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front of him in their customary formation again. He knew he was going to have to take all this one moment at a time.
    As they headed down the corridor to the building’s exit, the Doctor was trying to fathom how he was going to get back to the TARDIS, how he was going to convincethe people of this world that the Daleks were a force for evil and, perhaps most importantly, how exactly he was going to look after three orphaned children without anywhere to live and with no money in his pocket.
    When they passed through the main doors, the Doctor immediately saw a potential solution to one of those problems.
    It was now night, but in the brightly illuminated street in front of them, there was a crowd of around a hundred people. Perhaps not as impressive as the thousands they had seen earlier, but, thought the Doctor, this gathering would do … especially since they had a very particular air about them.
    Immediately, the crowd seemed to move almost as one, dashing towards the Doctor, Sabel, Ollus and Jenibeth. Dazzling lights from hand-held holo-cameras bobbed and swayed closer and closer. A gabble of overlapping questions started firing at them. These, the Doctor realised, were journalists.
    ‘How did you find the ship? What happened to their parents? Who are you? What do you think of the reports that everyone on board had been killed? Did you know about the strength of public reaction back home?’
    More and more questions piled on top of other questions and the more the Doctor and the children did not answer, the more versions of the same questions came firing at them in an increasingly grotesque symphony of intrusive craving. So far, the Doctor reflected, shutting off his mind from the dazzling lights and the incessant questioning, he had encountered two unpleasant aspects of human social behaviour onCarthedia: uncaring officiousness and a rampantly insensitive press. Not rating as one of his favourite planets, that was for sure.
    As he held up his hands in an attempt to stop the flood of questions, the Doctor realised that Sabel, Ollus and Jenibeth were all hiding inside his jacket. Ollus had actually fastened one of the buttons, so from just below the waist up, the Doctor now looked like a sort of bulging, tweed tent with a head.
    ‘Please! Please! Please!’ the Doctor shouted at the top of his voice. ‘There are children here!’
    But the journalists either simply did not care or did not hear.
    The Doctor fished inside his jacket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He held it aloft, portentously. Some of the journalists looked up for a moment, but still their questions and grappling for position continued.
    Flicking the sonic controls to a high oscillation, the Doctor activated the device and about twenty or so of the nearest street lamps exploded in a shower of dancing sparks. A nearby, oval-ish tram-like vehicle, very probably on its last night-time journey back to the depot, also bore the brunt of this sonic assault, as the metal pick-up arm on its roof sizzled furiously on the overhead cables, causing the whole tram to skitter off its tracks and into some parked, domed car-like vehicles.
    Fortunately, the impacts were fairly minor, and no one was hurt.
    All this commotion, however, was, thankfully, enough to stop the journalists long enough for the Doctor to get a word in. Realising that this might be hisonly chance, the Doctor knew he had to go for the big story first.
    ‘The Daleks are evil!’ he cried at the top of his voice. It had the desired effect. The journalists all looked at him. ‘Well,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s better. You all look pretty gobsmacked. So, now then,
there’s
a story for you, right there! I don’t know how long you’ve been thinking the Daleks were your friends, but I’m here to tell you that you can be sure that they are up to something. I’m not sure what it is, but it has something to do with the planet Gethria. Some secret so terrible that the parents of these children