‘Made myself into a human, you mean? It was a long time ago, Benny, I’m not really sure that there was a particular reason. I purchased the equipment off of a lovely old chap called Laylock on the planet Crex, a bodysmith by trade. But you were there, weren’t you?’

‘Not quite. I just got to see the before and after comparison. What exactly did you do?’

‘You’ll have seen the red sphere, the biodatapod? Interesting thing. A near-infinite memory capacity in such a small pod. It uses the fractal technology of the Matrix, I suspect. Well, I went to Laylock carrying a memory module, which contained a fictional persona I’d developed using information from the TARDIS databanks.’

‘You’d used the telepathic circuits beforehand, I saw that in the console log.

‘Did I?’ The young man pondered, rubbing his chin. ‘Now why was that? Oh yes, of course⁠ — the telepathic circuits sop up the memories of passengers like a sponge in water. I was using the recollections of previous occupants to create Smith.’

‘What, companions like me?’

‘Exactly. Including you, actually.’

‘Oh dear. I wonder what?’

‘Nothing appalling, if I recall rightly.’ He reached out and tapped Benny’s nose gently. Benny smiled. It hadn’t occurred to her, but she rather missed all that hugging that the Doctor went in for. It used to irritate her, but it was typical of him that just when she needed a bit of physical contact, he turned into a chap who felt uncomfortable about shaking her hand.

Well, obviously the tenth Doctor was pretty tactile. Risking the disapproval of the townsfolk, she tapped his nose back.

He grinned. ‘Laylock used the character I’d written to program the biodatapod. He stuck it to my forehead, and it sucked all the Doctorish memories and abilities out of me, and replaced them with the fictional ones. It also wooshed thousands of nanites into my bloodstream, and, in about a nanosecond, they transformed my physical being into that of a human, just as I’d wanted. The nanites rushed off with all of the Time Lord cellular information, back into the Pod, leaving me as⁠ —’

‘Doctor John Smith of Aberdeen, the schoolteacher. I see. And you recovered, just as promised, after three months?’

‘Well, Benny, you know that is future information, but…’ He glanced conspiratorially upwards, as if to check that the Time Lords weren’t watching. ‘Of course I did, or I wouldn’t be here now, talking to you like this. I put the sphere back to my forehead, or, as I recall, you did it for me, and the process was reversed. I woke up rather shocked, but quite happy.’