12

Safely inside, the Doctor closed the door of the TARDIS, and Jo ran to his side. ‘We can’t leave the spear!’ she cried. ‘It’s more important than I am!’

The Doctor held her by the shoulders. ‘My dear girl,’ he said. ‘That is very noble of you. You were right. Your aspirations are the very noblest. But you’re wrong about something. Nothing is more important than you.’

‘Oh, Doctor. I … But the spear …’

‘Yes, the spear,’ said the Doctor. ‘The spear. But which spear?’

He nodded towards the door of the TARDIS, where the spear was leaning.

‘But you just gave that back to him.’

‘No, I gave him the copy we were going to leave in the museum. That one is the real one – I hope. It was all such a rush.’

He winked and Jo burst out laughing. ‘That’s brilliant!’

‘Thank you. One of my better improvisations, I’d say. Bit of a nuisance.’

‘But, anyway, why didn’t the spear hit you?’

‘Temporal grace,’ said the Doctor. ‘No weapons can function inside the TARDIS – even something as simple as a spear. Once I was inside, I was safe. It was easy enough to sidestep it and catch it. Then I simply swapped the spears and walked back out of the old police box.’

Jo smiled. ‘And what about the Master?’

‘Oh, well, they’ll find the capacitor I was talking about under the temple, and then they might take me, and the Master, more seriously. But you know him. He’ll talk his way out of it in the end. Though it might take a little longer than usual. The only thing I can’t work out is where his TARDIS is. Or Skithblathnir, I should say.’

Jo fell silent.

‘What is it?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘The Master’s TARDIS. You think he made it look like a Viking ship?’

‘That seems likely. It must be where the legend comes from. It would have made it easier for the Norse to understand if it looked like one of their own ships.’

‘Oh,’ said Jo. ‘And how big would it be?’

‘Any size at all. Why?’

Jo rummaged in her pocket, looking for the piece of wood from the model that she’d snapped off: the tiller. Instead, she found a strange metallic device.

‘Doctor, is this something important? I found it. I … well … I broke it.’

The Doctor took it from her, studied it briefly, and then laughed so hard it almost drowned out the sound of the TARDIS materialising at UNIT HQ once more.

‘My dear girl,’ he said. ‘You appear to have removed the dimensional stabiliser from the Master’s TARDIS. He’ll have a hard time time-travelling without it. Jo, you are quite superb! Even I would be hard put to make a new one.’

‘What, even you, Doctor?’ said Jo, laughing.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘using Viking-age technology – yes.’

And with that he pushed his way out of the TARDIS, and back into the safe warmth of the British summer in 1973.