‘Hah! What a primitive world this is you’ve found for yourself. Why, these humans must think of themselves so simply, as straightforward animals who think and do, decide and set about. Well, I know better, and so should you, as that deep-set defence mechanism I just uncovered indicates.’ He squatted back down beside the prone teacher. ‘My name is Serif. Unlike my fellows, I have specialized in matters of the mind as well as the body. I’ve often had cause to unpick the programming of a personality, rewrite certain aspects. I do this by regressing the subject right back to the moment of birth and then working forwards. In your case, of course, that’s not really appropriate. However, we can make some progress. In doing so, we may learn all sorts of incidental things about dear, ripe Gallifrey along the way. Do you think that’s how we should proceed?’

Smith snarled a response. A vast roaring of blood filled his ears and the pain from his finger was terrible, as if some healing machine was trying to start its work and failing. That failure was filling his senses with agony, and he couldn’t decipher what on earth his assailant was saying.

‘It was a rhetorical question,’ Serif told him, and placed his hand back on Smith’s head.

Smith stared at the woman whose head lay on his shoulder, her straight, backcombed hair warmly touching his skin.

They were both dressed in togas, lying on a lounger in the courtyard of a villa. The only sound was the gentle trickle of a fountain.

‘There,’ the woman said. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ Smith was about to reply, but then he was staggering back from a door, dropping his briefcase and clutching his nose, shouting all manner of colourful swear-words.

‘It’s one of these new automatic jobs,’ a voice said. ‘Still some teething troubles, what?’

But hadn’t his brother told him about that? Funny how close to you some stories got, as if they were memories.

He was waltzing with a woman in a flowery dress, pleased at how her movements matched his. Around him men in uniform were all dancing with their partners.

‘Perhaps we could go on somewhere?’ he asked.

Under an orange sky, a group of dark figures stood around a singing structure, a million fine chords sighing in the wind. Information was flowing down the chords, being woven together in the mesh they were forming between them. Spirals of microscopic data had been flowing into the loom for days. Now something was due to emerge.

The woman walked forward and touched the chords. Something shaped itself into her arms. A male child.

‘Again?’ said the child.

‘Again?’ said Serif.

There was a crash, a thump and the orange sky became plaster-white again.

A woman was looking down at Smith, the remains of a heavy vase in her hands.