‘Charming.’

‘Always a risk.’ He glanced up at the clock. ‘I reckon we have about an hour to find out why they left me alive.’

‘Then what happens?’

‘The cavalry.’

Dara Morgan was standing in the penthouse of the Oracle Hotel, staring down at the elevated motorway below.

‘They look like ants.’ Caitlin was at his shoulder.

‘Which is pretty much what they are.’

Dara Morgan opened his mouth, as if to speak, then shut it.

‘You OK?’ Caitlin asked.

He shrugged. ‘I… I seem to remember something. Toy cars. I can see loads of little metal cars being played with by a child. The boy seems…’

‘Familiar?’

‘I was going to say “happy”, actually.’ Dara Morgan moved away from the window. ‘Madam Delphi,’ he said to the computer screens assembled across the desks lined

up along one long wall. ‘How are we doing?’

‘It’s fantastic,’ the computer replied, waveforms positively glowing. ‘All over the world, the children of Mandragora are linking up, protecting the sites of arrival.

And MorganTech now controls eighty-seven per cent of the world’s computer franchises.’ Madam Delphi giggled.

‘Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, William Henry Gates III.’

Caitlin started reading off some internet reports.

‘There’s a new cult of Mandragora in South America now,’ she laughed. ‘How far did Mandragora go back then?’

Madam Delphi’s screens flashed. ‘We went a long way.

Ooh look, a whole lineage trace in Norway. Is there nowhere we haven’t reached?’

Caitlin tapped a few more keys. ‘And another in Zaire!’

‘This truly is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!’

Madam Delphi cheered.

Dara Morgan was watching the cars again. And on the window, he was subconsciously drawing letters with his finger.

Caitlin glanced up. And frowned. Dara Morgan was drawing a C. And an F.

She was up and beside him instantly. ‘Hey you,’ she said, drawing him back. ‘Madam Delphi has something to show us. A tenth of the world’s population are joining us today. And when the M-TEK goes on sale this week, we’ll have six times that many! Already the free prototypes we gave away have activated our sleeping brethren.’

Dara Morgan gave a last glance back towards the

window, towards the M4 motorway and then down at the potential M-TEK sales. ‘Once Murakami has sorted things out in Tokyo…’

‘This world and all its people will belong to Mandragora!’ said Madam Delphi. ‘Oh, and I’ve just uploaded a whole new batch of horoscopes. How marvellous!’

Wilf had rescued an old coat from a room and brought it over to the observatory to cover Melville’s dead body.

‘Why’d they kill the poor man, Doctor?’

The Doctor was in the small control room, carefully studying the readouts, equally careful not to touch anything. ‘He probably set all this up for the Mandragora Helix, then they didn’t need him any more. It takes a percentage of its power to control people – better to save it for those it needs long term.’

‘Such as?’

The Doctor turned away from the controls and ushered Wilf back towards the dead body, sonicking the door behind him. ‘No one gets in or out until I say so,’ he muttered. Then he smiled at Wilf. ‘I wish I had an answer for you, Wilf, but truth is I’ve not got a clue. There’s always a link between the people it enslaves and the people they enslave in turn. Right now, I have no idea what that is, or how your Madam Delphi fits in but I’m guessing she is linked to Mandragora.’ Suddenly the Doctor slapped his hand to his head. ‘Oh of course! I see it now! Wilf, what’s the time?’

‘Twelve thirty-five.’

‘And you arrived here when?’

‘About nine, I wanted to get here because—’

The Doctor held up a hand to quieten him. Then he counted down. ‘Five. Four. Three. Two. And… one!’

At which point the outer door to the observatory was wrenched open, flooding the room with daylight.

Standing there, framed in it, was Donna Noble.

‘The cavalry, as promised.’

Wilf hugged Donna. ‘How’d you know we were here?’

The Doctor was leaning against the wall, arms folded, all nonchalant, but so proud. ‘Aww, cos she’s your granddaughter, Wilf, and she’s brilliant.’

Donna ignored the compliment. ‘I know what that bloke meant last night. And he was Italian. It’s the Italians!’

Wilf looked from one to the other. ‘What?’

‘He said something about a man who licks mad dolphins.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Oh.’

‘But let’s see if we agree, go on.’

‘Or,’ Donna grinned, ‘if I’m righter than you?’

‘Improbable, but always possible. Fire away.’

‘What he said was “The man. He licks mad dolphins.”

But he didn’t say “mad dolphins”, he said “Madam Delphi”.’ Donna smiled. ‘Yeah, you’d guessed that, hadn’t you?’

The Doctor nodded.

‘I’m still working on the bit about him licking her,’

Donna went on.

The Doctor smiled at her. ‘Helix. It’s the Mandragora

Helix, Donna. But I don’t know why the Italian bit is important… Oh, oh, yes, of course!’

‘Fifteenth-century Italy. San Martino, perhaps?’

‘What are you two talking about?’ asked Wilf.

The Doctor looked at him. ‘Potted history, Wilf. 1492, I met up with this alien energy from the Dawn of Time.

Mandragora Helix, always striving to dominate the lesser species.’

‘Who you calling lesser?’ asked Donna.

‘Fifteenth-century humanity, Donna. Not like twenty-first century humanity, oh no. You’re far more sophisticated.’ He smiled in a way that suggested this wasn’t exactly how he perceived things, but she let it go.

‘So, anyway,’ he continued, ‘I accidentally brought a fragment of the Helix energy to a small Italian principality called San Martino. I defeated it, very cleverly, by earthing it. Or so I thought. But that’s quite literally what I did, shoved it into the ground, where it survived, trying to repair itself. Got into the land, into the water and ultimately into the people. A tiny biological entity attaching itself to chromosomes, DNA, whatever.

Transferred from generation to generation until the whole kit and kaboodle of Mandragora shifts itself halfway across the universe and links up. Last time, it wanted to halt human progress. This time, Mandragora’s realised that there’s no stopping you, you’ll be out there, flooding humanity across the stars in no time, colonies, empires, wars and peacetimes, until the end of time. So Mandragora says, “I’ll have a bit of that, thank you,” and glues itself to you for eternity. Great plan, it can

manipulate you all for millennia to come.’

‘So all over the world,’ said Donna, ‘diluted through breeding and whatnot, there are these descendents from San Martino all over the world. Thousands of them now, probably unaware half of ’em that they even have Italian blood in them. And Mandragora is controlling them.’ She turned back to the Doctor. ‘That’s how Joe Carnes knew you were who you are. His dad’s from San Martino.’

‘How’d you know that?’

‘Joe told her.’ Lukas Carnes poked his head through the door. ‘He’s finished in the toilet, Donna,’ he added as the two boys walked in.

‘Oh yeah,’ Donna smiled weakly at the Doctor. ‘Say hi to my team of helpers.’

The Doctor was overjoyed to see them. ‘That’s how you found us, wasn’t it? I thought it was unlikely you’d memorised last night’s taxi route.’

‘Like a guide dog, Joe is,’ Donna said.

The Doctor put a hand on Wilf’s shoulder. ‘We’re done here. Let’s go home. Via Greenwich.’

‘Greenwich?’ Wilf frowned. ‘Oh no. No, Doctor, don’t involve Netty. Please!’

‘I really think she can help, Wilf. I’m sorry.’

‘Who’s that?’ Lukas was pointing at the coat-covered body in the corner.

The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘A good mate of mine, Lukas. He died.’ And he threw a look at Wilf. ‘But he’s the last friend who dies at the hands of the Mandragora Helix, I promise you.’