As the TARDIS re-materialised Marcus grew apprehensive. Having recently been refreshed by a shower and a new set of clothes given to him by the Jester he was feeling somewhat refreshed though, he was a little bit put out by the Jester's choice of attire.

'A green suit,'he said more to himself than anybody else, ' A lime green suit.'

'Oh Marcus, you look wonderful!' The Jester said in a tone that was usually reserved for mothers describing their daughters in their prom dresses. 'Couldn't have picked a better outfit myself.'

'You did pick it' said Marcus flatly, 'it's not like we're going to fit in'

'You'd be surprised.' The Jester winked at him as he pushed open the TARDIS door. Marcus had expected to see a barren, red world filled with rock, dust and sand dunes. He expected it to be almost empty save for red clouds of galactic space dirt and orange dusty mountains,. What he saw instead was a bustling casino city. Multitudes of coloured lights filled the air, the sound of money making that clinking sound it makes when it hits the bottom of jackpot machines rang in his ears, a mixture of human robot and females carrying drinks to guests sitting on lounge chairs and rich, alien businessmen pulling up in the nearby car park to be greeted by an army of robot butlers and valets.

'But...' Marcus began, 'this is meant to be the year 2045, there is no way we could have inhabited the planet in 30 odd years.' He thought he was sounding intelligent and looked sideways at the Jester for approval, the Jester merely sighed.

'You don't see many humans, do you?' He said.

'No' Marcus replied sceptically, 'only the girls.'

They were about to continue their train of thought when they were interrupted by the arrival of a robot greeting droid. It smiled mechanically lit smiles of green lights, it's big, round, red flickering eyes flashed synthetic welcomes at them.

'Hello' it chirped, 'welcome to Mars Casino platform 11806, I am Sylvia and I will be your maid for today.'

The Jester was about to offer his own greeting but in the excitement Marcus jumped in front of him and began to talk instead. Normally affronted by such displays of foolhardiness the Jester allowed him to speak with a wave of the hand.

'Hello' Marcus said slightly jumping up and down on his tiptoes. Up until this point he had barely left the village, he hadn't even been to London and now he and only he was the first human on Mars that was, at least to his knowledge. 'We are looking for a woman.'

'Careful now' the Jester whispered from behind him.

'There are currently 2976 women aboard on Mars Casino platform 11806.' Sylvia said without effort.

'That doesn't really narrow it down' Marcus grumbled in his chest.

'Narrow search parameters?' The robot maid enquired but before Marcus could line up another question, the Jester pushed past him lightly and eyed the robot quizzically. 'Hello Silvia!' He said in his normal chirpy, clown like a voice while gripping her hand and shaking it. 'I'm the Jester, a Time Lord.'

'Why did you tell her that?' The Jester's young companion hissed under his breath only to be met with an equally harsh whispered 'hush!' From the oddly dressed alien.'

Sylvia circuits flashed. There was a long pause as she attempted to compute the information given to her by the man who called himself a Time Lord, it took a few moments of clunking and whizzing and beeping before Sylvia finally said, 'our records indicate that only one Time Lord has passed through here since the origins of Mars Casino platform 11806, name 'The Jester' does not match.'

'Oh?' The Jester said with feigned ignorance, 'what was his name?'

More beeping. 'Records indicate the only Time Lord to pass through Mars Casino platform 11806 called himself 'The Doctor.'

Marcus and the Jester mentally high-fived themselves, though Marcus was still struggling to maintain his excitement and began to make slight giggling noises under his breath forcing the Jester to raise his hand again to silence him. 'Was he with anyone, is he here?' The Jester said in a rushed, slightly angrier voice than Marcus had heard him speak thus far, he assumed the Jester's desperation to regain his memories was just as strong as his own, still it wouldn't hurt to be a tiny bit more courteous.

'The Doctor left approximately 12.25 days ago. Reason for visit… Classified.'

'I knew it!' The Jester growled harshly as he kicked a pile of red sand in anger. It arranged itself into patterns that dazzled Marcus as the light reflected from the sand shifted from red, to green, to blue. Then again as Marcus well knew, he was easily pleased.

'No further questions.' The Jester sigh.

'Thank you and enjoy your stay… Visitors and residents of Mars Casino platform 11806 are reminded again under all circumstances to stay away from The Dig, have a pleasant day.'

As the robot toddled away Marcus timed at the Jester sleeve, speaking in whispered tones for despite the bright colours and the revelry he was somehow fearful of this world. 'The Dig?' He asked.

'Don't know' the white haired Time Lord shrugged. 'Last time I came here it was as you humans know it now. Red sand, discarded NASA equipment… More sand. Anyway!… I've got a feeling that we need to check this place out, The Dig whatever it is sounds pretty bloody interesting!

'But we don't even know where it is' Marcus counted.

'True' the Jester said, 'but it's nothing cruising around hundreds of bars won't fix. Drunk people tell you lots of interesting stuff… Mostly about the opposite sex or a particular member of the opposite sex, or a particular member of the same sex… Look, it's mostly about Romance but I'm sure we'll get lucky there's bound to be an interesting person around somewhere.'

Marcus couldn't really argue with that, after all he was the traveller, the hanger on. It's not as if he had friends back at the village either, while everyone else was out clubbing or partying he, partly by choice and partly out of fear of rejection was busy studying the stars. Still, he'd always wanted to try his hand at being one of the normal people and the Jester seem like a pretty fun guy to do it with.

'I don't think we're doing much working' Marcus told the Jester in a raised voice as they sat in a bright blue neon lit nightclub. Marcus coward at the noise but at the same time was incredibly interested in the type of creature that he witnessed. The largest majority, he observed were shimmering silver muscular creatures with one big eye adorning the top of their head, and veiny muscles that seemed to expand and contract whenever they experienced excitement, or a least what Marcus thought was excitement as it only seemed to occur when one of the creatures was dancing next to or touching another.

'What are they? Marcus asked but the Jester just sat there with his head down and looking at the table and twiddling with a straw. 'Hello?' Marcus called again forcing the Jester to look up at him this time. His eyes however were not the bright and confident eyes that he had on him a majority of the time. They were narrow they were serious and they were scared, he pointed at the door to a toilet and gestured Marcus to follow.

'What?' Marcus looked up at him with a great sense of concern 'You don't normally look like that, is something wrong?'

'Yes' the Time Lord said in a voice that lacked completely the bouncy and jolly qualities the Jester's voice possessed. This voice was deep and gruff and worried. He handed Marcus his compendium and pointed at the page he was currently on.

There on the page was a picture of the grey, one eyed veiny Cyclops monster that Marcus had witnessed on the dance floor. There was something different about the picture in the book however, while the Cyclops on the dance floor were big and bold and bulging the ones in the book were tiny almost baby versions of the ones that were dancing a few feet away from them.

'I don't quite get it.' said Marcus.

'I've seen these creatures before' said the Jester still speaking in the dark and rumbled tone he had when he given Marcus the book, 'but they weren't that big and they weren't on Mars.'

'Are you sure?'

'The book doesn't lie Marcus' he snapped worriedly then his facial expression changed almost instantly, softening as if to indicate an apology. 'I write things down in this book when I see them, when I last saw them they were tiny, childlike, I played with them.'

'Right,' said Marcus yet again failing to grasp the significance of one of the Jester's comments. It was at times like this he really felt stupid, though he dare not show it.

'They're called Kytraxians, they live on their mother planet called Olympire 1. It's a planet that feeds them almost in an automated fashion. Every time they interact with the planet, touch the grass, climb a tree, swim in the ocean they are fed nutrients by the planet almost automatically.

'So… They shouldn't be here?'

'Not just that they shouldn't be HERE' the Jester said with a hint of panic, they shouldn't be THIS, something has changed them.'

'Well… What do we do?'

'I don't know but one thing's for certain, we have to-' they were interrupted by a loud scream coming from outside, when the Jester and Marcus barged through the door they saw a human girl, scantily clad and of about 14 or 15 being beaten with some kind of electric whip by one of the Cyclops monsters they now dreaded.

'Stupid girl!' Roared the Kytraxian, 'I wanted a Martini! Stupid idiot human, I don't know why we haven't extinguished the last of your race, you do make good slaves though.' He laughed and almost everyone in the club laughed with him as the girl whimpered and coward under the pain of the whip.

'Last of-' Marcus breathed.

'Shush' said the Jester quietly.

The whipping continued and the girl continued to scream, but no one failed to notice the shiny golden cannonball flying directly towards the Cyclops eye. It hit with a thud and the monster flew backwards until he excused himself from the club.

The ball returned to the Jester's hand and be put it back in his pocket. 'Now we can't have that' he said in a tone that sounded more like a disgruntled teacher than a noble Time Lord. 'Look at her, she's only small' he helped her to her feet, 'why don't we stop the whipping and do some dancing instead eh?...eh?'

The offer wasn't taken up as the Kytraxian that was thrown out the door roared back in again this time armed. It was soon discovered, much to the Jester and Marcus distaste the other Cyclops were armed as well.

'Put your hands up' the Jester whispered to Marcus.

'What?'

'Just do it!'

They both did. One of the Cyclops, the creature dressed in fine golden robes and ruby shoes approached them. Marcus also noticed a police badge and felt the combination very odd.

'We've been watching you, odd man.' The police officer said. 'It looks like you couldn't keep your human on a leash either.' He laughed and so did everybody else, 'there's only one punishment for the assault of a Kytraxian on Mars… Take them to The Dig!" The crowd roared and dragged them out by their arms.

'Bugger' said the Jester.