"Oh, that is a beautiful planet," Cassie said as she looked up at the viewscreen.

"Yes, it is," Sammie agreed.

"Or is it just that we think the ones that look like Earth are pretty because we're used to that as our definition of beauty?" Terry asked looking at Chrístõ for confirmation of his theory.

"Hadn't thought of it," Chrístõ said. "You could be right. Although I've always liked Earth-like planets, too. And my homeworld is totally different."

"Well, I guess I'm wrong then," Terry said.

"Maybe not. My mother was from Earth. And a glowing Earth globe hung over my cot when I was a baby as a nightlight. I came to love that little blue planet as much as anyone born there. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we are all preconditioned to what we consider to be beauty."

"Well, I think it is very pretty," Bo said with a smile. "Why are we here?"

"It's the first of the co-ordinates from Aquaria," Chrístõ said. "This one looks rather promising, but I just want to run some scans before we land there."

"Why?" Sammie looked at the picture on the viewscreen then at the schematics on the computer screen in front of Chrístõ. He was from a far more technological age than any of his other Earth friends and had some idea of what he was looking at. "Advanced civilisation? Large population centres. Technology."

"Yes," Chrístõ smiled wryly. "You know, it really is arrogant of my people that they programmed this computer to recognise intelligent life as carbon-based Humanoid life with two legs and two arms that walks on land. I scan the seas and it tells me about the ANIMAL life. Yet if the Aquarians made it here, their civilisation is just as advanced as the land-based population."

"We'd probably make the same assumption," Sammie said. "Earth people, I mean."

"Yes," Chrístõ agreed. "I wish…. It's too much to hope…. But I wish we could find the two societies living in harmony with each other, aware of each other, co-operating with each other for the sake of their planet."

"Like we ought to be doing?" Terry said.

"You're not the worst. I've seen some industrial societies that have made a far worse mess of their worlds. Earth at least is redeemable once the people realise what they are doing wrong. That's the main reason I haven't bothered to contact the dolphin life on Earth. It's a struggle for them at the moment, but eventually they'll be ok. So will mankind. You'll get it right."

"Well, I sure hope so," Sammie said. "Last I remember of my time we had oilfields burning all along the Gulf of Arabia and the long term effects on the environment were the least of our concerns."

"You'll get it right," Chrístõ repeated. "Meanwhile I want to have a look at this advanced civilisation first before we go and look at the seas." Chrístõ moved over to the drive controls and prepared for a landing.

"It reminds me of New York," Sammie said as they stood on the pavement of a busy city street. Around them tall buildings rose to dizzying heights. Cars flew by - literally flew. The surface road was only there for a visual aid to traffic with all the road signs and directions painted upon it. The vehicles hovered at three different levels in the air, although as Cassie remarked, it didn't seem to make traffic jams any easier.

"Its so NOISY!" Bo said, and she actually looked rather distressed by it. Of them all, she was least well adapted to city life. Cassie and Terry were Londoners, Sammie came from an industrial town in the north of England. But Bo had spent most of her life in quiet places, born in a simple Chinese village, then the peace of the Shaolin life. Even her less happy experiences with Marley did not prepare her for a city like Nova Lancastrius. He had largely kept her to his house when they had been in London.

Chrístõ wasn’t keen on it either, for that matter. He WAS familiar with city life. Although raised in the countryside of the southern continent entry into the Prydonian Academy took him to the Capitol – they never named their biggest city on Gallifrey. The Capitol was always its name. But that was a different kind of metropolis, a place of culture and arts, government and law and learning. So much more ‘organised’ and purposeful than this melee. He knew that beneath the apparent chaos there WAS a purpose to every journey being taken by hovercar and every pedestrian jostling for walking space, but when seen as a whole it just looked chaotic.

On Gallifrey civilisation seemed more ‘civilised’.

"Lets get off the street." He steered his friends into a shopping mall that seemed at once much more pleasant. Although busy, the absence of cars and their noise helped. The mall was cooler, too, with air conditioning. Chrístõ looked around and got his bearings, then went to a computer terminal set into a pillar. Even Bo and the Sixties flower children had spent enough time in Earth's later decades to recognise an ATM machine by now, even an alien version of it. They watched him look in his wallet for a small plastic card which fitted the slot in this machine and then press a number of buttons. He retrieved the card and a fistful of small tokens that obviously passed for money here. He dropped them in his jacket pocket before heading towards a pleasant looking café.

“How does it work?” Cassie asked as they sat around the table waiting for their coffee and sandwiches to be served by the waitress who took their order. “Getting money when we’re on another planet. It seems too easy, just putting in a card and taking the cash.”

"This is a universal credit card," Chrístõ said showing her what seemed to be a blank piece of thick plastic with some kind of magnetic metal piece in the back of it. "The money I took out for use here, eventually comes out of my bank account back on Gallifrey. I pay my way. To do otherwise would not only be dishonest but would introduce anomalies in the local economy."

"All right for some," Terry said. "I spent last year juggling my university studies with a job in a garage. There was more engine oil than ink under my fingernails most days. And Cassie did waitressing."

"I hated it," Cassie said. "The customers are so rude sometimes." The waitress bringing their coffee smiled warmly at her when she said that. "Nothing ever changes," she mused. "All over the universe, some people get stuck with the rotten jobs."

"I suppose you never had to eke out your student grant, Chrístõ!" Sammie said.

"No," he admitted. "But I did take a part time job for several years."

"What as?"

"Lady's Companion," he said. His friends all looked at him. "What?"

"I am trying to imagine what being a Lady's Companion actually entails," Terry said. "It sounds a lot better than doing oil changes and tyre changes."

"Or petrol station night attendant," Sammie added. "My first job before I got into the army."

Chrístõ blushed and felt guilty about his relatively easy life.

"A Lady's Companion attends functions with the Lady, travels with her, looks after her money - because it is vulgar for a Lady to be seen making financial transactions - makes sure luggage is safely stowed for a journey, holds carriage doors, helps her into her seat… that sort of thing."

"Cushy number," Terry said.

"My Lady was wonderful," Chrístõ said. "She always spoke very sharply to anyone who looked down on me for being a half-blood. She treated me almost like a son. That was nice, because I hardly really knew my mother. She died when I was so young. Lady Lilliana was so understanding. And I was always so proud to attend any event by her side. When she died… it was like losing my mother all over again. My Lady will always be in my hearts alongside my mother."

"My Chrístõ," Bo said sweetly. "You have such a gentle soul. You feel all the sadness so deeply."

"It's his two hearts," Cassie said. "They give him twice the heartbreak."

"They give me twice the joy, too," Chrístõ said. "Twice the love." He looked at Bo as he said that. She was sitting next to Sammie. He had deliberately arranged the seats for it to be so, and he noted that Sammie did those little things like holding her chair, passing the sugar for her coffee, that made the start of a relationship. As much as he knew he was going to miss her, he smiled when Sammie turned to her and whispered something that made her laugh. Cassie may have been right the first time, he thought. But it was how it was meant to be.

"Chrístõ…. Look." Cassie's voice drew his attention to the plasma screen on the café wall that was running advertisements for various services in the city of Nova Lancastrius. The advert currently running was for a 'Sea Life Centre' at which citizens could see all kinds of wonders - including the LAST of the "Water People." They saw pictures of what were unmistakeably Aquarians and unmistakeably captives in a display tank at the Sea Life Centre. Visitors were invited to see them living like Humans in air and then swimming like fish in water, and a view of them transforming was accompanied by dramatic music and special effects.

“Who ordered the cheese salad on wholemeal?” the waitress asked. She had to repeat the question before Chrístõ turned to her and said it was his order. The waitress handed him the plate with his sandwich on and his friends claimed their orders.

"Can you tell us how we get to that place?" Chrístõ asked pointing to the advert that was just finishing. "The Sea Life Centre."

"You all visitors here?" she asked. "You really can't miss that if you are. It's sensational. The Water People - they're amazing. Just like real people except they can't talk, and they really do turn into fish when they swim."

"It's a fake," somebody at another table said. "It's a camera trick."

"Its not," the waitress insisted. "I've seen it. It's REAL."

"Well, some people are easily pleased," the other customer said. "Guess if you had brains to tell where the fakery comes in you'd have a better job than waitressing."

"I'm waitressing to pay my way through medical school," the waitress said in a low voice that only their table heard.

"Good luck," Cassie told her. "But you were saying - about where the Sea Life Centre is…"

"Keep walking downhill from any place around here and you come to the seafront. The Sea Life Centre is on the promenade. It's big. You can't miss it. The Water People are well worth seeing. Although I couldn't help thinking they didn't look happy when I saw them. My friends said I was being silly, that they were just animals and didn't feel happy or sad like we do. But I'm not sure. I mean does any creature like being captured and put in a little space when its used to having the whole sea to be in?"

"No," Bo said quietly.

"I'd better get back to work while I still have a job," the waitress said. She smiled again at Cassie and then hurried to take the next order.

"Guess we're going to the Sea Life Centre after lunch," Terry said.

"I never liked aquariums," Cassie said with a shudder.

"Me neither," Sammie admitted. "Went to the one at Blackpool when I was five and I screamed the place down."

"You? Scared?" Bo looked at him. "Can't imagine you scared of anything. You're a warrior…fearless, brave."

"Yeah, but I was a five year old once. And the aquarium freaked me out."

"I really don't like aquariums," Chrístõ said. "Or zoos. I hate the idea of captive animals. That young lady had it right. Nothing likes being held captive when it has known freedom. But we're going to have to go to this one. I need to talk to the 'water people' and it's the best chance I have to do that."

After lunch they walked down to the seafront. The city was built on an incline and it WAS easy to find the promenade. And when they got there it was VERY easy to spot the Sea Life Centre. It was a huge building built out over the sea itself, the back end supported by great concrete pilings that went down into the sea and presumably into deep foundations that could withstand the forces of the tides. It had a massive interactive fascia depicting the wonders to be seen inside, the 'Water People' being prominent as the top attraction.

There was a long queue, and when they got to the turnstile even Chrístõ, who rarely worried about such things, was amazed how many of the credit tokens it cost for the five of them to view the 'wonders of the sea'. Somebody was making some huge profits out of turning graceful and gentle and dignified creatures into a tourist attraction.

The 'Water People' were the highlight of the tour. Before they reached their special viewing tank, they were taken around the many other attractions, great sea eels that generate their own electricity; shoals of a small yellow fish with sharp teeth - capable of stripping the flesh from a body in seconds as the tour guide was proud to tell his party of tourists; a large creature that looked like a great white shark of Earth's seas and one large tank - though Chrístõ didn't think it was quite large enough - in which two giant creatures that were this planet's equivalent of blue whales, swam up and down aimlessly. It wasn't JUST the creatures deemed sentient by their standards that were unhappy in captivity.

And finally, they came to a big window that looked into the Water People's captive home. It was in two sections. An air bubble of the sort they had seen protecting the underwater city on Aquaria enclosed a living area with chairs and beds and a table on which some sort of food - fruit and bread and fish - was left. Four 'Water People' sat around the room, and none of them were happy. They looked gloomily towards the window and then looked away. Somebody knocked on the glass and was admonished by the tour guide for 'frightening the creatures'.

"They don't look frightened, they look embarrassed," Cassie whispered.

"They look sad and miserable," Bo said with a sob in her voice. She knew well enough what it was to be a captive with no hope of rescue. Her heart went out to the creatures. She stepped close to the window and put her hand on the glass. "Don't worry, please don't worry. Chrístõ will help you. As he helped me."

Chrístõ certainly meant to help them. He just wasn't sure how. He watched as one of the creatures stepped through the bubble into the underwater part of their tank and transformed into what on Earth was called a dolphin. The crowd gasped in awe and anyone who had any thoughts that this was fakery learned different straight away.

"Come along now," the tour guide said, and they were led up a stairway and out onto an open balcony above the tank. High sheer walls rose around the water so that the creatures had no chance of escape that way. The tourists looked down on the dolphins as they leapt out of the water in graceful curving leaps. They looked as if they were leaping for joy. The onlookers applauded as if they were. But Chrístõ knew better. He slipped away from the main group and went back downstairs. He put his hand on the side of the tank and closed his eyes as he tried to make mental contact with the Water People.

"Hello," he heard the voice in his head and opened his eyes to see a male pressing his hand against his through the glass.

"Hello," Chrístõ said. "I'm a friend. My name is Chrístõ."

"Maak," the male told him. "That is my mate, Selka and her brothers, Gek and Dak."

Are you… are you four REALLY the last of your kind?"

“Yes,” Maak sighed. “Our city was destroyed by the land dwellers. I do not think it was deliberate. An underwater ship of theirs – a great black thing like a sea monster - crashed through the protective bubble. It exploded as it impacted. Many died from the shockwave and from falling debris. All of our very young were killed. They cannot breathe in water until they are ten years old. Some were torn to pieces on the great spinning blades that propelled the ship as it crashed out of control. Selka’s father died that way. The survivors found shelter in caves, but exposed to the sea, in our swimming form, unable to turn back to our air breathing forms, we were the prey of other sea creatures. The one they call the man-eater – you will have seen a specimen here, took many of us. There were only a dozen of us left when we four were caught in the nets of a fishing vessel of the land dwellers. We were lucky not to be killed. Instead we were SOLD to this facility.” Maak looked around at his mate and her brothers. “Lucky? Sometimes I wonder… if death had not been better.”

"I am sorry," Chrístõ said. "I know of your beautiful culture. I have seen it elsewhere. I have seen colonies of your people thriving and happy."

"You have?" Chrístõ felt Maak's heart seem to leap with joy at the thought. "Where? I was sure we were the only city in this ocean."

"There are other oceans."

"That is news to me."

“It saddens me to know that here you are reduced to this,” Chrístõ told him.

“You are a kind man,” Maak replied. “I feel that. Your empathy is a comfort to us.”

"I want to do more than empathise. I want to help you. I WILL help. I don't know how. But I am going to help. Believe me."

"Then may it be soon. You should know that Selka is with child," Maak said. "The land dwellers do not know. They know nothing of us. Not even what food is best for us. What they provide barely has the nutrients we need. The child may not live to term. If it does - if she and the child survive - she does not wish to give birth while hundreds of land-dwellers watch with mouths open. The thought distresses her greatly."

"I can understand that," Chrístõ said. "I will help. And I will do it very soon."

"Sir, what are you doing?" The tour guide came down the stairs. "Sir, you really cannot wander off from the main party. And please do not touch the glass. The slightest vibration distresses them."

"Being held captive and spied on by strangers doesn't distress them then?"

"They're better off here than in the sea. They're protected from predators, they're fed, they're safe."

"They're prisoners," Chrístõ said, but only under his breath. Arguing the case with a tour guide was pointless. He went back to his friends as the tour continued around a museum that told the natural history of the oceans of that planet. There was, Chrístõ noticed, very little about the origins of the 'Water People', certainly nothing about the destruction of their city. Perhaps the 'land-dwellers' knew nothing about it. A submarine - the underwater ship - sank and exploded with catastrophic results for the underwater civilisation. But the land-dwellers knew nothing about what they had inadvertently done. Only that four mysterious creatures with amazing ability to live as either Humanoids who walk and breath air or underwater swimming creatures were found in the sea off the Nova Lancastrius coast and were now the pride of the collection.

At least it wasn't deliberate. Not malicious and intentionally cruel. And they seemed to believe they were doing right by the survivors by keeping them in this goldfish bowl. But still, it wasn't right.

"We're going to do something?" Bo asked as they walked on the beach. It was near sunset and it was a pleasant place, with people walking by the shoreline, enjoying the warmth of a summer evening. Chrístõ walked by the water's edge and looked at the shadowy bulk of the Sea Life Centre. "Tell me you are going to do something."

Chrístõ looked at his friends. They all had the same question in their eyes. They all wanted him to do something.

"Sammie, do you think any of your skills could come in useful to break in there?"

"No," Sammie admitted. "I've been thinking about it. Me, you, Terry? Not exactly a Commando assault squad, are we? And if we did get in, what could we do? That tank is impossible. We'd get ourselves banged up for breaking and entering and we'd have achieved nothing."

"Scratch that idea then," Chrístõ said.

"You really had that in mind?"

"To begin with. Not one of my brightest ideas, though, was it."

"Seemed a bit too Human. Thought you might have a Time Lord way of doing it."

"The Time Lord way of doing it would be to forget it and do nothing," Chrístõ admitted. "We have a big thing about not interfering in other cultures."

"Ok, a Chrístõ way of doing things then." Sammie said it, but his friends all smiled as they recognised the fundamental difference between him and most of his own people. His teachers would call him impulsive and hot-headed. They would be right. But the desire to right what he judged to be a terrible wrong overrode the conditioning of his life as a Prydonian.

"So do you HAVE a plan, Chrístõ?" Cassie asked him eagerly.

"Might have." Chrístõ smiled. "Not much we can do now though. Need to take another trip to the Sea Life Centre as a paying visitor tomorrow." He looked out to sea into the path of the setting sun. "Can't help wondering if there might be some more of them out there that survived. Maak said there were twelve of them. But we really need to get those four out of there before we try to find out."

"This isn't against your rules?" Terry asked him. "Interfering with causality or whatever it was - the reason why you said at first that you couldn't rescue Bo."

"It's against the law of this planet. Whether we do it the SAS way or the Christo way its theft of property as far as the Nova Lancastrius authorities are concerned. But actually, since my people only seem to recognise PEOPLE and CIVILISATION as that which looks the same as them ALL THE TIME, their rules don't apply here. The Aquarians aren't even recognised as a sentient life sign by the TARDIS when its parked up against the building they're kept captive in."

Chrístõ smiled as he looked at the wooden beach hut at the end of a row of similar huts on the promenade above the beach. If anyone looked closely they might notice it had a symbol where the others had a hut number and if they were stupid enough to think of breaking in they would find the lock impossible to pick. Otherwise the disguise was perfect as usual.

"If they're not recognised as sentient beings, then the directives against interference don't count."

"That's one heck of a logic," Terry laughed.

"It's a legal loophole," Chrístõ answered him. "Remember I studied law. Whatever other laws I break, I don't actually break any of my own society. For once!"

The next day after eating breakfast on the beach they again paid for a guided tour of the Sea Life Centre. Again there was a large crowd and they all wanted to see the Water People. They pressed around the top of the tank looking at the leaping dolphins, gasping in awe and applauding. Nobody noticed Chrístõ take out his sonic screwdriver before he slipped off his jacket and gave it to Bo, who put it on as if she was cold. They didn't see him slip his shoes off. They DID see him climb up on the wall and then dive almost as gracefully and beautifully as the dolphins right into the tank. As he hit the water he stretched out his arms in front of him, the sonic screwdriver glowing blue as he opened his eyes underwater and read the coordinates he needed to accurately pilot the TARDIS to that spot. He smiled and turned in the water and began to rise up to the surface, flanked on either side by Gek and Dak, the brothers of Selka.

"Next time, my friends, be ready. I will bring the means of your escape." He told them telepathically. They thanked him for giving them hope of freedom even if it could not be achieved and dived back down to their living quarters. Chrístõ trod water happily and looked up at the curious onlookers high above.

The access door in the sheer wall of the tank opened presently and security guards dragged him out of the water and escorted him and his party out of the building, telling them they were banned from coming back and should think themselves lucky they weren't being prosecuted. Chrístõ smiled and wished them a good day and headed for the beach.

"This is how I do it," Chrístõ grinned at Sammie as he programmed the co-ordinate into his navigation console and had Terry hold down the handle while he bounded around to the pilot controls and the last beach hut in the row disappeared without anyone noting that it was gone.

It re-appeared as an old fashioned diving bell and sank to the bottom of the Water People's tank. Fifty tourists and their guide pressed against the window, and another fifty gathered around the top of the tank, all watching in amazement as the Water People emerged from their air-breathing quarters and transformed into swimming creatures. They circled the diving bell blowing a huge bubble that slowly covered it, creating a simple airlock that allowed the door of the bell to be opened. One by one they went inside the bubble and turned back into their air breathing form before stepping into the bell. The last of them turned and looked at the glass window. He looked for a long time. Some of the witnesses later swore that his expression was pitying, others that he was angry, others that he had made a sign with his hands that a deaf woman in the crowd translated to her hearing friend as 'goodbye'. Then he turned and went inside and the door closed. Security guards rushing to the scene stood looking in amazement as the diving bell faded away and water rushed back into the place it had occupied.

"Hello, Maak," Chrístõ said aloud and telepathically. "Welcome to my ship. This room is where I and my friends usually spend our time, and I'd be glad if you would attend to a small matter here with me, but your wife and her brothers might enjoy the swimming pool I have below. The girls will be glad to take them there."

"Thank you," Maak said in the high pitched voice with the strange clicking in the back of his throat that they knew from the Aquarians they had met before.

The TARDIS's next disguise was as a very functional yacht anchored at a coordinate Maak had suggested as a likely location of any other survivors. He and Gek dived into the deep water. Selka and Dak waited anxiously, along with their Time Lord host and his Human friends. Nobody spoke for a long time. They hardly dared to hope, did not want to be disappointed. And Selka was well aware of how many of her people had died in attacks by the maneaters. Maak and Gek were vulnerable every moment they were down there. She feared for the life of the father of her unborn child.

"Oh no!" Bo cried out and pointed as two black fins as big as the TARDIS yacht's topsail appeared two hundred yards or so out to sea.

"Are they…" Cassie's heart sank. In any ocean, fins like that seemed to signify sudden death.

"Maneaters," Selka cried. The two Human women took her by the arms but none of them dared look away, as much as they wanted to. They watched in horror as the fins turned and began to move purposefully through the water. Chrístõ and Terry both looked on with hearts pulsing rapidly, hoping against hope for their friends. Chrístõ cursing himself for pushing their luck. He'd saved four. Why had he not been satisfied with that?

"We had to know, too," Dak said to him. "We deemed the risk worth taking. You are not to blame. Besides, a quick death in the free ocean is more natural than a lingering one in that tank."

"There!" Cassie cried out and they all looked as four dolphins rose up out of the water in a beautifully synchronised double ark. As they splashed back two more rose up. And two more swam in a circle around them before heading towards the yacht. They had clearly not seen the danger coming towards them. Their thoughts were only on the promise of rescue the yacht signified. Then one of the maneaters rose up through the air. Chrístõ and his Human friends were not prepared for that. They had expected the predators to plough through the waves like Earth sharks or the equivalent creature of Gallifrey's great ocean and take their prey from beneath. Dak, with sinking heart said that these creatures dived through the air and dragged their victims down into the ocean with them as they re-entered the water. And they rarely missed. Chrístõ felt his grief-stricken telepathic cry to his brother who swam in the path of the creature.

A second maneater rose up out of the water behind the first, but neither took a victim. All on board the yacht jumped visibly as four shots rang out in quick succession, and Chrístõ at least, with his telescopic vision saw the heads of the two creatures ripped by two bullets each - the classic double-tap of a sniper. The maneater bodies spun in mid-air and flopped back into the sea amidst a foam of blood and brain tissue. Chrístõ slowly turned and looked up at Sammie, kneeling on the roof of the cabin, his high-powered M16 semi-automatic resting against his shoulder as he scanned the seas for another fin.

"We got half the job done the Chrístõ way," he shouted. "I finished it the SAS way!"

"That you did," Chrístõ said with a grateful smile. He didn't approve of guns, he especially didn't approve of the monster gun that Sammie lovingly took care of. But he had to admit it had its uses.

Meanwhile grey arms reached for the companion ladder and when Chrístõ turned again two of the dolphin people were standing up on the deck transformed into Maak and a young male. The others followed until at last Gek climbed aboard. They'd found six of the eight that had been left when Maak and his family were captured. The other two had died in the time they had been away. But there was no time for mourning. As they composed themselves Dak turned and saw more deadly fins circling, attracted by the blood spilled by the advance party. While they were not above cannibalising the fresh meat, it would not be long before they noticed the yacht.

"Inside, everyone," Chrístõ said. "Sammie, nice work. But put it away won't you. You know how I feel about that in the console room."

"You saved them all," Selka said, her hand on Sammie's shoulder when he jumped down from his sniper position, his weapon made safe now his job was done. "My eternal thanks."

"You ARE a warrior," Bo said, taking his other arm as they all came inside the console room and Chrístõ made himself busy dematerialising the TARDIS.

"Anyone can be a warrior with a gun that size," Terry pointed out.

Chrístõ looked warily, expecting a war of words between Terry and Sammie. Then the soldier made his weapon safe and put it away as he had asked him to do. He turned to Terry and grinned.

“It’s not the size of your gun that counts,” he said. “It’s the calibre of your ammo.” And he winked at Terry, who had never heard a ‘size’ joke before but got that it WAS a joke and smiled back at him.

"This is all that remains of our people," Maak said bitterly as he took his wife's hand and looked around at the pitifully small group standing around looking awestruck at the interior of Chrístõ's ship. "We could fit easily in the tank the land dwellers made our prison. Once we were hundreds. Even if the safe place you promised exists, we are too few to make a new start. Our species is doomed."

"On this planet, yes," Chrístõ said. "But I told you there are other oceans. I didn't tell you those oceans are on other worlds far from all you have suffered till now." He said nothing more as he set the co-ordinates for the beautiful planet of Aquaria - listed in his tutorial guide as planet 1043X4, a place with "no architecture or natural phenomena" and "no civilisation."

The TARDIS had not long materialised on the coral atoll before their old friends Ko and Ka came to the surface to greet them. Their new friends were overcome with joy to discover that they were not the last of their kind after all. The story of their disasters and sorrows made a sad tale by the waterside but when it was done Ko and Ka thanked Chrístõ for bringing the remnants of their distant kin to safety.

"Can we stay here a while?" Cassie asked. She and Bo lounged at the waterside with the dolphin people, both looking enticing in very small bikinis. Bo blushed at the looks Sammie and Chrístõ both had for her.

"Don't think I'd dare say no," Chrístõ said with a lazy smile as he relaxed in the sunshine feeling perfectly satisfied at a job well done, even if his tutors would not approve of his methods.