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'I thought you told me, Doctor,' she said quietly as she leant in close to him,

'never to tell the people we meet too much about the way we have travelled.'

The Doctor smiled. 'I'm just trying to cheer her up,' he murmured but he knew Leela was right. He was talking too much and he was slightly puzzled by that. He didn't normally babble like an idiot. Was there something odd about this place after all?

'It's no good whispering you two,' Chloe said, smiling. 'There are no secrets from me. I'm Chloe the Clairvoyant. It's official. I'm certified as gifted. Dr Hitchins' tests show I may not be as gifted as one or two of the others but I definitely have psi powers.'

'What are psi powers?' Leela asked.

The Doctor stopped in his tracks. 'Parapsychology?' he said. 'Someone here's doing experiments in parapsychology?'

'Dr Hitchins, Barry Hitchins, aka Ghostbuster Bazzer? You don't look as though that means much to you.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'It doesn't.'

'Psi powers are parapsychology then,' Leela said carefully.

'He's famous,' Chloe said. 'Well, quite famous. He's been on TV and stuff.'

'Because of his experiments?'

'Mostly because of the research fellowship. He's the Kellerfield Research Fellow in Parapsychology. There aren't a lot of those about.'

'I should hope not,' the Doctor remarked frowning.

'You're another sceptic,' Chloe said. 'There are a lot of those about. At least around here there are.'

'What is parapsychology?' Leela asked

"The point,' the Doctor went on, 'is that the experimental protocols are invariably wrong. The research is usually undertaken in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons, and the results are almost always'

'Wrong?' Chloe offered.

'Wrong,' the Doctor agreed.

'You mean you believe in it?' Chloe seemed slightly incredulous. You sound as though you actually do believe in it.'

'There is an argument,' the Doctor said, sounding pompous even to himself, 'that says that anything you can imagine must exist, otherwise it would not be possible for you to imagine it. You cannot imagine what cannot exist.'

'You told me there was no such thing as magic, Doctor,' Leela said angrily, and no such thing as ghosts. And when I told you I felt as if something in this place was watching, something which was not there, you said it was my imagination. You said it was my imagination running away with me.

Now you say that if I can imagine it, it must be true.'

'That's not what I said, Leela,' the Doctor snapped. 'What I said was -' and he realised abruptly that it was indeed more or less what he had said.

'What I should have said was: it's just a way of thinking,' he said more gently. 'Not a very useful way. I tell you what. Why don't we go and have a chat with Dr Hitchins? Find out what he's doing.'

'What is parapsychology?' Leela asked again.

'It's telepathy and remote viewing and precognition and stuff like that,'

Chloe said, waving her hands about in vague and unhelpful gestures.

'Mental powers that aren't normal, you know?'

Leela nodded. 'I know,' she said. 'like magic and the power to summon ghosts and see demons.'

'Yes,' Chloe said. That too I suppose.'

'Superstitious nonsense,' the Doctor said. Magic, ghosts, demons, gods.

They're all just names given by the ignorant and the frightened to phenomena they can't explain. If only people were not afraid of the unknown, ignorance would be a joy and curiosity would be the best reason for living.' Even as he said it the Doctor noticed out of the corner of his eye a spreading pool of darkness sliding smoothly across the ground, flowing like flat, black water drowning the light. An eddy of chilly air breathed and whispered round him and he shivered. With a conscious effort he turned to look directly at the dark and it dissolved away into shadows and broken patterns of floodlit brightness. As it vanished he thought he heard a mocking voice sneer: 'If only people were not afraid of the unknown.'

'Who's there?' the Doctor