They talked well into the night.  Harry poured himself several whiskies.  The Doctor seemed to have an endless supply of bottles of ginger beer in an endless succession of pockets.  Harry explained about his various meetings with George Gardner, and the Doctor for his part described his own encounter with George and with the raiders who broke into Condef.

When Harry eventually gave up and turned in for the night it was in the comfortable, muzzy knowledge that they had a plan.  His last thought as he dropped off to sleep was that he must remember to ask the Doctor in the morning to explain it again to him.


The Doctor sat in the armchair holding an empty bottle of ginger beer.  He slowly reached out and placed the bottle beside the half dozen other identical bottles on the table beside him.  He reached into his jacket for another, then changed his mind.  'Best not to overdo things,' he murmured.  With that thought, he settled back in the chair, and pulled his hat down over his eyes.  Time for some serious thinking.


The higher management at Condef were still uncertain what George Gardner was up to or whether he had actually resigned or was on sick leave when they had the call from Silver Bullet.  Then, within half an hour, they had another call.

John Michaels, who had been George Gardner's immediate manager, considered both calls, before calling back each of the interested parties.  He arranged the meeting for the next morning.


The plan was straightforward and simple.  The outcome was a 98.7 per cent probability.  So it was with a feeling as close as he could come to complacency that Byron Cutter and most of his senior management team arrived at Condef.

It was only when Cutter, Barden and Clark were shown into the large meeting room that they realised their projections might be based on inaccurate data.  Sitting at the opposite end of the confence table were two men.  One of them Cutter and his colleagues recognised immediately as George Gardner's possible associate, Sullivan.  He was wearing a suit.

The other man was wearing a ragged jacket and grey flannel trousers that had seen better decades.  His feet, they could see, were in leather buccaneer-style boots.  They could see this because he was leaning back in his chair with his feet on the table.  As they sat at the other end of the room, the man whipped his feet off the table to reveal an enormous smile set within a face that seemed to otherwise consist entirely of eyes and nose.  A battered, wide-brimmed brown felt hat was perched on top of a mass of dark curls, and his scarf seemed to trail under the table for almost its entire length.

'Hello there,' the man said cheerily, his voice deep and dark as chocolate.  As he said it he gave a small wave, as if that were really all he thought they deserved.

'Who are these people?' Bardell asked, his annoyance evident.

Michaels had ushered them into the room before following.  'Oh, yes,' he said, 'I'm sorry.  This is Mr Sullivan and Doctor, er...' he hesitated, but got no help from the two men at the end of the room.  'Er, the Doctor.  From TARDIS Time Systems.'

There was an awkward pause as Cutter stared at the Doctor along the table.  Michaels coughed and said, 'I'm so sorry, Doctor, but I don't recall what you said your name was.'

'That's quite all right,' the Doctor said magnanimously.  'Don't you worry about it.'

'Could I ask,' Cutter said icily, 'in what capacity these... gentlemen are attending this meeting?'

Michaels frowned.  'You don't know?' he asked.

Cutter just stared at him.

'He doesn't know,' the Doctor said.  He leaned forward suddenly across the table and stage-whispered: 'Perhaps you should tell him.'