Des has a nightmare of humanoid replicas of Mr Horsley emerging from the burning council building. At the same time Mr Horsley's nephew is creating a new line of shop dummies.
Netta shows a sudden and obsessive interest in the subject of alien spacecraft. When Des and Jim discover that she has invited a strange being to tea, they become rather alarmed.
When his wife Nell tells him she saw a man in the neighborhood who looked like him, Des has a dream where Miss Griffin warns him that the Xux have created a clone to replace.
Miss Griffin has not been in the shop for a few days. Des has a home-medicine induced vision of his alien friends telling him that she has disappeared on her last mission. All evidence points to the local park.
Lazy repairman Des Kinvig's life changes when he imagines meeting a glamorous alien from Mercury, who looks a lot like his latest customer Miss Griffin.
