AND AT 9.18 A.M. on 3 June 1978, the world began to end.

The reason for this was as follows:

While the Doctor had stared at the pulsing shape of the Bah-Sokhar, deep in thought, Putta had felt able to sidle across and murmur to Bryony, ‘Are you all right?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I mean – are you all right?’

‘Yes, but you also meant a whole load of other stuff about the shape of my mouth and showing me somewhere with a greenish sky and thinking you ought to take off your other sock and…and…It’s just…it’s – please stop liking me quite so loudly.’

Putta swallowed audibly and tried to pack away as much of his thinking as he could, while repeating, ‘No but—’

Which Bryony interrupted: ‘Yes!’ And then she said more quietly, ‘Yes. I’m OK. I am. It’s all kind of wonderful…Not the horrible death parts, but the rest is…I would let you take me to a planet with a greenish sky any time you wanted.’

This produced such a torrent of thinking from Putta that Bryony flinched and the Doctor yelled, ‘Will you two keep your hormones under control. It’s like witnessing the Great Mating on Cyrus 12 – only I wouldn’t be standing this close. Really…telepathy is always so irritating…And intrusive.’

‘Yes.’ Bryony rubbed her temples. ‘No wonder the Bah-Sokhar chucked us out – maybe we were being too loud. We were probably the equivalent of a migraine.’

‘Nonsense,’ huffed the Doctor, like a highly experienced expert in all life forms. ‘The Bah-Sokhar incorporated me in a kind of cyst – it was going to keep me for ever and I’m very grateful that it changed its…Aah…It kept me in an insulated cyst…’ The Doctor batted himself on the forehead. ‘And I was complaining that it was too loud in my head…‘He strode back and forth, his arms wheeling. ‘That’s the trouble with the universe – it’s full of species I’ve never met before, I have to guess…and the volume was affecting my thinking and I’m tired…You slow down after the first few hundred years…Handsome and so forth but…I’m tired.’ He grinned, his eyes sparking and then glanced at the view screen without any trace of anxiety – or hardly any. ‘I’m tired and so I need to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream…’ His grin dialled up a few notches until it was almost audible. ‘Right you two. You’ve been through a lot – you need to sleep and so do I.’ He flopped himself down on what was – as Bryony’s and Putta’s thinking agreed – the hard, distractingly thrumming floor of the console room. ‘It’s fine. Lovely floor the TARDIS floor. I’ve slept in here often – nearer the instrument panels.’ And he snuggled his shoulders about a bit as if he was on a comfy mattress.

Bryony and Putta felt a small hint of the TARDIS’s presence for the first time since the Bah-Sokhar expelled them. Their spines were warmed by a gentle brush of comfort, watchful and nervous. And the lights softened to an orangey-golden glow, suitable for sleeping.

So the two sat themselves down and then lay as the Doctor instructed – ‘Heads together, and I think if we hold hands…’ They did the best they could to settle themselves. ‘And now we’ll do some top quality sleeping. How else would we knock very quietly on the Bah-Sokhar’s door and see how it’s feeling? It’s the easiest thing in the world – obvious really…’

The Doctor gave a mighty yawn and then Bryony and Putta were aware of him quickly falling still while his breathing settled. Like all beings used to arduous travel, risks and wonders, the Doctor could fall asleep pretty much at will.

And although they simultaneously thought it highly unlikely that they would get any sleep at all, Bryony and Putta did get the distinct impression that the tolling bell stopped tolling and found that the floor seemed to soften under them and warm and generally behave as if…

Neither of them knew as if what, because they went to sleep.

And in that sleep – they were still together but standing, hand-in-hand on a gently curved, opalescent surface which shimmered wonderfully. Overhead, a night sky hung beautifully clear and bright with marvellous constellations.

The Doctor whispered, ‘This is…I recognise this…I’ve dreamed this with the TARDIS before. Even she sleeps sometimes, in a way.’ Out of the distance came a shape which looked like a walking human as it approached, ambling slowly, even nervously. But when it was closer, they could see that it was, in fact a tall, glisteningly black horse. Its well-developed muscles ticked under its shining skin. Its hooves were huge, dark, perfect like oiled metal. And yet it didn’t fully resemble an Earth horse. Its head was very long and solid, the bone above its eyes especially substantial. And its mane writhed thickly between its pricked-forward ears and along its powerful neck, knotting and flowing into patterns, weaving, winding and shivering. It was both terrible and magnificent.

They understood it was the Bah-Sokhar in another form, one more fundamental and familiar to its identity. It was telling them that it had the strength of a beast, but also its nervousness.

The Bah-Sokhar tossed its head and pawed with one massive hoof at the milk-and-rainbow-light surface supporting them.

Bryony thought how amazing it would be to touch this incredible creature.

At once it wagged that massive head and sidestepped, uneasy.

Bryony heard herself thinking, ‘Sorrysorrysorry.’

The Bah-Sokhar stilled again. It swung its neck and – one by one – examined them with eyes which were not only black – they were also flecked with a moving fire, deep in their gaze.

All of them experienced Putta’s fear as his consciousness was peered into. And then they shared his sensations of guilt and shame. There was something about the great horse that was to do with justice, some kind of dreadful working out of justice and punishment which chilled him, chilled them all. But he came to no harm.

Bryony was next, forcing herself to stand still in her dream while she listened to the loud, large breathing of the beast as it took one step closer, its big nostrils widening, puffing humid air on to her face. She smelled the smell of an animal, a wild thing. And the animal leaned forward and breathed her scent and let her understand that it found she was self-defeating and someone who made simple things complicated, someone who could be better and bigger, someone who should waste no more time, someone who should know when to let gifts in if they were offered. Very gently, it lowered its neck and paused. She almost didn’t dare – but then she did, she passed the test and reached out, placed her hand equally gently on the giant horse’s pelt – it was almost too hot to touch and yet also felt like velvet, like trust and agreement. Then the Bah-Sokhar swung away and faced the Doctor.

All at once, the horse-formed creature reared up, the dangerous curves of its wide hooves, flashing and threatening. The Doctor didn’t move. The Doctor, in fact – as the others could feel – admired how truly extraordinary the Bah-Sokhar was in this display of ancient majesty. The Bah-Sokhar’s mane lifted and flared like black flames, the red glow of its eyes woke fully and blazed. But the Doctor stood, appreciated, let it be. He even slipped one hand into his trouser pocket, tilted his head to the side and edged towards the start of a smile. The air grew hotter and hotter, became thick with that animal scent and a monumental rage that sung and prickled and clawed at them. The Doctor nodded, more thoughtful, but still calm as the sleepiest ocean on Earth or any other planet.

And then the horse quietened, panted, dropped its hooves, stood. It dropped its great skull. It was alone. It was more alone than any being in the universe. And it wanted to be at peace and fade away.

The Doctor gazed into one of its great eyes, now only dimly alight, and he nodded again. And he leaned his head forward and the Bah-Sokhar lowered its own head until the Doctor was resting his forehead against the beast’s.

Each being in the dream breathed.

There could be peace between mankind and the Bah-Sokhar, between the universe and the Bah-Sokhar.

Then Paul Cluny Jnr walked out of the former fisherman’s cottage which his parents were renting as a holiday home for the week. His mother was cooking breakfast and his father was trying to get the wireless aerial to work. They weren’t thinking about Paul Junior. They weren’t – being remarkably insensitive people in every way – aware of anything Paul Junior was thinking.

That didn’t matter.

At 9.17 a.m. on 3 June 1978, Paul Cluny Junior thought, ‘I wish to be the jewel at the heart of the universe.’

He paused while nothing in particular happened.

And then, at 9.18 a.m. – here came the end of the world.