"Shouldn't we get under cover?" she prompted him. "It's dangerous out here."
"It seems to be rather dangerous indoors," he remarked. "But you're probably right, we're not really accomplishing much standing about in the street."
Leaning forward on his stick, he kept his movements to a bare minimum, turning his head to sweep the faceless rows of concrete buildings with his gaze. Jasmine waited, and forced herself to be patient and to ignore the rockets sporadically fizzing up into the sky from different points around the city. It was hard to see what he could be looking for. All the buildings looked equally ugly, low-slung and sturdy. All she was certain of was that they should be avoiding the one flimsy structure of wood and plaster that reminded her of how the village had been when she arrived, before whatever had happened to transform it into this sprawling, polluted concrete metropolis. It looked as if it would burn to the ground from the first spark. With a sinking feeling she realised the Doctor was eyeing it fixedly.
"This one looks nice."
"Um..."
She stopped herself. She should know by now there was no point arguing with him and in any case he was already hobbling determinedly forward, his stick clicking against the asphalt of the street. Jasmine fell into step behind him and waited as he tapped three times on the timbers of the front door.
"Hello?"
The door opened a crack, and an eye and a bit of chin were all that were visible of the voice's owner.
"Good evening," said the Doctor pleasantly. "We were wondering if..."
"It's you!"
The door was flung open to reveal the chubby, pale-faced youth on the other side. His eyes were wide and bulging with excitement.
"It is you, isn't it? You're him! You're the Doctor!"
The Doctor paused, and looked round inquiringly at Jasmine.
"You're very famous here," she supplied, "Because of what you did eleven hundred years ago. There's even a vidshow about you. The Doctor says it's rubbish."
"How nice." He returned his attention to the youth at the door. "Do you think we might possibly come inside? There appears to be some form of air raid taking place."
"Of course! Of course!" He stood aside and ushered them in energetically. "I'm Inchel, by the way. Sit down, please. Can I get you a drink? Something to eat? Ooh! There's something I'd really like to ask you about. Just wait for a minute."
He rushed out into an adjoining room, leaving the Doctor and Jasmine unattended in a comfortable but hopelessly cluttered living area in which all the furniture was gathered attentively round a huge viewscreen that took up a large part of one wall. The Doctor inspected a deep, squashy armchair.
"Dear me. You'll help me up if I sit down in this, won't you Jasmine? I could do with a rest, but you have to think ahead at my age."
"I always used to help you up," recalled Jasmine. "When I knew you, you..." She caught his eye. "Oh, sorry. I mean, yes, of course I'll help you."
She watched him drop with a sigh of relief into the chair, the cushions crushing down beneath him, and took the adjacent seat for herself as their host bustled back in, a transparent plastic square clutched in one pudgy hand.
"Look, let me show you this bit from episode 6, series 2. It's never quite made sense to me, and maybe you can explain to me what I'm missing."
Jasmine recalled uneasily her own Doctor's contempt and constant interruptions the one time they had attempted to watch the show together.
"I'm not sure this is such a..."
"It's all right," the Doctor interjected placidly. "Let's see the programme. I'm interested."
"Great, great," proclaimed Inchel. "Here." He knocked an empty food packet aside on the table and flicked a switch on the rectangular white box concealed beneath it. "You know," he said as he stood back. "This is quite an experience for me."
"Really?" said the Doctor with polite interest.
"Yes, I've been hearing about you all my life. The great hero. The man who saved us all from Krongeist. The invincible, ingenious, indomitable Doctor. It's quite something to meet you at last and find you're nothing but a stupid, useless, doddering old fool."
In the stretched, taut silence that followed, Inchel's oily smirk grew and stretched across his face as if it would meet around the back of his head.
"Well, now," came the Doctor's quiet voice. "I must confess, I wasn't expecting you to show your true colours so soon."
Inchel nodded and shrugged.
"You suspected something. Well, that's nothing to be proud of. You don't have to be a genius to wonder why this is the only house that hasn't been replaced by a concrete bunker. Just makes you all the more of an idiot for wandering in here, head in the clouds like that."
"To be blunt, since you're obviously a bit of a twit I hadn't really considered the possibility of not being able to get the better of you once I was inside."
"Well, guess again." Inchel indicated the rectangular device on the table. "This is a spinoff from our new technologies. We discovered that uncontained temporal fields warp neural messaging processes. Put simply, it blocks the messages from your brain to your muscles. Put more simply still, you're awake and conscious but paralysed from the neck down, the most helpless of prisoners, you and your dim but pretty assistant."
Jasmine's furious retort to this died in her throat as she tested the truth of what he said and with a chill realised it was so. She felt no physical discomfort or weakness, but like a bad dream when she tried to move, tried to stand, nothing happened. Only her head remained free. The Doctor spoke calmly.
"As traps go, well above average I'll grant you. But it's the use of temporal fields which interest me, seeing that they're entirely beyond the technology of this planet or any other in this galaxy. Who helped you?"
"No one. The professor is a genius. This is a great breakthrough for Agrathan science."
"Indeed. And just what have you been doing with this great breakthrough of yours? Nothing foolish and irresponsible, I hope?"
Inchel drew breath for a quick reply, then closed his mouth, paused, and spoke more more steadily, with a tight little smile:
"Oh, I'm going to tell you all our plans now, am I?"
"Of course you are. You're quite obviously bursting to tell someone how clever you've been. It's the same reason serial killers always get themselves caught in the end. The longer they avoid capture, the more the frustration builds at not being able to brag about what they've done. They end up wanting to get caught."
"Very interesting. But I'm not a serial killer. I'm a part of something far grander, something that will make me a legend on this planet long after you and your childish heroics have been forgotten. I'm going to change the world."
"Ah, yes. You're a typical small man wanting to be big. I've seen them come and go on a thousand different planets. Let me guess: you were a mediocre student at school and the other children excluded you from their games. The girls ignored you on a good day, mocked you on a bad one. When you grew up, you found yourself in a menial occupation which you felt degraded you. You always believed you were better than those around you, that you deserved more, and yet you failed to excel at anything you attempted, failed to..."
"Shut up!"
Inchel's white face twisted savagely as he snatched up the device from the table and pushed it threateningly at the Doctor's face.
"You don't know anything about me. You ought to think about being a little more polite, old man. Try and remember I'm the one who's been kind enough to leave you the use of your mouth and your heart and your lungs."
"Should I beg for mercy?" continued the Doctor, his tone unchanged. "Would that make you feel good about yourself? Would it alleviate the knowledge of your failures and disapp..."
With a snarl Inchel jammed his finger down on one of the controls, the Doctor's voice came to an abrupt halt and Jasmine felt herself unable to breathe, as if an invisible pillow had been pressed over her face, and a leaden weight descended over her heart. She tried to cry out, but her voice had been taken as well. Her head fell forward limply and her vision greyed.
"I think I've made my point?"
In an instant it was over, and Jasmine straightened with a gasp, feeling the harsh thudding in her chest that meant she was still alive.
The Doctor started talking again as if nothing had happened.
"Ah, yes, that power of life and death at the press of a button must feel good to you. I must say, you remind me of a similarly unhappy young man we met on Iphigeneia Six. Remember him, Jasmine?"
She twisted her head and found him looking at her, a serious appeal in his eyes. This was madness. She couldn't face going through that experience again. But, it was the Doctor...
"Oh, you mean that pasty little weed who kept eyeing me when he thought I wasn't looking," she said airily. "He wanted to take over the world too. In the end I had to give him a slap and take him home to his mother."
Instantly that choking, suffocating grip returned, and Jasmine's eyelids fell limply half shut, her mind fogging and a dull pain spreading out from her chest. It seemed much longer this time before Inchel's voice returned.
"Shut up. Shut up, the pair of you. Do you think I'm playing games? Do you think I won't kill you?"
She looked up at him, standing directly over her now, his eyes wild and desperate and his finger poised over the button.
"Oh, I don't think we're doubting you on that score," came the Doctor's voice. "After all, it doesn't take any great intelligence or strength of character to kill someone, I'm sure even you could manage it."
"But it won't make you any less of a loser," finished Jasmine, and watched his fingertip jam down onto the control.
She was dying, she knew, this time for real. Her body was stilled, her eyes were dull, her mind was slowing to a halt. No pain, no regret, no fighting to survive. It was as if she was dead already. Then she was staring at her shoes and the Doctor was patting her hand where it lay on the arm of the chair.
"Are you all right?" he asked. "I'm sorry you had to go through that with me."
Jasmine blinked and sat up, stretching her limbs and breathing deeply. She looked around and saw Inchel lying flat on his back unconscious in the middle of the floor, the smoking, melted remains of the temporal device still clutched in both hands.
"Overload," commented the Doctor. "He should have known that would happen if he kept turning it up to maximum like that. But he was, as you observed, a bit of a loser."