The name Shion, used here for the name of Idell de Lœngbærrow’s younger sister, is the alleged name of somebody who works in the alleged customer service department of MSN. Back in the days of MSN Groups, when I managed a Doctor Who forum hosted by them, complaints about breakdown in the service always resulted in a form letter with an insincere apology and a vague promise of resolution of the problem. The only difference between one letter and another was the signature at the bottom. The letters came from people such as Hext, Shion and Reugene among others. Nobody really believes any of these people are real. The names just seem too unlikely. But after a particularly frustrating time I wrote back to one of them and asked if they had ever seen the film A Knight’s Tale. In that film, a character resembling the English writer Geoffrey Chaucer responds to an enemy by saying he will “eviscerate him in fiction”. I promised to do the same to anyone from MSN who didn’t give me full satisfaction for my complaints.

Reugene, became a character who came to a sticky end in the TEN story, False Gods. Hext, curiously, started out as a cowardly and unlikeable character in the Theta Sigma story, In The Land of The Blind… but actually evolved into a hero who Chrístõ considers a friend and equal, so that particular evisceration didn’t pay off.

But here and in the subsequent story. Shion gets what is coming to her. The poor excuse for a customer service operative at MSN becomes a petty and vindictive civil servant working for the Gallifreyan transport control, possibly one of the dullest jobs on the planet.

Trouble with Shion is inevitable. But Marion and Kristoph put it aside for the time being. Their journey through the time vortex becomes a sensual delight as Kristoph gives Marion what is, plainly and obviously a kind of mind orgasm! There are no two ways about it. He is stimulating her sexually using the power of his telepathy. Quite a lot of people have asked about that, and there is no point in pretending otherwise. In fact, the sensation of sexual climax is a chemical response in the brain to physical stimulation, so all he is doing is by passing the physical aspect and going straight to the point.

The journey through the Haolstromnian solar system was an exercise in descriptive writing. I have written more than once about the Earth solar system – the Sol System as Kristoph calls it. I have also described Gallifrey’s system a couple of times. I wanted to invent a different system and travel through it. And I think it works quite well.

Haolstrom IV, of course, is the temperate, Earth-like planet where Hillary lives. We have visited her once before, at her rural mansion, but I decided I would give Hillary a personal hideaway. There was a reason why it was a lighthouse at the time. I had seen something or read something that made it seem like a good idea. But two years later, I can’t recall what it was. Anyway, Hillary has a lighthouse.

Hillary is one of several Haolstromnian characters I have invented, with the ability to switch between male and female gender. They all seem to have the favour of the readership. The fact that Hillary as a woman kisses Marion and as a man kisses Kristoph is a source of amusement to some people and a source of proof for many that the hangups about same sex kisses that prevail in the early twenty-first century on Earth may yet be overcome. And that is precisely why I do it.

Eviscerate in fiction!