Chapter Two

The Doctor led her along the maze of particle accelerators, oscilloscopes and lasers to the microscope section. He ignored at least two electron microscopes, a holographic magnifier and a dimensional revisualiser in favour of an antique brass microscope that he had clearly kept clean for years by lovingly polishing it. Either that or the day before yesterday he'd popped back a century or so and bought a new one.

The Doctor took the test tube from his pocket. 'A cork stopper,' he said.

'Is that important?'

He shrugged. 'It might be. The stopper is tight. This tube hasn't been unsealed for ages.'

He flicked the tube open and sniffed the contents. 'No discernible odour.'

He tapped the soil out onto a glass dish. It was red, with a texture somewhere between sand and clay.

‘It looks like cocoa powder,’ she observed.

‘Well it isn’t,’ he snapped. Benny swallowed, surprised by the strength of feeling behind the Doctor’s reply. She kept her mouth closed as the Doctor placed some more of the dust on a slide and put it underneath the lens. He poured a little more into another piece of equipment at the side of the desk and flicked a switch on its side. The box chugged into life, lights flashing on its surface.

Benny leant over. The dust looked familiar from somewhere.

The Doctor peered through the eyepiece of the microscope. 'It's not from Earth, that's for sure. Let's see: Fe2O3.3H20. Limonite. Hydrogenated iron oxide.'

Why was it making her feel nostalgic?

Tickertape spewed from the box at the side of the desk. Without taking his eyes away from the microscope, the Doctor tore the tape off. Then he straightened up to read what it said.