3

‘It feels like we’ve been travelling for days,’ Jamie grumbled.

‘Eight hours as you measure time,’ the Doctor said absently. He was staring intently at a small globe that looked like an oversized light bulb as he carefully twisted two wires – silver and gold – round its base.

‘I thought the TARDIS could move instantly into any place or time.’

‘It can, and usually it does,’ the Doctor grunted.

‘So what’s taking it so long?’

‘During our time together, we’ve never travelled this far before.’ The globe flickered, faded, then blinked alight. ‘Ah, success! You do know I am a genius?’

‘So you keep telling me,’ Jamie muttered.

The globe was now glowing with a pale-blue light. The Doctor stared intently at it, turning it slowly with his fingers. ‘I’ve managed to connect this to the exterior time and space sensors. Now, let us see …’

The globe turned black for an instant and then was suddenly speckled with silver dots. A long misty white streak appeared across its centre.

The Doctor gasped in horror. ‘Oh my giddy aunt. Oh crumbs.’

‘What is it? What do you see?’ Jamie demanded, peering at the image.

‘This! This!’ The Doctor pointed to the globe.

Jamie stared and then shrugged.

‘The dots are stars …’ the Doctor said in exasperation.

‘And the white streak across the middle –’ Jamie began, but almost immediately knew the answer to the question. ‘That’s the Milky Way.’

‘It is.’

‘It seems very far away.’

‘That’s because it is.’

As they were speaking, the long cloud of the distant Milky Way faded and vanished into the blackness of space. Then, one by one, the stars winked out until nothing remained but complete darkness.

‘Has it stopped working?’ Jamie asked.

‘No,’ the Doctor said glumly. ‘It’s still working.’

‘But what happened to all the stars?’

‘They’ve gone. We’re heading to the edge of space.’

A sudden explosion shocked Jamie awake and he realised he’d fallen into an exhausted sleep in a nest of wires. The interior of the TARDIS was filled with noxious white smoke. Coughing, he scrambled to his feet as another detonation ripped a panel off the ceiling. As it came loose, it dangled on a long curl of transparent tubes. The Doctor was lying on his back under the central console, and Jamie could hear the distinctive whirr of what the Doctor called his sonic screwdriver. Jamie wasn’t entirely sure what it did, but he was sure it was definitely not a screwdriver.

Suddenly all the dials on the console lit up with cold blue-green light and began to spin and dance.

‘Are you doing that?’ Jamie asked.

‘Doing what?’ The Doctor’s voice was muffled and distorted. Jamie guessed he was holding the sonic screwdriver between his teeth.

A shower of multicoloured sparks skittered across the surface of the console. Two of the dials bubbled and melted. ‘Setting the control panel on fire?’ Jamie shouted, darting away.

The Doctor pushed out from under the console and scrambled to his feet. Hopping from one foot to the other, he waved his hands at the blue-green flames now licking up through the panels. Jamie reappeared with a red fat-bodied fire extinguisher, which bore the words Property of London Underground stencilled on the side.

‘No …’ the Doctor squeaked.

‘Yes.’ Pointing the nozzle at the flames, Jamie pressed the lever and doused the control panel in water. A huge gout of flame shot up to the ceiling, where it was swallowed in thick white steam. When the smoke finally cleared, the central panel was a blackened mess.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ the Doctor said accusingly. ‘You’ve ruined it!’

‘Ruined it? I didn’t start the fire –’

The Doctor suddenly held up his hand and turned away. ‘Do you hear that?’ he asked in a hushed whisper.

‘I can’t hear anything,’ Jamie said, looking around.

‘Exactly.’ The Doctor spun back to Jamie. ‘We’ve landed,’ he said grimly.