With thanks to Brad Gillespie and Jim Sangster, with special thanks to Ian McIntire

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 Just as the blackness threatened to descend for good, Leela's fingers closed around one of the Janis thorns hidden in her pouch. The Doctor had warned her not to bring any from -- but he had his magic, and she had hers. She quickly drove the thorn into the tentacle gripping her right arm.

 The effect was immediate -- though it wasn't the effect that she had anticipated. Instead of going rigid and then slowly suffocating to death, the creature paused, loosened its grip on her arm, and brought the impaled tentacle closer to the front of its mass. The tentacle gripping her injured legs also slackened somewhat, but not enough for her to free herself without stumbling and falling into the unhallowed remains around her.

 Then she heard a voice. It reminded her of the one she had heard in the Temple of Xoanon, speaking to Neeva -- it had that same sharp, almost too clear to be human quality. She traced the source of the voice to a tiny black box on the very top of the creature's featureless mass, a shiny metal thing with a small light.

 The light blinked in time to the voice, which said, in a voice surprisingly like the Doctor's, 'Oh, now, THAT'S interesting...'

 'Out of all the Time Lords, you are best known to us, Doctor,' the figure rasped, its white whispy hair twisting in the sudden wind coming in from the sea. The Doctor felt a second of embarassment -- what he had taken as Medusa-like at first was just the effect of the wind. 'As is your TARDIS -- we observed your landing from afar. And knowing what you must be here for, we cannot allow you to live.'

 'Erm, you seem to have me at something of a disadvantage,' the Doctor said, his eyes widening at the sight of the creature's weapon, 'and I'm not just talking names, either. Would you mind putting that down and letting me know exactly what I'm meant to be here for, please? And who you are?'

 The creature narrowed its red eyes at him then, and the Doctor noted how different they were from the eyes of Andrews' mother -- while her eyes were brassy, almost as if the eyeballs had been filled with old blood, this being's eyes were positively glowing, albeit with the same colour. Different species, he wondered? A different type of being altogether?

 Ajare, a part of the Doctor's mind was offering -- what was Ajare?

 This person certainly didn't act like someone possessed by a malignant force. Quite the contrary. The alien stood almost as tall as he did and held itself with the kind of constant alertness for attack that characterized policemen, professional killers, and nuns. At first, he thought the alien was old -- probably the hair again, the Doctor thought, though I've seen darker hair on men much older, and that in my own mirror. If it was old, it wasn't frail, as the large muscles straining against the featureless and shiny black tunic and leggings were anything to go by. It wore the dark blue cloak around its shoulders imperiously, allowing the material to flow in the high wind to full effect, as if it had spent years knowing the kind of impression it made on people. And there was a fine tracery of lines in the reddish, reptilian skin, just around the eyes and mouth, possibly the effects of aging, or maybe just of a long life spent laughing a great deal.

 The deeply lined mouth was not smiling now, though. 'I am called Rakshan. And you already know what you are here for, Doctor.' It kept the pulsing green device in its hand level with the Doctor's throat.

 The Doctor cleared his throat and backed up against the door he had just been pounding against. The weapon -- undoubtedly some form of biotechnology, by the looks of it -- was literally stretching itself forward, like a dismembered claw terminating in at least five or six jagged hooks...or nails. It seemed to be trying to force its holder to drive it into the Doctor's soft flesh.

 'Ahem. Yes -- but what I didn't? What would you tell me I was here for, hmmm?'

 Rakshan stopped its foward advance, the hand holding the device lowering slightly, and it looked at the Doctor as if he were mad -- something the Doctor was more than used to by now. 'Your Time Lord masters have sent you here for the same reason that WE are here.'

 'Oh, good,' said the Doctor. 'That's a relief. For a moment, I thought it was going to be something complicated.'

 'You are here to investigate the infestation, are you not?'

 '"Infestation"? What are you talking about?'

 At that moment, the door behind the Doctor swung open, and a gnarled and gory hand shot out to grab his right ear tightly. The Doctor spun around, heedless of the -- Ajare? -- who had been threatening him, and turned to face his attacker.

 She had been a teenage girl, once. Tall, blond-haired, with a small nose and full lips too large for her oval face. Now, she was the madwoman come down from the attic, her hair dirty and dishevelled, her eyes a now-familiar brassy red, her mouth a slack and dribbling slash. Most horribly, she was missing both ears. 'Aighenotsstsmenth...' she muttered, staggering forward and reaching for the Doctor's ear as she came. Behind her, the Doctor could make out other shadowy forms stumbling forward.

 He backed up slowly until he was side by side with the alien with the glowing eyes and white hair. 'Erm, I don't mean to alarm you, but I don't think they're much afraid of me coming to kill them all anymore.'

 'Agreed, Doctor,' Rakshan hissed, keeping its voice low. Its raised its weapon, and the Doctor noticed the underlying network of veins under the scaly green skin, similar to Rakshan's and yet different in some way that defied analysis at that moment. Biotechnology, definitely, the Doctor absently thought. Rakshan noticed his scrutiny and then looked at the Doctor's empty hands. 'Have your Time Lord masters not provided you with any weapons for this mission?'

 'Weapons? Mission?' The Doctor's sudden anger was such that he looked away from the former humans long enough to fix the alien with a glare. 'You're making a lot of assumptions based on the little you know about me, whoever you are. I neither carry weapons nor do I accept missions from the Time Lords -- I make a habit of avoiding things that could kill me.'

 Then he turned back to see that doors all around the village centre were beginning to open, and dark shambling forms were emerging, all of them growling like cats in heat. He moved backwards towards 'Harry,' who was already whinneying in terror. Whether it was in terror of the villagers or of Rakshan, the Doctor could not be certain.

 'Too many of them. Look, I suggest we get out of here and continue this discussion elsewhere,' the Doctor said. Some niggling part of his mind was still insisting on labeling the creature 'Ajare,' though he as yet had no idea why, or even why it was so difficult to think about. 'I still have a friend to find, and we're not getting anywhere here.'

 'Very well, Doctor,' Rakshan replied, 'but make no mistake: once we have escaped here, I shall still kill you.'

 'Oh. I was hoping you'd forgotten that bit.' The Doctor untied the horse and stroked his neck to calm him, all the while trying to keep one eye on the ever-growing crowd of possessed villagers and one on his temporary ally. He mounted the saddle, reached down his arm, and hoisted the waiting alien up behind him, being careful to avoid the living weapon at its side. Much to the Doctor's astonishment, Harry did not react in fear to his extra passenger.

 'Right. Off we go,' the Doctor said, and the horse flew off along the ever-filling street.

 He hoped.

 Lynch then crept down to his quarters on the lower level of the house. Somewhere above, he could still hear Mrs. Andrews moaning and growling as she trod amongst the broken glass of her vile collection. Andrews himself had not yet returned from his pursuit of the Doctor's friend, though it had been at least two hours by now. Lynch had no particular worries about this, however -- if the girl traveled with the Doctor, she was resourceful enough to fend for herself. He almost hoped that she would dispatch Andrews, since Andrews had begun to suspect him.

 Lynch entered his room and locked the door behind him. He moved with a quickness that belied his age over to the small escritoire and opened the lowest drawer. Nestled there was an oblong metal rod with a rubberized antenna -- a device that no one else in Europe in the aftermath of World War I would have recognized. At least, no one else save those associated with the Shadow Directory.

 He pressed the bottom of the rod and felt rather than heard the soft hum that told him the device was active. He then opened the channel to his superiors in France, and began to speak into the rod.

 'Agent Lynch reporting. Caillou known as the Doctor has arrived. Fourth, possibly sixth incarnation. Other cailloux are becoming more active. Please advise. Message ends.'

 He then switched off the device and, being ever the English domestic servant, he stood and waited.

 Though...at first, when she had felt the sticky wetness of the pale tentacle wrapping around her leg, she had flashed back to a story her father had told her when she was young, about the terrible creature in the forest which the Evil One sent out to destroy the Sevateem in their sleep. He had described their grip as cold, slimy, and vile, their skin as chilled and bemired as the fish the Sevateem hunters sometimes found in the freshwater streams that ran past their encampment. For a brief instant, she was back in that forest again, caught while running home from the stream, certain that the Evil One had finally captured her.

 But then she remembered there was no Evil One, no Xoanon -- only the Doctor, and a metal god whose mind had broken long before she was born.

 True, the beast was still ugly -- the pale grey of its flesh reminded her of the remains of a Horda meal, and the sounds it made as it pushed its wet bulk along the smoothed floors of the lit tunnel faintly nauseated her. But the voice coming out of the little box on its -- back? head? -- reassured her, as the nonsense words it spoke reminded her of the Doctor. Perhaps the creature in the box that rode on top of the beast would help her find him again, despite its tiny size. She grinned for a moment -- perhaps whoever was in the box was like the Doctor, and the box was bigger on the inside than on the out. She made a mental note to ask the Doctor about that when she saw him again, and then promptly forgot about it.

 The beast held the Janis thorn, still stuck in its tentacle, aloft, and while the creature in the box could not possibly see the thorn, it seemed to be talking about it in the language of magic that the Doctor used. 'Alkaloid toxin, similar to certain nerve toxins found in the oceanic intervertebrates of this planet. Presumably induces paralysis of the entire humanoid system. But certainly not indigenous to this biosphere. How very interesting!' The beast shot a small tentacle out towards Leela's leg, and she tried not to flinch as it lapped at the blood there like a large tongue. She failed.

 'Oh, VERY interesting!' the thing in the little box trilled. 'Not Ajare - thank goodness; bastards, the lot of them - and not part of the infestation...definitely human, but not indigenous to this biosphere, either! Oh, jolly good! You, my dear, may make this whole trip worthwhile! Such an unusual specimen to literally drop into my appendages!'

 Leela didn't understand a word the little box was saying, though she could tell that the thing inside it was pleased by something. 'I do not mean to offend you,' she said, addressing herself to the box, 'but I must find my friend the Doctor. He is above the ground, and I fear for his safety. He is a gentle man, and therefore not able to defend himself well. He needs me to protect him.'

 They came up against another rock wall, and the beast reached out a tentacle towards a stalactite above a nearby outcropping. The tentacle wetly fondled the jutting spire for a moment, and then the same sort of grinding crash she had heard before shuddered through the stone. The rock itself split in two and parted, retreating into the walls. Before them was a vast and brightly lit room, filled with glass and metal tables and lined with screens which glowed with pictures from above. Leela was reminded of two places at once: the domain of the Tesh, because of all the evil-looking magical relics strewn about the room; and the Doctor's box, because the room was somehow bigger than it could possibly be and still be underground. Two more of the beasts turned at their entrance, though these did not have any creatures in black boxes riding upon them.

 'Oh, not to worry,' the creature in the box said to her, and she could imagine a toothy grin on its tiny face, although she could not understand its next words. 'I'm sure that, by the time we've finished with the vivesection on you, we'll have found your friend the Doctor, too. And won't THAT be interesting?'

 Then she noticed what was on the nearest table -- a villager, ripped apart as if by one of the Evil One's creatures, its dead eyes wide, and as red as the blood trickling from its mouth.

 And suddenly she was in the forest again, running.

 They came from everywhere, struggling out of the bushes at the sides of the road and cutting off any chances they had of getting back to the Andrews' villa.

 The Doctor reined the horse in just as they reached a kind of balcony of stone at the edge of the cliffs, with high rocks walls on either side. He dismounted, the alien quickly following him. He moved to the horse's side and began to rub Harry down. The horse's breathing was laboured, and its coat was shiny with sweat in the moonlight.

 'The animal will go no further without damaging itself, I imagine,' Rakshan said.

 'No, I doubt it,' the Doctor replied. 'I've led us into a dead end, too -- these cliff walls are too sheer to climb, unless you can use that handy kitchen utensil of yours as a grappling hook.'

 Rakshan's glowing eyes widened, and its scarlet scales paled in the bright moonlight to a shocking pink. 'You are as mad as they say! I would not damage it in such a way simply to save my own life!'

 'Ah. Pity, that,' the Doctor murmured, wondering why he was still thinking of Rakshan as an 'it' rather than a 'he,' and what the relationship between it and its 'weapon' could be to provoke such a response. Sarah Jane would probably have had something bawdry to say about that one, he thought.

 Realizing he was mentally babbling to himself out of anxiety, the Doctor peered around him up into the darkness, then down to the waters below. 'Hmmm. A sheer drop. Not a very nice night for a dip, but it may be our only option...' Then he heard them -- the low moaning sound of the villagers moving relentlessly up the path behind them.

 The Doctor and Rakshan turned slowly to watch the mob advancing towards them.

 'Oh, dear. Villagers to the left of me, water to the right...' Then he grinned. 'Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.'

 Rakshan turned to him, wide-eyed. 'What are you babbling about, Time Lord?'

 'I do beg your pardon,' the Doctor replied, his manner turning suddenly serious again, 'but I do find an anachronistic quote comforting when I'm about to die, don't you?'

 The villagers came relentlessly on...

 With hands too well trained to truly tremble, Lynch pulled the communicator from the drawer and pressed the bottom of the rod. He already knew what the message would say, even before he felt the hum and heard the first softly accented words reverberate from the anachronistic machine.

 'Agent Lynch, your report has been received. The caillou known as the Doctor is to be considered a 'random element,' repeat, 'random element,' and as such he must be removed from the scenario by any means necessary. The other cailloux elements must be eradicated, with or without the help of the Doctor. Retain your cover at all costs.

 'La verite est la dehors. Message ends.'

 Lynch's customary haughty frown became deeper still. '"Removed,"' he murmured. 'I wonder why...?'

 Then he heard a knock at the door. He quickly put away the communicator, smoothed his uniform, and moved cautiously towards the door, opening it just a crack. In the crack peered a single, untainted eye. Tainted by madness, perhaps, but...

 'What are you up to, Lynch?' Andrews asked in a low, ugly rasp, and Lynch could hear the leering grin on his face in it. 'And can I help?'

 The door exploded inwards, and Lynch fell backwards, momentarily caught off guard as the young master pounced for him with a shiny, vaguely familiar knife. Then he remembered.

 The same knife he'd used to separate the sticky buns flashed downwards towards him...

 To Be Continued