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only the youngsters and Miss Garrett were on tenterhooks, but Clent himself was sitting up in the vibro-chair and gripping its arms in expectation.
    ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Hurry, man – speak up!’
    The Doctor looked up at Clent with mild surprise – as though he’d forgotten the Leader was there. ‘Ionisation,’ he said precisely, as the clockhand reached zero.
    ‘Is he right?’ asked Jamie anxiously.
    ‘Yes,’ admitted Clent warily, ‘he is.’
    ‘But… ionisation?’ interrupted Victoria. ‘What does it mean? I don’t understand.’
    ‘It’s to do with the carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s atmosphere, Victoria,’ explained the Doctor. ‘It’s only a fractional proportion, but it helps to retain the heat of the sun, after it’s filtered through to the planet’s surface.’
    ‘Like a sort of invisible blanket, you mean?’ Victoria was trying hard to understand.
    ‘Something like that, yes,’ beamed the Doctor. ‘Now – if you take the gas away, or even unbalance its mixture too much, the sun’s reflected heat is rapidly dispersed, our planet cools down too quickly and we’re left with the sort of freeze-up these people have now. Is that clear?’
    Victoria nodded brightly. But Jamie was still puzzled.
    ‘But where did all this carbon dioxide gas go to?’ he asked. It was Clent who answered – almost apologetically.
    ‘Our civilisation is supremely efficient, my boy – thanks to the guidance we receive from the Intercontinental Computer Complex. With its help, we conquered the problem of world famine many years ago, using artificial foods, and protein recycling. Unfortunately, the recycling process got rather out of hand…’
    ‘I suppose you started artificial recycling of waste gases to produce more oxygen,’ remarked the Doctor, frowning.
    ‘That,’ agreed Clent, ‘plus a massive increase in intensive depollution processes.’ He looked defensively at the Doctor. ‘A minor error in atmospheric prediction…’
    ‘But one which produced a nasty imbalance in the protective layers of the Earth’s atmosphere,’ added the Doctor soberly.
    ‘Suddenly, one year…’ Clent paused, still remembering the terrible event, ‘… there was no Spring.’
    No one spoke for a moment. Then Clent continued breezily.
    ‘The danger wasn’t understood at first – not until the polar ice caps started to advance.’ He smiled confidently. ‘But we soon came up with the answer to that!’
    ‘This blessed Ioniser, do you mean?’ questioned Jamie.
    ‘Precisely,’ beamed Clent. But Jamie wasn’t to be put off so easily.
    ‘Precisely what, though?’ he asked shrewdly. ‘What does it do exactly?’
    Miss Garrett cut in with an explanation. ‘Ionisation is a method of intensifying the sun’s heat on to the Earth – but only on selected areas.’
    ‘Try thinking of it as a sort of burning glass, Jamie,’ added the Doctor.
    Jamie’s face immediately brightened. ‘Och, now I understand!’ he cried, ‘Like ye can burn paper and make fire?’
    ‘So you can actually melt the glaciers and change the weather?’ Victoria asked Clent, wide-eyed.
    ‘When certain difficulties are overcome,’ he said.
    ‘It’s a highly complex system,’ stated Miss Garrett. ‘The focusing process is very delicate, and there aren’t enough specialists who understand its manipulation.’
    ‘Can’t afford to make mistakes, can you?’ observed the Doctor. ‘Might cause some nasty floods if all that ice melted too quickly.’
    ‘There’s the opposite problem, too,’ admitted Clent. ‘The ionisation process can produce temperatures intense enough to melt rock.’
    ‘But your computer can’t quite manage to strike the happy medium,’ reasoned the Doctor – ‘at least, not without the assistance of one of those specialists you’re so short of…’
    ‘One of my scientists – a chap called Penley – had some sort of a breakdown, and went missing.’ Clent paused; he didn’t like asking