‘It’s too big for me to care about. I can’t care about everything. What he said was true, nothing lasts, everything changes. Why should I worry about anything but what I can see, what I can touch?’ Smith raised his hands, agonised.

‘Why indeed?’

Romana had evidently said something insulting. Greeneye had forced her to her knees in front of him.

‘Why won’t she just tell them what they want to hear?’ Smith demanded. ‘It can’t be more important than her life, can it?’

Timothy was silent.

‘All that they said about history, it’s true,’ said Smith, his eyes on the twitching Flavia. ‘Time doesn’t care. But I keep thinking about a school playground. They must have been hurt by somebody. As a family. Hurt as a species. So they hurt back. So they don’t change. So nothing changes. Do I really have to hurt them again to stop them? And if I wanted to, could I? All I want is for me and Joan to be left alone.’

The blade scythed up into the air and the young woman looked at it, a slight curl of contempt on her lip.

Smith thought about a dying flutterwing. He could think about it. That was another piece of him that was about to die down in the valley. ‘Take me home,’ he told Timothy. ‘I won’t give them the Pod. I’ll think of another way. Even if it kills me.’

The man and the boy were standing across the bridge again.

Smith let his hands drop to his sides. Timothy walked forward, the barrier shimmering around him, and joined Smith on his side of it. Hadleman was still watching, entranced.

‘Here.’ Timothy held up the Pod to Smith. ‘Take it. It belongs to you. I know you’ll do the right thing with it now. Just as I was told you would.’

Smith held out his hand and took the sphere with a sigh. ‘Damn it. Why is everything always so complicated?’

Timothy thought for a moment, his posture slumping back into that of a frightened youth. ‘That’s life?’

Joan was manacled to an upright post in the family’s dome. Hoff had sunk a deep bore into the soil and secured it with magnetic pegs before pulling the dart from her skin. The Aubertides had reassembled at the dome a few minutes earlier.

‘So it’s unlikely she’ll get away?’ Greeneye murmured. ‘Unlike the other two?’

Hoff only grunted in reply.

‘I do not see why we didn’t just pursue the boy,’ Serif hissed. ‘He may be fast, but we would have caught him eventually.’

‘Oh yes,’ August agreed. ‘But consider, if he’s starting to be able to leap and hop like a young Time Lord, then the Pod’s started to communicate with him. We’ve seen the information transfer on our scanners. If it’s doing that, then it might be⁠ —’