Indecision is the first sign of trouble in paradise for Marion and Kristoph. She is still feeling out of her depth on Gallifrey, and everyone seems to be telling her what she should do instead of letting her make her own mind up.

Now, that’s enough to get anyone wound up. But then being neglected by the love of her life on top of it is just about enough for Marion.

The information about Li is important, of course. I wanted to find a way that his presence on Earth would not prove to be as dangerous as it has in the past few stories. Kristoph making an appeal on his behalf while on Gallifrey is the ideal solution to that problem.

The High Inquisitor doesn’t have to be a woman, of course. But the only time we ever heard of one on Doctor Who, in the Trial of a Time Lord, it was a woman played by Linda Bellingham in very fine style. It seemed to me that was exactly the sort of character I wanted in these stories. She will come up again in a later Marion and Kristoph tale, but for now she only needed to be referred to in passing.
The Conservatory is an important building in Marion’s future. It will become the meeting place for her and those Gallifreyan ladies she becomes friends with. It is something that would probably surprise old school Doctor Who fans, because the Capitol under its great glass dome never really seemed to be the sort of place that had such amenities. But it seems to me that Gallifrey has never really been fully portrayed and I intend to show it to be a place with Fashion Houses where all those grand gowns and robes are made, and restaurants where the Ladies gather for the Gallifreyan equivalent of brunch. Some would see it in a more sinister and alien way, but to me this is my vision of Gallifrey.

The Lodge, about which more anon, was a joint idea I had with my late friend Prue Thomason. We wanted a place where Marion and Kristoph, and also Chrístõ and Julia in the Theta Sigma stories, could get away from it all. I had created a cave behind a waterfall halfway up Mount Lœng, but there was a need for something more luxurious. You will notice that the size of the Lœngbærrow demesne is very flexible in these stories. Assume that estates are something like the great sheep ranches of Australia which cover miles rather than acres.

Between the social life and the geography, Gallifrey’s map is being slowly filled in.