ALSO OUT ON THE golf course was the Doctor, now striding along in the sunshine next to the golf cart as it trundled joltingly forwards. ‘Reminds me of a dog I know.’ He smiled down at Bryony who was riding in the cart with Xavier. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘How am I feeling?’ Bryony snapped. She’d been really worried about the Doctor and didn’t appreciate that her worry hadn’t been appreciated. ‘How am I feeling?’

The Doctor nodded encouragingly, ‘Yes, that’s what I just said. But you might not remember, you’ve had a nasty shock.’

Bryony was exasperated. She jumped out of the cart, ‘Doctor, you were the one who fainted. I’m perfectly all right.’

Xavier patted her with sympathy. ‘You looked awfully wobbly, though, old girl.’

And Honor, trotting along and holding the Doctor’s hand, chipped in, ‘Yes, seeing a fainted person must be a dreadful thing.’

Bryony heard herself growl out loud with frustration before beginning, ‘You saw him being a fainted person, too. Why isn’t everyone treating you like an invalid? And the Doctor was the fainted person. He should be riding on the cart. He should be lying down.’

The Doctor tried to calm her. ‘But I was lying down. On the floor. That’s what upset you.’ Bryony slapped his arm and he suppressed a grin, because he was indeed teasing her. ‘Oh, quite. Quite.’ Annoying Bryony – and she liked being annoyed, the Doctor could tell – was distracting him slightly from the incredible pain in his head and neck and the tiny, unaccountable gap he kept running across when he checked his recent memories. Right at the back of today’s record so far, there was a numb area. It was disturbing. There were very few things that could interfere with the Doctor’s mind, even superficially, and the technologies powerful enough to intrude on him were all both dark and extremely unpleasant. He really wouldn’t want to be around if any of them had been unleashed. Except he was around and it seemed highly likely that one of them had been unleashed. Or had unleashed itself…Telepathic and psychic energies were so unpredictable and so likely to colonise other available consciousnesses and then magnify…or even to generate rudimentary sentience in awkward places…Whatever it was, it was a whole lot worse than what now seemed the friendly and welcoming possibilities of a vast telepathic clamp, squeezing the free will out of every brain it afflicted…

Bryony turned to the Doctor and actually stamped her feet, which she hadn’t done since she was Honor’s age and which immediately made her feel foolish. ‘I’m so tired of people talking down to me, just because I’m a woman! And I’m not a Junior Day Receptionist, I’m the Only Day Receptionist! And it’s him you should be taking care of!’ She waved her arms at the Doctor and then the twins. ‘He’s scared of something and trying to hide it and I don’t think there are many things that scare him and I really…’

Bryony stopped and immediately regretted all of this so strongly that the Doctor was dimly aware of the precise trains of thought she was moving through. He understood that no one had ever wanted to hear Bryony discussing the role of women in the workplace and so even considering this now made her feel bullied and a bit stupid and as if she was weird and also she would rather be on the golf course with Mr Patterson just now because she thought he was sweet and not sexist and basically unlike almost every other Fetch Hotel golfers she’d met. Not that he really was a golfer…and…

Bryony, unaware she was thinking really quite loudly, was pondering the fact that her last sentence had made the Doctor look genuinely worried for a second or two. She hadn’t been mistaken. He really was frightened. And the Doctor being frightened didn’t seem like good news.

The Doctor looked at her, completely serious, and said very kindly and softly, ‘Oh, I’m incredibly scared most of the time, you know. No one with even a basic knowledge of the universe wouldn’t be – it’s a completely terrifying place. And enormous. But it’s also wonderful and lovely and more interesting than you could possibly imagine. Even than I could possibly imagine. It never lets me down. And I get to be alive in it all and to be scared and amazed and delighted and…I wouldn’t be without it.’ Then he adjusted his hat and grinned, playing the fool again. ‘I’ve been without me and before me and after me, but I wouldn’t be without the universe.’

Bryony wondered if she was absolutely happy she now knew someone who could casually consider being without the universe.

The Doctor turned to Honor. ‘And where are we going?’ He’d forgotten their destination again. All his thoughts seemed a bit sticky, or clumped, or hairy, like boiled sweets left in a jacket pocket – or a desk drawer.

Honor explained again. ‘To see Grandmother and be in her house and take tea and get better. Grandmother’s teas make everyone better.’

Over in her cottage, Julia Fetch was carefully putting away her side plates and doilies, mildly under the impression that a very fine tea had just been enjoyed by a number of fascinating people, while the Doctor nodded and discovered this made his brain feel as if his Lateral Interpositus Nucleus had been prodded with a sonic probe, and the only time that had actually happened, he hadn’t enjoyed it one bit. Something in there definitely wasn’t as it should be. It was almost as if a new engram had been forced into his memories – a fake recollection. And the fake was there to make him believe there hadn’t already been another alteration, it had been inserted to make him forget there was a gap. If he couldn’t get control of the process, eventually it would all just heal over and then where would he be? A genius with a bit missing who couldn’t recall there was a bit missing and maybe some added ends and odds which absolutely shouldn’t be there – that would never do…Plus, he was starting to feel a little peculiar again. He put his hands in his pockets and whistled a fragment of the Song of the Arcanian System Exploration Corps, which was quite pretty and had lots of twiddly bits. Whistling twiddly bits often cheered him, although not so much today. He felt increasingly as if he wasn’t walking on grass, but on green fur, annoyed green fur.