‘What?’

‘No idea. But I’m thinking.’ She looked at a sign saying A13 Tilbury. ‘Essex thataway.’ Then she shrugged.

‘Not that I know exactly where I’m going. It was dark last night and I was thinking about the Doctor too much to note landmarks.’

‘You want to take the A127,’ Joe piped up. ‘Three miles along that after the M25 junction, then left into Meadow Lane, half a mile further on and right into Gorsten Road. Stay on that for six and a half miles, then left towards South Woodham Ferrers.’

‘Oh yes, I remember that name,’ Donna said. ‘How do you know?’

‘After passing under the railway bridge, you need to go eight miles on Tributary Road and as you get to the B8932, turn right into Allcomb Lane. Copernicus is two miles along there.’

Donna looked at Lukas, who just shrugged. ‘He knew where to find you,’ he told her. ‘And what van you’d be driving.’

‘That’s creepy,’ Donna said quietly, glancing at Joe in

the rear-view mirror.

‘That’s Joe,’ Lukas said. ‘Thank God we’re only half-brothers.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Donna chided him. ‘He’s still your brother.’

‘Yeah,’ Lukas agreed. ‘But if we were full brothers, maybe we’d both be weird. This way, I can translate if he starts speaking Italian.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Cos that’s where his dad was from, according to Mum.’

And something flashed through Donna’s mind.

Something the Doctor had said at the dinner the night before, when she was helping Netty out and old man Crossland had thought he was barking. When he was talking about that Mandragora thing.

I first encountered it in the fifteenth century in Italy.

Something in Donna’s head sparked. Mad dolphins!

Course! It couldn’t be that simple, surely… but then, he said it was five hundred years ago. Plenty of time for people from Italy to travel the world, have generations of kids… That man, last night at the telescope who zapped the Doctor, his accent could have been Italian. And he had gone on about genealogy…

‘Any idea where in Italy?’

‘Nah,’ said Lukas.

‘San Martino,’ Joe piped up.

‘Thought you might know that,’ Donna said.

‘Why?’ asked Lukas.

‘Cos I don’t think him being all Super SatNav in the

back there is a coincidence. I think something is using him to get us to that telescope thing for a reason.’

‘You mean my little brother is an alien?’

‘Don’t sound too excited by that idea.’

‘Nah, it’s dead cool.’ Lukas leaned closer. ‘I always told Mum he was weird.’

‘He’s not an alien. But there might be something in his background that’ll help the Doctor sort this out.’

Lukas glanced back at his brother, who was now listening to his M-TEK again. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to him though.’

Donna smiled at him. ‘It won’t, the Doctor’ll make sure he’s safe.’ But inside, she wasn’t quite so sure she could guarantee that.

The Doctor’s eyes opened and Wilfred Mott swam into view.

He grinned. ‘Hullo, Wilf.’

‘Hello, Doctor,’ said the old man, hauling him up.

‘What you doing on the floor?’

‘I was dumped. Deposited. Abandoned. How rude!’ the Doctor mumbled. Then he grabbed Wilf by both arms.

‘Where’s Donna?’

‘She’s fine. Safe at home with Sylvia, thinking we’re both up at the allotment.’

‘Good. Excellent. Brilliant even. Now then, why did they leave me here?’

‘That weird lot with the purple electricity?’

‘Yes, that’s them. Blimey, Donna doesn’t miss much out, does she?’

‘I made her tell me everything. Doctor?’

‘Yes?’

‘There’s a dead man out in that officey area.’

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. ‘I was afraid of that.’ He followed Wilf out of the control room, casting one last look around, and squinting at some numbers on a screen. A moment later, he was laying Melville’s dead body out on the floor, checking him.

‘You must be Miss Oladini?’ he said.

Miss Oladini nodded. ‘How…?’

‘I knew they were searching for you. Professor Melville asked me to try and find you. Keep you safe. And something about a cat?’

‘Professor Melville was alive then?’

‘Oh yes. They were forcing him to move the radio telescope into alignment with the Chaos Body up there.’

Wilf filled him in on the developments around the world.

‘Madam Delphi?’

‘She writes astrology columns in the papers,’ Miss Oladini threw in.

The Doctor gave her a look.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Pointless information, I know.’

‘Oh no it wasn’t, Miss Oladini. Brilliant info, actually.

Explains so much. If you are an alien super-being whose helix power is governed by the stars, then who better than an astrologer whose words are read and devoured by millions to use as your medium. We need to find this Madam Delphi and ask her where she gets her information from.’

‘Why’d they kill Professor Melville?’ Miss Oladini

asked quietly.

‘Mandragora is a great one for tools. All those people you saw last night? Tools. Tools to be discarded once they’re of no use. I imagine poor Professor Melville did what he needed to do for them and they merely tidied up after themselves.’ He put a hand of Miss Oladini’s shoulder. ‘A stupid, pointless waste of a good man and a friend. I’m sorry.’

She smiled at him. ‘Is there anything I can do to help stop them?’

The Doctor looked back into the control room. ‘Wilf, any sign of anyone else here?’

‘No one.’

‘I think they all left about nine o’clock this morning,’

Miss Oladini added. ‘I couldn’t see much, but I heard them speak.’

‘Car, Wilf?’

‘Out the front.’

‘Good, give it to Miss Oladini.’

‘Why?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Because you are alive, Miss Oladini, and I made a promise to a man to keep it that way. Go home. Wilf, phone?’

‘It’s dead, I never recharge it.’

‘ Phone? ’

Wilf dug it out of his jacket pocket, and the Doctor sonicked it, then dashed back into the control room. A moment later, he returned and gave the phone to Miss Oladini. ‘Recharged, should last a couple of weeks. Wilf,

sorry, had to wipe the sim card.’

‘The what card?’

‘If you don’t know, never mind. Miss Oladini, stored on that sim card are the coordinates the telescope is currently positioned to. I’ve also done a bit of nifty-swifty kinda stuff, meaning that when I call you on this phone, you are not to answer.’

‘How will I know it’s you?’

‘Cos no one else is likely to ring it as they know its daft owner always keeps it off and lets the battery go flat.’

Wilf harrumphed.

‘So,’ the Doctor went on, ‘when I call you, don’t actually answer, but instead, press the hash key. And whatever happens, don’t accidentally press it before I call you.’

Wilf wanted to know why, but the Doctor shook his head. ‘Safer all round if you don’t ask. Miss Oladini, do all that, and you may be responsible for saving the world.

Possibly the entire universe. Wilf, keys.’

Wilf reluctantly handed them over and Miss Oladini gently put the phone into one of the pockets of her many coats.

‘Good luck, Miss Oladini. And thank you,’ said the Doctor. ‘Off you go.’

She gave a last sad look at Melville. ‘He was lovely,’

she said simply.

‘I know,’ the Doctor said. ‘Met him in 1958. He had a skiffle band, called The Geeks – I played washboard for him. Joe Meek was gonna produce the album. We called him “Ahab” cos his surname was Melville. To this day, I

don’t know what his real first name was.’

‘Brian,’ Miss Oladini said. ‘That’s what his personnel file said.’ She smiled a sad smile at the Doctor as she headed off.

‘Brian,’ said the Doctor to the body. ‘Goodbye, Brian.’

Wilf looked after Miss Oladini. ‘Will she be OK? If those people are still watching us?’

‘Nah, they’ve gone. She’ll be fine, only lives locally, you’ll be able to pick the car up next week. If we’re all still alive.’