6

The next morning, Ace was jolted awake by her bed shaking violently. Unnerving sounds filled the TARDIS and it pitched and juddered like it was caught in a tornado. Ace ran to find the Doctor. When she arrived in the control room, she skidded to a halt and gawped.

The console was very nearly on the ceiling, raised up on a glowing white pedestal. The floor was half missing, the other half was covered in tools and Ace could only just see the Doctor’s head as he crawled around, busily doing goodness only knew what.

‘Doing a spot of redecorating?’ she asked as she island-hopped carefully across the room.

‘I’m converting the TARDIS into a Vortiscope.’

‘A whatiscope?’

‘A Vortiscope. It’s a way of examining the time vortex and –’ He stopped. ‘The point is that it will allow me to determine the coordinates of the initial space–time dislocation.’

Ace could see he was excited. For the first time in ages, he was enthusiastic again. Of course, she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. ‘A space–time dislocation sounds painful!’

The Doctor smiled. ‘Think of space and time as a lake. We know that someone has changed the shape of it, put in new fish, new plants, changed its depth.’

‘OK …’

‘But they had to start somewhere. There had to be a first change: the first new fish they dropped in the water.’

‘And?’

‘That would have caused ripples.’

Ace finally got it. ‘So you can tell –’

‘– where the ripples started, which will confirm once and for all if it was the Daleks who were responsible for this changed universe! Ah! Sometimes I amaze even myself!’ the Doctor finished happily.

‘And when you find out it wasn’t?’ said Ace.

The Doctor waved the magnetic de-interlacer in her direction. ‘Let’s not count our chickens!’

‘I know the Daleks didn’t cause this, Professor. And, when you confirm that, then we can stay put – right?’

After a moment’s thought, the Doctor said carefully, ‘If I’m mistaken, if there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with this universe, then we’ll stay … for a while.’

It took most of the day. Ace offered to help, but when the Doctor said no for the third time she went to see Tulana’s room at the Academy instead. After watching the Time Lords depart, they spent the day swapping experiences and having a good laugh. They had so much in common that Ace knew she’d made a good friend. She didn’t have too many of those.

‘Ace, what are your plans for the future?’ Tulana asked as they sat sipping their sludgies, which resembled thick grey gel, but tasted like mangoes and passion fruit back on Earth.

‘No idea,’ Ace shrugged, before licking her lips. ‘Travel and have adventures, I guess. What about you?’

Tulana said without hesitation, ‘I want to be a force for good, a voice for peace – the way the Daleks have taught me.’

Ace could only look on in admiration. ‘Well, Tulana, if anyone can do it, it’s you.’

They shared a smile and returned to their sludgies.

When Ace got back to the TARDIS, the control room still looked like a bomb had hit it. The console had been lowered again, but not all the way. The Doctor was standing on tiptoe to see what controls he was operating. Leaving the doors open, she headed over to him.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘Have you finished building your ripple-detector?’

The Doctor stared intently at the instruments. Slowly, he turned to Ace. ‘Yes, I have.’

‘And?’

‘I know what caused the problem.’

Ace stared then glared at him. ‘Well? Don’t keep me in suspense.’

‘I did.’

‘You did what?’

‘I caused all this,’ said the Doctor.