THE DOCTOR HAD THOUGHT it best to lead his two companions out of the Spa through the fire exit. None of them remotely resembled individuals who had been through a sublimely tranquil and restorative experience of balanced wholeness. They looked if they been buried at sea. In a whale. And that might have alarmed Miss Pitcairn, the Spa Manageress. Who would eventually discover the scene of horror they were leaving behind. The Doctor found that leaving behind scenes of horror was usually wise, particularly if you might be likely to get an unfair amount of the blame for them.

Their unconventional route out – which hadn’t passed the changing rooms – meant that Putta now had to cope with being outdoors in a sand- and slime-covered bathrobe (without flip-flops) in the presence of Bryony. Who had saved his life. Again. He was unsure about whether he wanted to burst into song, or make a break for his Type F378a Abrischooner, fire up the engines and never be seen again. At least he had discovered that it wasn’t actually possible to die of shame. Which, in a day of hideous shocks, had still come as something of a surprise.

Bryony herself was sporting a marginally less grubby bathrobe. She was, Putta thought, looking quite graceful as they set off back towards the golf course. Trotting barefoot next to the Doctor, she peppered him with questions. Putta had never seen anyone trot barefoot more beautifully. Actually, he’d never seen anyone trot barefoot – but that didn’t make her any less monumentally lovely.

Lovely and frustrated. ‘But I don’t understand—’

The Doctor interrupted. ‘Naturally, you don’t. You have no experience of what would happen if a completely reckless interplanetary vandal managed both to spill psy fluid on a planet where it didn’t belong and accidentally introduce a sandmaster larva to a perfect environment to hyper-accelerate its developmental cycle. Sandmasters often co-exist with Parthian mind wasps – in the sense of spending part of their larval stage eating the wasps’ brains from the inside out. Beings who shall remain nameless should remember to decontaminate their hulls before they make planetfall…You…’ he growled at Putta as if he was only letting him remain nameless because he couldn’t bear to pronounce his name and shot him a glance that made him huddle deeper into his oversized, but tattered robe. ‘You, Putta, came much closer to wiping out every life form on Earth than anyone should on their first visit. Or on any visit. Do you intend to destroy every civilisation you encounter?’ He continued to glare and then seemed to find further scolding impossible and lapsed back into explaining how cleverly he had worked things out, despite being subjected to a massive psychon dose.

‘I had the largest available consciousness, you see…So it attacked me the most.’

‘But where has it gone?! Where’s the monster?’ Bryony still wasn’t satisfied and she didn’t think this was because she hadn’t got enough experience of whatever sandmasters were. She thought it was most likely because the Doctor was extremely bad at explaining.

He hadn’t, for example, explained what planet he was from – even though it clearly wasn’t Earth. And she didn’t quite like to ask – somehow the idea of enquiring made her feel shy, or else nervous. But it would have been useful, she thought, if he’d said, ‘Hello, I’m the Doctor.’ And then not forgotten to add, ‘And I’m from some really strange other planet and quite possibly have an amazing spaceship somewhere hereabouts which you should take a look at and, by the way, I know how to deal with monsters – just about – so don’t worry too much if one turns up. That kind of information could save other people a good deal of stress. She looked over at him and thought, He’s used to monsters, though. He takes them for granted. He’s almost happy to see them. And something about that – about living a life which assumed there would always be monsters – made her feel chilly, even though it was a lovely day and the mature trees around the golf course looked magnificent and very normal and the birds were singing just as they had yesterday, before everything changed.

She tried to keep on chatting and suppressed the thought that – now that the major panic in the Spa was over – she felt slightly more like screaming than she had at the time. ‘One minute, it’s eating everyone it can get a hold of and the next it’s a heap of muck. Which there will be complaints about. And…oh, Lord…’ Bryony couldn’t help remembering the body in the pool – Agnew’s ghastly, bloodless face above the bubbling, crimson water…she felt clammy and bewildered, and the Doctor put his arm around her to keep her steady.

He gently distracted her with information, albeit not quite the information she wanted. ‘The sandmaster’s life cycle was advancing so rapidly that, while it was highly aggressive, it probably only had a few hours left before it would either join a mating stream – which it couldn’t because we’d surely know if there was more than one around here – that would involve a positively huge table reserved for two with massive romantic candles and…’ He was attempting to cheer her up with nonsense and checked her expression to see how he was doing before he went on. ‘Or…well, beyond that instar, that developmental stage…well, they tend to either explode, or dissolve. We seemed to speed up its decomposition—’

‘Explode! You didn’t tell us that it might explode!’

‘Would you have been happier if I had?’

‘No, but—’

‘Then I made a terribly wise decision by not mentioning it. And they don’t often explode. Then again, they don’t often come into contact with psy fluid and have their psychic abilities massively magnified so that they can control matter, interfere with minds…’ The Doctor made a noise somewhere between a snarl and a sigh.

Putta winced, expecting to be shouted at again. But instead he felt the strong and heavy thump of the Doctor’s free arm hugging his bruised shoulders. ‘Putta. Let’s go and have tea. Don’t you think that would be a good idea? Tea, anyone?’

‘Oh, well…’ Putta gulped and felt mildly tearful. ‘Um, tea. I think I’ve had that before. It was nice. It didn’t try to kill me.’

And Bryony found herself making the decision unanimous. ‘Tea.’ Because tea might be what you should have after vanquishing an alien, emotionally sensitive carnivorous golf bunker monster. As far as she could tell.

‘Yes. The cottage is this way, isn’t it?’ The Doctor released them both and paced languidly ahead across the grass, accompanied by his scarf.

But then he stopped, turned. ‘By the way, Bryony. Thank you so much for saving my life.’ And he looked at her, his eyes quickly serious, frighteningly intelligent, a quality in them that seemed to know her right down to her bare feet. ‘I would have been completely done for without you.’ Then he rubbed his face and looked more playful, seemed to be waiting for a compliment.

Bryony duly delivered one. ‘Well, but you were the expert.’

‘Yes, I was, wasn’t I?’ The Doctor nodded without a trace of modesty. ‘I almost always am.’ And he unleashed a startlingly huge smile.

‘As long as the thing’s gone…’

‘Oh, I’m sure it is.’ He footled in the grass with the toe of one battered shoe. ‘Either that or I’m completely wrong and we’re all still in horrible and increasing danger.’ He chuckled and dodged from foot to foot, and once again Bryony had a feeling that the universe could be a cold and dark and terrible place if you weren’t ready for it. She didn’t feel ready at all. But then again – it did also seem more exciting and marvellous than anything she’d ever dreamed of.

‘Doctor?’

‘Yes. I do.’

‘You do what?’

‘I do travel in a thoroughly remarkable vessel. She’s amazing in every way.’ He winked. ‘In case you were wondering…I borrowed her. Or she borrowed me. You might say we ran away together…Oh, it must be a good few hundred years ago, now…’

At which point Bryony realised that the Doctor’s explanations were never going to be quite as helpful as she hoped. He winked at her.

‘Well…’ Bryony repressed a huge desire to just blurt out – can I go and see it now, now, now? She felt that she should give him the impression that earth people couldn’t be impressed by just any passing space traveller.

The Doctor studied her carefully and seemed about to speak, but then turned and headed off again blithely, calling over his shoulder, ‘You didn’t do so badly either, Putta. There may be hope for you yet.’ His long form loped over the grass as if he liked nothing better than walking across smallish, wettish, concretey, leafy and occasionally sandy planets full of promising people with tea and perhaps cake at the end of his journey. Tea and cake or horrible and increasing danger. Either one would be lovely.