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'Hakim?' The Doctor opened his eyes. He was lying on a couch in a large office with tall windows lining one wall. The person who had spoken was perched on an equally sizeable desk, holding a drinking vessel of some kind. The Doctor smiled. 'Commander Kovalis. I'm sorry. I must have drifted off.' The Time Lord clone sat up and swung his legs off the couch, covering them with the dirty cream robes he was wearing. 'You passed out in the morgue. I had you brought up here. Are you hungry?' The Yahanan indicated a platter of breads, meat and cheese that lay on the desk. The Doctor stood and immediately felt dizzy. 'I think I must be,' he said. As he made himself a sandwich, Kovalis poured some green fluid from a pot into an ornate glass and offered it to the Doctor. 'Before you passed out you said "Tiger's Eye". What did you mean?' The Doctor sipped the green fluid and found it tasted minty. 'Mmmm,' he said. 'Good tea.' Kovalis snorted. 'Hakim, I'm sorry to press the point, but the events of last night were extraordinary to say the least.' The Doctor frowned. Why was the Yahanan calling him Hakim? The Figure had been right. His memory had turned to Swiss cheese. He could remember arriving on Yahanis, the kind man at the Maatabix who had given him the robes he now wore, then being in this office and performing the memory retrieval procedure on the Nemo victim. The rest was vague, as if the memories were actually a drug-induced hallucination he'd had many years ago. He had to get back to the TARDIS. 'You have been most hospitable, Commander, but I must leave now. I have to return, ah, return home.' 'I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that,' Kovalis said. 'This case has been dragging on for weeks and you're the only person who has given us an leads.' The Doctor shook his head. 'Yes. Well. All I can tell you is that the crystalline creature we saw last night is somehow making telepathic contact with me. I don't even remember when, let alone know how. It's a fascinating conundrum and no mistake, but I'm afraid I have more pressing matters to attend to.' 'Hakim, I'm not going to threaten you. We are both to old for such things and I have a feeling you would be unimpressed by that kind of behaviour. Instead I am begging you to help. The people of this city are becoming increasingly frightened. The schools have been closed for a week now and vigilantes -the Wasi, the Sans, and a whole host of individuals - roam the streets attacking the innocent. The business community is suffering and I am at my wits end.' The Doctor grimaced. Then a thought occurred to him. 'If this creature is making telepathic contact with me, I might be able to use the TARDIS to establish a link and even track it down. We could go together. In fact, I will probably need your help. You will have noticed that my memory is vague at times. So I will give you the co-ordinates of the TARDIS and you can get us there. Once we reach the TARDIS, I'll be all right again and we can lift this veil of Isis for you.' The Doctor beamed. 'TARDIS?' asked Kovalis. 'What veil? Who's Isis? Hakim, you must try to make sense.' The Doctor laughed and patted the Yahanan on the back with one of his paw-like hands. 'All will be revealed, I promise,' he said. 'Can you arrange for transport, or do we need to catch a bus?' As Alf and Lorkan walked, the landscape had become increasingly weird. The pinky-brown surface was still much as it was, but now there were outcrop of creamy rock resembling ivory jutting from the ground like broken bones. What they had just come across, however, was much more disturbing. Not far from one of the bone-like structures lay the body of a female Yahanan, her face twisted in an expression of pain and fear. Rigor mortis had set in and a pool or urine had stained the female's robes. 'Poor woman,' said Alf, standing over the corpse. Lorkan looked at Alf blankly. 'It looks like your theory of this not being Styx is correct,' he said simply. Then he removed his outer robe and draped it over the dead female's face. 'Small comfort, Teef,' replied Alf, scanning the horizon. 'And it means that we're not as safe as I thought we were.' She could see no sign of movement and for the first time since she had arrived, it struck here that there were no sounds. No birds, no wind, no nothing - just the gentle rhythm of her own breathing. 'May the Wasi rot for this!' exclaimed Lorkan miserably. 'I'm sure once the Doctor gets his hands on them they will,' said Alf. 'Unfortunately he's not here.' Seldom had she felt so isolated. She and Lorkan could be anywhere in space and time with no apparent way back. 'We should move on,' advised the old Yahanan. 'I am familiar with trouble and it is seldom wise to remain at the scene of a crime such as this.' 'I doubt there are Buliseye here, Teef.' 'So do I, but whoever did this may still be around.' Alf regarded her wily companion and a brief smile touched her lips. 'You're right.' She helped Lorkan to stand and together they surveyed the unchanging landscape. 'The question is, where do you think would be safer?' Lorkan didn't hesitate in his reply. 'Anywhere,' he said.
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