His pupils were glowing silver. I got the feeling that it wasn’t going to be that easy.

I let the Doctor lead me back to the TARDIS. He was walking quickly, urgently. I glanced back to see if he was being followed, but that wasn’t it. He was walking like he was about to explode or throw up, as if something terrible was about to happen and he had to be in a particular place when it did.

‘Could I have a few of those patches?’ I asked, still banjaxed by my instant sobriety. ‘They’re already my favourite bit of TARDIS equipment.’

‘Yes. No. I don’t know, it isn’t important!’ The Doctor turned a corner, saw the TARDIS ahead and broke into a run. He fumbled the door open and leapt inside, diving at the co-ordinate keyboard and tapping in instructions faster than I could follow. ‘Catch!’ he called, and threw me a rolled-up scroll. I noted that it was sealed with his thumbprint.

The TARDIS doors closed, and the familiar take-off sound began. The central column started to rise and fall. ‘The letter will tell you everything!’ the Doctor shouted. ‘And pay attention to the list! See you in three months! Eck.’

The last was a little click from his throat, like something switching itself off. The Doctor’s eyes flicked back to their normal colour. Then he closed them, and his mouth twisted into a giddy smile.

Then he fell into a crumpled heap.

A red ball rolled from his pocket, and settled in one corner of the console room.

‘Doctor?’ I ran to his side, and checked his pulses. One seemed to have stopped altogether. The other was racing. My first impulse was to rush him straight into the TARDIS medical bay, but I restrained myself. I broke the seal on the scroll and quickly read the several sheets it contained. ‘Oh no…’ I groaned when I’d finished, flopping back against the console. I turned to address the unconscious, still grinning, body. ‘I may have remarked on this on several occasions in the past, but let me say it definitively this time. You are such a git!’

And, feeling a bit better, I left him there and headed for the wardrobe room.

This adventure was going to require a serious frock.

Diary Entry Ends

A solemn old humanoid with a grey beard stood outside a tent in the marketplace.

He put his hand up to shade his eyes against the setting sun. Out of it, from the direction of the spaceport, a hopper was approaching. With a great shouting and a roar of turbos, it descended next to the tent, and the old man walked forward to greet the occupants.

The first of them leapt out, dressed in a long cloak and breeches, his two swords crossed in scabbards across his back. He was a young man, well-muscled and vital.