Nyssa blinked and was surprised to still see Adric standing here. "Where are the others?"

"I'm not sure there are others. I've been looking around and I've seen nobody else. Except for the birds of course." Adric was crossing his arms, coincidentally blocking the orange pocket from view. "I also have no memory of how exactly I got here. I know we haven't been here long. But I don't know what we were doing before we arrived."

"But what's the last thing you remember?"

"I remember being in 17th century London with the Terileptils. But I know there are gaps in my memory. I can't tell if a day's passed or a year. What about you?"

"I'm not sure. For me the main concern is whether any of this is real."

"Oh, I'm quite sure it is."

"But is it? Every intuitive feeling suggests that this is real and those birds are benign. But every rational aspect of the situation suggests that's absurd. An asteroid like this cannot support an atmosphere, and therefore can't have life or a livable temperature."

"I'm aware of that. But I've been doing some tests and everything indicates that this is an asteroid, not some sort of illusion or space station."

"And yet the most rational argument is that this is some sort of dream. My dream."

"I can't say I'm very partial to that idea."

"I understand. And I especially want this not to be a dream. But I remember something the Doctor said once. He was actually talking about someone who was some sort of criminal. Or sick person. Apparently he was addicted to drugs, and Earth people treat that by throwing them into prison."

"That does not seem very productive."

"Perhaps. But the key point is that this man, whose name was Sherlock Holmes, once said that once you eliminate everything impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Adric pondered the matter. "Wait! I think I can show this is real." The main Bird whom Nyssa had talked to earlier was flying nearby. "Excuse me," Adric asked, "but could we have some paper and writing utensils?'

"You may have two sheets and two pens. But only for sixty seconds." And all four things materialized on the table in front of them. Adric handed Nyssa a pen and sheet, and took the other ones for himself. "Now listen carefully. We're both going to write down ten four-digit numbers."

'What sort of four-digit numbers?"

"Any kind, it's completely random." The two quickly did so, and once they were finished, Adric compared the two lists.

"Different numbers. That shows we're not in a computer simulation. Or is it that we aren't a computer simulation?" The sheets and the pens abruptly vanished when the minute ran out.

"I know I'm not a simulation. But how can we tell this is not a dream?"

"Simple. Well, relatively simple. In a dream you don't know anything that isn't in your conscious and unconscious mind. But I can teach you mathematics. I can teach you something you don't already know."

"How are you going to do that?"

"With this," Adric replied, pointing to the abacus. "I made it myself."

The strange building

"No! Those creatures are going to kill the Doctor!" Tegan shouted.

"Actually, I don't think we need to worry," the Doctor replied. And the strange bubbles started to evaporate. The Doctor got up from the ground and dusted himself off.

"What were those things?" Madhabi asked.

"Oh those? They're Plasmatons."

"What?"

"Protein agglomeration. Random particles assembled from the atmosphere. Quite harmless I assure you."

"But what can cause those things?" Bilton wondered.

"It's a sort of psychokinesis. From the same source that makes us think we're at Heathrow."

Madhabi noticed that most of the Concorde passengers were leaving the vicinity and moving deeper into the building. "Doctor, what do we do about them?"

"I suspect whoever brought us here wants people to go there. I suspect it might be best to look at them from the safety of the TARDIS. Come on everyone. Let's go back to Nyssa and the others."

The garden

And with a flourish of the last row of his abacus, Adric completed his proof. "So that shows what earthlings call Fermat's Last Theorem is true."

Nyssa nodded in understanding. "It certainly shows I'm not dreaming. Such a simple and elegant proof too. I suppose it doesn't put humans in the best light that they haven't figured it out yet."

"No doubt. What I find curious is that there's something mathematical about the problem with this place. I've been using the abacus to run through several theories, but so far without much luck."

"What sort of problem? You mean like Bloc-Transfer Computation back on Logopolis?"

"I don't think so. Conceivably it could explain how such an asteroid could exist. But it's more like there's a riddle in this place, but I have to examine it to find what that riddle actually is."

Several new birds were flying nearby. Birds the size of wrens, but with a strange green/purple plumage flew over the rotunda. They warbled oddly, like nothing heard on earth. As Adric resumed his work on the abacus, Nyssa felt compelled to walk down the steps of the Rotunda. Once at the bottom she slowly walked around it, gazing up in the air at the birds. It was not so much that they were flying as somehow floating in the air. Nyssa noticed some bushes with blue roses sprouting from them.

As Adric clicked the abacus beads, Nyssa spoke up. "I feel there's something I should understand about this place. It's in the music. If I could understand its purpose I would be able to grasp something much larger and more important."

Adric looked up. "Seems very Earth-like, in the superficial way that is so typical of humans. Supposedly the boy is using logic and reason, and the girl is using intuition."

"But that's not how intuition worked on Traken on all."

"I know that!" Adric replied crossly, as if insulted to be considered an Earth male sexist. "Anyway there's no one from Earth on this asteroid."

A string of small birds, perhaps half the size of swallows, but with enormous eyes and orange green plumage quickly flitted across the rotunda. They sang brief notes like one might play on an oboe. Then the main bird appeared, whom we will call the Queen Bird because of its feminine voice, though there was no evidence of "her" gender, or of the nature of "her" authority over the other birds. The Queen Bird spoke. "Sometimes there are choices with no happy outcomes."

Well I know that, Nyssa thought, remembering the Doctor's tragic victory over the Cybermen. She looked again at Adric and shivered. Something occurred to her. "Adric, you had the birds give you some writing paper. Can they give you anything?"

Adric had been staring intently at the middle row of his abacus. "Not exactly. Apparently there are strict limits on what you can take from this place, which is why the writing paper was only allowed to last for a minute. You can't even take memories from this place. I noticed some toys in little places around here. I collected some of them and used them to build the abacus. But what the birds did give me…"

Outside the strange building

Nyssa found herself again on Jurassic Earth again, walking towards the strange building, along with the Doctor, the three members of the crew of Golf Alpha Charlie, Tegan and the two stewardesses. "I'm sorry, what's going on?"

"You want the Doctor to explain what's happening?" June asked.

"Yes."

"You mean the same explanation that he gave just forty-five seconds ago?"

"That would be helpful."

"Surely you remember the Plasmatons?" Flight Engineer Scobie said.

"Oh, those things? But they're harmless."

"Yes, so says the Doctor. It certainly undercuts what I thought was the valiant and resourceful way that I got them off Captain Stapley. They certainly made sure that I couldn't stop the passengers from carrying off the TARDIS. Now not only have we lost the key thing we need to get home, but we have to take a long walk into certain danger."

Nyssa acknowledged Scobie's words, but wasn't interested in them very much. "I need to remember something, I need to remember something," she said to herself.

"If you can't remember something more than a minute, I would bloody say you had," June muttered.

"There's no need to be rude towards Nyssa," Tegan remonstrated.

"For centuries stuck up English aristocratic toffs have been making my family's life hell, not to mention the rest of the planet. And now I meet one and she's a twit."

"She's not English," the Doctor corrected. "And any similarities with humans are strictly superficial."

"Is she an aristocrat?"

"It depends on what connotations you carry with it," the Doctor replied. By now they had entered the building. There were no longer passengers hanging around; the last of them were walking deeper inside the building.

"How should we proceed? Captain, I think you and your crew should go to Victor Foxtrot and see what can be done about repairing the landing gear. The rest of us should try and see what's ahead."

"Hey!" Madhabi interrupted. "Do you think I can't help repairing the plane?"

"I'm sorry, can you?'

"Well, no. But you shouldn't presume."

"Quite right. Let's get moving."

"I need to remember something. I need to remember something," Nyssa muttered under her breath.

The garden

And then Nyssa realized she was back on the asteroid. She had wandered away from the rotunda, in an area filled with green orchids, and strange apparently African vines. But the rotunda was still in sight, and she remembered! Admittedly, she didn't remember exactly what was going on, but she did remember this one thing. She quickly dashed back to the rotunda and ran up the stairs. When she saw Adric she gasped.

"Your gold badge of mathematical excellence!" she cried.

"What about it?"

"How I hate it!" she said. A tear rolled down her cheek that neither of them noticed. Because it meant that this was an Adric from her past, since the badge had been ruined in the conflict with the Cyberman that had killed him.

Adric did not realize this. "Why? Is this some sort of Trakenian thing?" He resumed his work with the abacus. "Actually, before you wandered off, I was about to tell you that the Birds gave me this star."

"They did?!" Nyssa's look brightened immediately.

"Oh yes. Their queen bird, though I don't Know whether it's actually a woman, let alone a queen, noticed me walking around. She said I was missing something, and the next instant the star reappeared on my tunic."

"That's wonderful! Do you remember how you lost it?"

"I'm not sure. Wait a moment, something occurs to me. We had just beaten the Terileptils, and I noticed that what with running, falling down, being imprisoned and manhandled by androids, that the badge was looking a little loose. So while we were flying in the TARDIS, I looked in the Doctor's library and found a book on embroidery. I took it to my room, along with some utensils, and the instructions said I had to take the badge off before I could properly put it back on. It's very time consuming. I'm not sure whether I completed it or not. Do you know that in the years before now, 'Britain,' the quasi-governmental authority that the Doctor usually ends up in, had something called an 'industrial revolution?' And apparently much of it consisted of women sewing for very long hours. And for very little money too."

But Nyssa's face had fallen again. If Adric had lost the badge before the fight with the Cyberman where he died, then the Adric who had just regained it could also be before his death. It occurred to her to take a closer look at the badge. If the Queen Bird had given him a new badge, then the old badge would still be in Adric's bedroom back on the TARDIS.

"It looks very similar to your old one."

"It's identical to my old one. See this little groove?" and Adric pulled the bottom of the badge out as best he could without tearing it off his tunic. "There was a slight scar when me and the old Doctor and Romana were at the Warrior's Gate. I think the Birds were somehow able to give me the exact badge."

Nyssa was very disappointed, since if the Birds could do that, it would mean that if she returned to Adric's bedroom and didn't find anything, it wouldn't mean anything. It wouldn't be proof that he had somehow survived.

Adric noticed her sadness. "You're being unusually mercurial today. And about mathematics of all things."

The strange building

"We're in a maze," the Doctor said.

Nyssa looked up, and realized that indeed she was, along with Tegan, Madhabi and June. Looking around she noticed a division, a turn to another path, about twenty meters behind her. In front of her were walls of red porphyry. Around her, Nyssa could hear sounds. Some of these were the Concorde passengers who had wandered into the other paths. There were also mechanical sounds, perhaps related to the function of the building they were in, and yet like echoes from a memory. Every few seconds, but not at regular intervals, what appeared to be a hum of some sort was interrupted by a chime.

"Pretty much a dead end," Tegan gloomily noted.

"I'm not so sure," the Doctor replied. "Nyssa, could you come here?"

"How is she going to help?" June asked

"She immediately knew we weren't at Heathrow. I think her Trakenian nature offers her certain empathic abilities that hamper the illusions being cast."

Nyssa looked closely at the porphyry wall in front of her by the Doctor's side. "There is something very strange here."

"Over and above the fact that we're 140 million years in the past and some powerful force is casting illusions?" Madhabi asked.

"Yes. There is something even stranger going on. But I'm not sure…" But just then the porphyry wall abruptly opened, like an automatic door.

"Let's continue!" the Doctor declared, and he and Nyssa walked into a new room. But before Tegan could join them the door abruptly closed, so abruptly in fact that Tegan walked right into it.

"Ow! Doctor, the door closed again!"

The Doctor turned around and tried to find some switch on the other side, or do something to open the door. Nothing worked. Just then the hum of the building was interrupted by another chime.

"Tegan, Madhabi and June, stay there. The important thing to do is not to get lost. Me and Nyssa will try to find where we are."

The garden

Nyssa found herself in yet another part of the garden, this one full of fruit trees. There were what looked like apples, and nearby there were vines where blue oranges hung from them. The Rotunda was not immediately visible, but If she concentrated, she could till hear the clicks Adric made on his abacus. And above her Nyssa could see the Queen Bird above her.

"Are you the Queen Bird? I feel that you should have a name."

"I do in fact have a name. In fact I have no shortage of them. It's actually quite ridiculous."

"Do you have a preference?"

"Yes, but the question isn't my preference. Some names are special, even if everyone knows what they are. Like yours, for instance. Other names are secret, and will never be told. But that doesn't mean they're important."

"You're very enigmatic."

"I will confess that there is one name I have which cannot easily be told. What allows you and the garden to thrive on the asteroid also makes that name very special.'

"Should I call you the Queen Bird then?'

"Since I am not actually a Queen, there are good reasons not to." The Queen Bird paused. "Call me Debbie."

"Debbie? Why Debbie?'

"It was the name of a friend. But I'm sure you have more important questions."

"Yes, my memory has been affected."

"And why do you think that is so?"

"I get the sense that I'm shifting between two different spaces and times. This is the first one, and if I concentrate very hard, I can remember the second. I'm with the Doctor and it's 140 million years ago on Earth. And we're trying to rescue some airplane passengers. Now I'm not physically shifting between these two places, because my clothes are different, and because the Doctor and the others would notice my physical absence. So these places are not only different in space, but also in time."

"Go on."

"So either this asteroid is something that happened in my past, and being with the Doctor is my present. But I don't remember this. Or this is somehow in my future, and the Doctor and Tegan are in my past."

"Either way would certainly explain why you have trouble remembering things."

"But if this is my future, I should know how to resolve the Concorde's problems, since I should know how it ended."

"Do you want this to be your future?"

"Very much so. But there is something preventing me from understanding what is going on."

"You wish me to explain things to you. You also suspect me for not making things clear."

"I think suspect is a pretty strong word."

"I don't blame you being suspicious. But there are things I can't tell you. But there are things that I can. For a start, when you arrived back in the Jurassic period, you immediately realized that you weren't in Heathrow. That wasn't because of any temporal relationship between the two time zones. It was a result of your empathic nature. Your Trakenian origins allow you to sense something. And you're still sensing it."

"Yes, I am. You said 'for a start.' What else can you tell me?"

"The problem with your memory has two sources. One is the nature of this place. There are limits to how much sentient life forms can understand and appreciate the place. That is part of the reason why you do not remember how you came here."

"Or how I left."

"If you've left. But the second source is more disconcerting. You are in the middle of a deadly and dangerous game. It is not our game. Neither we nor the garden live for such games. What has happened to you also confuses you."

"And you cannot explain things?"

"I want to gently prod you in the right direction. But the problem is complex. It's a matter of free choice one might say. There is a very important choice. And I can't tell you what that choice is. Aside from the issue of your freedom, you have already made the choice, and you do not even know it. There are so many paths for you and the Doctor. Everywhere you turn, there are people desperately needing your help and his. There is no simple way of telling you the right path."

The other birds had been singing, but during the conversation the music had been at a low volume. Now it rose, and the melody took a strange and forbidding turn. Nyssa decided to turn around and walk back to the Rotunda. "Debbie" started a whistle, and the music began to die down. There was an abrupt hush, and then the music softly began to rise.

"You wish to know what I won't tell you. There are questions about the garden, about my fellow birds, about the purpose of this place which are not available to mortal beings. And then there are the questions about Adric, the Doctor, and how to save your friends. I can't answer them directly. But if you understand what is happening to you, you can answer those questions yourself. As well as all the other questions."

The Maze

Tegan, Madhabi and June were not happy being trapped in their cul-de-sac. But only Tegan wanted to do something about it. "We have to find a way out of here!"

"I don't like this," replied June, "but the most rational thing to do is stay put. We're 140 million years in the past, and we can't afford to get lost."

"We can't be sure of that. If we're in a labyrinth there could be some minotaur waiting to eat us."

"Strictly speaking, I believe we're in a maze, not a labyrinth," Madhabi pointed out somewhat pedantically.

"And can you tell the difference from where we're standing?' Tegan rebutted.

"Well no…"

"Look, I've wandered off plenty of times in all sorts of planets and times…"

"Have you?" wondered June.

"…and it's turned out for the best. Mostly."

Before Madhabi and June could give this more thought, an opening appeared in the wall in front of them. Tegan immediately walked through it, even though the door was not the same Nyssa and the Doctor had walked through previously. With a little hesitation, Madhabi followed her. But when June tried to follow, the door shut in front of her.

"Oh for heaven's sake."

As it happened the Doctor and Nyssa had come to another dead end. The Doctor was only mildly nonplussed. "Interesting," he said as he touched the porphyry in front of him. As he did so, there was another strange chime of the sort he heard earlier.

"There may be a way for us to get through this wall." And the Doctor started looking through his pockets. As he did so, he dropped Adric's mathematical badge of excellence, which he had placed in a pocket after rubbing off the gold edge when defeating the Cybermen.

Nyssa picked it up and handed it back to him. "Thank you. I don't want to lose that." After a little more rifling the Doctor found a chisel. He picked up a nearby rock and started working on the wall in front of them.

"It's sort of like a diamond. If I can find the right flaw, I should be able to break it up."

"Does porphyry actually work that way?'

"That's a good question. This seems to." And the Doctor started hitting the wall with the chisel.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

There was another chime. "Actually I think you can." And the Doctor stopped, and after another search of this pockets took out a pen, a stopwatch and a notepad. He handed them to Nyssa. "Now I want you to write down the intervals between the chimes."

"They're not happening at regular intervals."

"I know. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're happening at purely random ones."

There was another chime. Nyssa clicked the stopwatch while the Doctor returned to the rockface. After about twenty seconds, there was another chime. Nyssa wrote down the time.

"Doctor, can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"It's about Adric. You said that you couldn't save him. Now I'm not trying to change your mind…"

"I know you're not."

"But is the reason you can't save him, is it part of the basic principles of time travel? Or is it some rule of Time Lord society? Or is it some basic moral principle you have?"

The Doctor turned to Nyssa. "It's sort of all three," he said sadly.

Just then an opening appeared in the rockface. The Doctor smiled. "Very good. Let's go, and keep recording the time gaps."

Meanwhile Captain Stapley, First Officer Bilton and Science Officer Scobie were at the first Concorde. "Actually Captain," said Bilton, "we have everything we need to fix our Concorde."

"That's a miracle."

"Well Captain, I think we deserved one today," said Scobie.

"Certainly the man who's behind all this has had a lot of them up his sleeve." Stapley paused for a minute. "There's no sign of the Doctor. It would be very inconsiderate of him to get lost. And we certainly can't get back to our time. Anyway, let's take what we need from Victor Foxtrot and take it back to Alpha Charlie. Then we'll have to go back to that building and see what's happened." The three loaded some boxes, and then started walking back to their Concorde.

"June, are you all right?" Madhabi asked.

"No! I hit my nose when that magic door closed!"

"Stay tight! Don't get lost," Tegan replied.

"It's not as if I have much of a choice. And we're already lost since we're stuck in a maze."

Tegan and Madhabi left June back to sulk and started walking down the path they were on. After moving out of earshot of June, Tegan noticed something in the distance ahead. "Look at that." She raced ahead and picked it up.

It was a baby doll. Tegan noticed a string and when she pulled it the baby talked in an overly posh accent. "I love you Mummy!"

"Poor kid," Tegan said. "She must have lost this."

Madhabi thought for a second. "That's odd, there weren't any children on the flight."

"So someone got it as a gift and might have dropped it under the illusion they were giving it to her."

"Must have brought it on the carry-on, since the checked in luggage is still on Victor Foxtrot." Madhabi pulled the string again. "Thank you for putting me to bed Mummy," the doll said, again in a very distinctively English voice. "That's also odd."

"What is?'

"It's a very English toy doll, and you wouldn't think they'd sell that many in New York. I mean there's a couple of English places in La Guardia where we started, but they don't sell toys."

"It would be a shame if some kid lost this. Let's take it with us."

"Actually, I think we should leave it here. People have been misplacing all sorts of things in the maze, thinking they're at home or back in London. We'll have to find a way to make sure they collect them once they're shocked out of the illusion."

Tegan reluctantly agreed and the two continued to walk on. It wasn't quite clear what the light source for the maze was, but as they proceeded it was becoming distinctly darker.

"I can't say I like this," Madhabi shivered.

"Yeah, there's all kind of weird stuff you face when you're with the Doctor."

Suddenly, in the distance, appeared a Terileptil! Or at least it did to Tegan. Madhabi saw nothing, and kept walking. So Tegan jumped at her and brought them both to the floor.

"Ow! That hurts!"

"Don't you see it? It's a Terileptil!'

"What's it look like?"

"It's a sort of reptilian/amphibian creature."

"An amphibian creature?' And Madhabi looked ahead and thought she saw a humanoid Frog dressed in Edwardian clothing.

"I see something!"

"You see a Terileptil?"

"No. I'm looking at Mr. Toad from Toad of Toad Hall."

"That doesn't make any sense!" A thought occurred to Tegan. "Do you think it's an illusion?'

"You think?" The two both got up and walked right through the illusion.

"That was easy," Tegan smirked. But just then something even more horrifying appeared—a Cyberman! But again, Madhabi saw nothing.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"It's a kind of robot."

Madhabi took another look. But what she saw was extremely vague. "Actually I've never cared that much about science fiction, so I'm not really seeing anything."

Then Tegan grasped something. "Whatever is in front of us, is causing us to see illusions!" But before they could proceed any further, plasmatons suddenly appeared and covered them, forcing them to the floor.

The Garden

"Debbie" was flying near Adric, still working on his abacus. "I suppose you're a bit hungry."

"Now that you mention it, I am." And just then an apple appeared by the abacus. Adric picked it up and took a bite.

"Thank you," he said, and he resumed working on the abacus. "I must say this is a fiendishly clever problem."

"Perhaps you'd like a hint. Except you have no shortage of them yourself."

"True enough." Adric smiled and took another bite. Pausing a moment to swallow it, he continued. "One thing that does strike me as peculiar is the whole analytical me and the whole empathic Nyssa. It's the sort of false dichotomy that earthlings just love."

"Is it a false dichotomy? And if it were a false dichotomy, what would make it false?"

"Oh all sorts of things. The dichotomy is based on an unreasonable sample. There's no reason me and Nyssa should be emblematic of anything. Nyssa is the last Trakenian, and I'm not really from this universe. The dichotomy is false because we're not using the full range of our talents. Though I can't imagine Nyssa being as clever at mathematics as me. If the dichotomy is being proposed, who is it being proposed to? There is a whole side to the question that neither of our abilities is relevant in solving."

Then something occurred to Adric, and it made him smile extra wide because of his cleverness: "And it would be a false dichotomy, if in fact three people were crucial!"

The Maze

"I do believe, I've figured out how these doors in the maze work," the Doctor declared.

"Have you really?" Nyssa wondered.

"Oh, it's very straightforward. The logic is basically a combination of the Golden Ratio and e. Just a few more seconds…" And then another opening occurred and Nyssa and the Doctor briskly walked through it. They were now in a clear corridor, with a clear path for at least thirty meters, and with ordinarily building walls, not ones made of porphyry.

Nyssa was nonplussed. "That seems a little…convenient."

"Convenient? It's a perfectly natural process. E and the golden ratio appear all the time in nature." There was another chime in the distance.

"Yes, I know that. But we're dealing with a time traveler who used an induction loop to bring the Concorde here."

"Yes."

"Now you think he or she or it brought the passengers here to try to get through the maze."

"That's the most likely explanation. Why else bring them?"

"Now this maze is clearly artificial, even though there are no sentient life forms during this period in Earth's history."

"There are Silurians and Sea Devils. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. This maze could be both alien and organic in development, a sort of one-shot thing with no other importance in Earth history."

"All right. But that leaves another question."

"Oh?"

"Surely it takes vast mathematical knowledge to create a temporal induction loop."

"Oh yes, simply enormous."

"And our enemy brought in people from the future to flood the maze because it couldn't get through it on its own. But the math for a temporal induction loop is much more complicated than working out the golden ratio/e code."

The Doctor stopped. That did make an alarming amount of sense. But just then he realized something. "The TARDIS! Whoever is behind this has brought it close by!"

Meanwhile Tegan and Madhabi were struggling with the Plasmatons. "Wait!" Tegan shouted. "The Doctor already told us that these Plasmatons were harmless!"

The two struggled to get to their feet. Once they did so, it was surprisingly easy for them to brush off the Plasmatons. "Look, they're vanishing!"

Madhabi was able to grab one. "And the ones that remain look like…cheap plastic bags."

For indeed that is what the remainder looked like. "What the hell is going on?' Tegan wondered.

The Garden

"Adric!"

Adric turned around and saw Nyssa standing there. "Oh, there you are! You startled me! I just realized something. There's a triangle of people involved, and the Doctor's the third side!"

"I know! He's with me. Well, he's not with me now. Oh! It's so hard to remember! But that's not the important thing. What is important is that the Doctor is about to make a very serious mistake!"

The Maze

The Doctor had entered a very large room, perhaps the center of the Maze. There were a number of objects near its center, each perhaps the size of a small wardrobe. Were they desks, podiums, pedestals? It was not clear how the illusions or the induction loop were being created, but the Doctor sensed that this room was crucial to their control. There were smaller objects. They did not look human at all, quite understandable in the complete absence of humans for another 140 million years. They looked vaguely mystical.

In the corner nearest to him stood the TARDIS. The Doctor strode over it and gave it a reassuring pat. "Good girl." He checked the door. It was still locked, as it had been when he left it back on Concorde Alpha Charlie. The Doctor touched his breast pocket, and felt the key to the TARDIS still there. So the bewitched passengers had brought it here. But shouldn't the bewitcher be here…

And then the Doctor felt the presence of someone else, someone very dangerous and evil. He turned around to confront it. "Of course. The Master!"