?’

‘Well, it’ll be waiting for something like a lunar eclipse which, looking at the moon tonight, doesn’t seem especially imminent.’

‘There’s always the Triple Conjunction.’

‘The what?’

‘Gramps told me about it, it’s why they’re all so excited by his discovery of that new star. This is the International Year of Astronomy, and they’re all waiting to see the first triple conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune.’

Donna was quite proud that she’d retained all that information, but the Doctor was legging it across the room to Doctor Crossland. ‘The Triple Conjunction,’ he yelled.

‘When is it?’

‘Sorry?’

‘This year, yes? But when this year?’

Crossland sighed. ‘I thought you were supposed to be clever?’

‘I am. But, like all clever people, I can only learn things when people give me straight answers to straight questions and not sarcasm.’

Doctor Crossland looked triumphant. He had outsmarted the Doctor. ‘Well, if you knew as much about astronomy as you say, you’d know it’s ongoing. It started

a while back.’

‘When the Chaos Body was first sighted?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘And when does it hit its peak?’

‘It’s why we’re having this dinner, Doctor. The main event occurs on Monday, about three o’clock in the afternoon, local time.’

‘You appear to be looking very smug, Doctor Crossland,’ the Doctor said, ‘for a man who may well be dead in forty-eight hours. Give or take five or six hours.’

Doctor Crossland frowned. ‘Is that a threat?’

‘Yes,’ the Doctor said. ‘Not from me, from me it’s an assurance. The threat is from Mandragora. From your Chaos Body. It’s here to kill you all.’

He hurried over to Wilf, Netty and Ariadne Holt. ‘Sorry to break up the party, Wilf, but I have to go. Can you get Netty home OK, Donna?’

‘Oh, Doctor, you go, don’t worry about us. I have a cab booked to take me home at eleven anyway,’ Netty said.

She touched Wilf’s arm. ‘And don’t even try to argue with me, Wilfred Mott. This is your night, so I didn’t want you feeling all responsible for me tonight.’

Wilf looked from her to the Doctor.

‘Wilf can’t leave,’ said Ariadne Holt. ‘We haven’t done the presentation yet.’

‘It’s only us that’s going,’ said Donna. ‘Granddad will stay.’

‘Like hell I will,’ said Wilf. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘No one’s coming with me,’ the Doctor said, but no one was listening to him.

Donna pulled him closer. ‘Gramps, Netty has already had one… spell this evening. You have to stay with her.

Make sure she gets home. Go with her in the cab, then keep the cab and get home, yeah?’ She reached into her handbag and took out three tenners. ‘Dunno if it’s enough, but it should help.’

Wilf refused the money. ‘I can pay my own way, thank you, sweetheart.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you can,’ Donna said. ‘But take it anyway, so I don’t have it on my conscience that you might’ve got stranded somewhere and have to drag Mum out of bed to come and pick you up, all right?’

Wilf looked at his granddaughter, then at the Doctor, who pretended to find something interesting on the ceiling. He took the cash. ‘Call me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my mobile.’

‘I know you have. And it’ll be switched off or have a flat battery. Same as always. We’ll be fine, I’ll see you in the morning.’ She kissed him, then Netty and grabbed the Doctor’s hand. ‘Come on you, time we were gone.’

The Doctor called goodbye to Netty, Wilf and Ariadne Holt as Donna dragged him through the door and back into the entranceway, past the doorman and out into the cold night air. ‘I was going by myself,’ he protested, but Donna had already waved down a cab (well, stood in the middle of South Lambeth Road and whistled down one that had made the right choice between stopping, ignoring her or running her over).

Donna clambered in, hauling the Doctor in afterwards.

‘Where to?’ asked the cabbie. ‘I’m off duty soon, so

better not be far.’

‘Chiswick High Road,’ the Doctor said to him, adding to Donna, ‘I need the TARDIS.’

The driver pulled out, drove under the railway bridge and headed back towards Nine Elms and West London.

The first report came in at 23.04. It was from the Clemenstry Observatory in Western Australia. It reported that the new star, the one that had appeared in the heavens a week or so back, seemed to be moving in conjunction with another star, M84628•7.

Which was a bit unusual, Professor Melville declared, jabbing at his computer screen with a ballpoint pen. He was in his office at the Copernicus Array in Essex, but probably wanted to be in the radio telescope control room itself. He usually did.

‘That’s the problem with these new stars, these Chaos Bodies,’ he said to his young ‘assistant’, Miss Oladini.

‘They’re chaotic and make no sense, scientifically speaking. Don’t you agree?’