As we entered the console room, then, I was surprised to see the unit sitting atop the folding table, complete and repaired. I picked it up and switched it on, while the Doctor glanced offhandedly at various monitors on the console. He’d repaired the unit’s hardware, but the programming was all over the place. Travelling through the time vortex isn’t the best place to deal in electronic media, of course. It’s like trying to follow a soap opera that’s being performed on a series of trains as they speed by, while other trains with different stories… well, it’s difficult, all right? Anyhow, the Doctor had succeeded in creating some weird protocols, with new files half set-up all over the place, and error messages demanding attention everywhere.

I pressed a few buttons and cleared everything, discovering, to my relief, that the Doctor had got the thing functioning correctly at least. I turned to him, grateful to have something to ask him about. ‘Thanks for fixing this up.’

He glanced up from the console. ‘I just wanted to work out what it was… how it worked. I reversed the polarity of the communications coil, by the way, so you can write into archives too, but to do that I had to connect it through the TARDIS information processors, because I know how to work with those. So you might get information from the past. Or the future. Which in some cases wouldn’t be a good idea, so don’t use it when we land anywhere. Please.’

I sighed. ‘So you repaired it so well that I can’t use it?’

‘Repaired? Oh, did it need repairing?’

I smiled, which was good. I got the feeling that the module was a sort of present.

‘What have you been doing in the last few days, then?’

‘Jigsaws. Chinese cookery. I made clay models. Of the Zygons. I did what I normally do when I’m investigating something… with your unit, I mean. I dived in and messed it up. Threw away the manual, ignored the notes and laughed in the face of Balloon Help.’ He left the console, and perched in the wicker chair, his hands folded into a spire. ‘That’s what I did with the TARDIS when I first got her. You can’t do everything for a long time. In the case of the TARDIS, for far too long. But when you do get where you want to go, you’ve learnt all sorts of useful stuff about the system you’re investigating.’

‘No wonder your cakes are so awful.’ I grabbed a cushion and sat down facing him.

‘The ducks like them.’

‘The ducks are programmed to like them. Besides, it all sounds rather dangerous to me. You can get terribly hurt, mucking around like that. I prefer to read the manual from cover to cover, hopefully in the bath with a good bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.’