Determinedly knotting yet another piece of string around Inchel's already securely bound ankles, Jasmine peered closely at the young man where he sat propped against the wall.
"I think he might be faking," she said.
She drew back her hand and fetched him the hardest slap across the cheek she could muster. Shaking her hand to relieve the stinging, she inspected his reddening face.
"Oh. No, he isn't," she called over shoulder.
"Not to worry. We probably wouldn't have got anything out of him anyway. This device, on the other hand, is fascinating."
Jasmine scrambled to her feet and walked over to where the Doctor sat sunk in his armchair, his glasses balanced on his nose, the myriad disassembled parts of the gadget Inchel had used to paralyse them spread over his lap.
"See?" he was saying. "This is a teleprobic calibration unit, this is a phasing ortic interface, this is a metron wave synthesiser..." He glanced up at her blank expression and smiled. "Oh, yes, sorry. What I meant to say was, this is a quite astonishingly advanced piece of work, it shows a complete understanding of temporal mechanics. Even the Daleks don't have this technology. In fact, I've seldom seen anything like it outside Gallifrey."
This was a name Jasmine had heard before, and she knew enough to understand what it meant.
"You're saying the Time Lords could have built this? Surely they'd never mess about with this planet's history, would they?"
The Doctor looked unhappily thoughtful.
"I can think of one or two who might."
He shrugged this off and held out his hands to her. Just as she had used to do in years gone by, she grasped his hands and leaned back, providing the counterweight to lift him up out of his chair and into a standing position, the bits of circuitry rattling onto the floor at his feet.
"Now then," he began, taking his stick as she picked it up and handed it to him. "What we're looking for is some sort of laboratory or operations room. Whatever games these people are playing with time have to be controlled from somewhere."
Jasmine looked around the unpromisingly mundane shabbiness of the room.
"Um, all right. Where do we start?"
"Well..." He shuffled his way over to a simple wooden door in the far wall. "Since they're not actually expecting anyone to come here searching for them, I'm hoping that..." He pulled the door open to reveal a brightly lit, gleaming stainless steel chamber. "... They won't have bothered to hide it."
Jasmine trotted across to peer over his shoulder. The room beyond was cavernous, its full size and shape impossible to make out, jammed as it was with rank upon rank of glowing computer banks, cluttered workbenches, and floor to ceiling racks of nameless gadgetry. The throbbing hum of power pervaded the whole space.
"It's huge! Surely it's bigger than the house?"
"Well, the house backs onto the hill. The room must extend underground. Now let us see if we can find this Professor our young friend told us about. Carefully, Jasmine, stay behind me."
Jasmine couldn't help smiling, but said nothing, as the Doctor led the way, protecting her with his frail, stooped body. They made a cautious progress between towering blocks of machinery until she glimpsed a flickering light and looked across at where a cluster of flat black rectangles were visible, propped up on silver metal rods at different heights and angles so that they all faced in at a central point, at the same time keeping that point hidden from view. Hidden, that is, except for a glimpse of a man's shoe, hanging loosely in space.
She touched the Doctor on the shoulder and pointed silently. He looked, nodded, and switched direction. When his cane clicked against the floor he glanced at it, frowned, and handed it over to Jasmine.
"Stay back," he murmured, his hand resting on a workbench for support. "I need to see who that man is, and I don't want both of us walking into danger."
"But..."
"Please do as I ask," he said seriously. "This is not for your benefit. If I get into difficulty I shall need you to think of a way to help me."
Jasmine's half step back signified her acceptance, and she watched in concern as the old man made his slow way forward, leaning heavily on every convenient object. He penetrated the screen of black rectangles, and his arms fell loosely to his sides.
"Doctor!" she hissed, whispering and yet making sure the sound would carry across to him. "Doctor, are you all right?"
There was a moment's pause, but then he turned and beckoned her forward. She lost no time, and in a second was at his shoulder, staring at the man who sat on his high chair, surrounded by a hundred monitor screens, each showing a different nightmare image.
"Who is he?" She whispered the question, though the man seemed oblivous to their presence.
The Doctor shook his head.
"I've really no idea."
The man in the chair was old, thin, and sickly, dressed in an off-white coverall that hung loosely on his sticklike limbs. Yellow teeth protruding over his lower lip, his damp, fishy eyes stared at screens that showed a sewage pipe discharging its effluent into the sea, a hulking factory pouring thick yellow smoke into the air, a wasteland of felled trees stretching to the horizon, an open cast mine carved into green hills. A single tear rolled down the sagging flesh of his cheek.
Jasmine found herself stepping forward, into his line of sight so that he blinked and focussed on her.
"Are you all right?" she asked gently.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, it's... it's so beautiful."