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'She's tired,' he said quietly.

Bernice nodded. They were all tired. The events on Detrios were still too close. Especially for Chris. Perhaps the Doctor had been right to bring them here for a holiday. If it was a holiday?

'Are you coming outside?' Bernice asked Chris.

He glanced at the balcony, at the Doctor, who was sitting there with his back to them. Chris shook his head. 'I thought I'd take a dip in the roof pool.'

'There's a swimming pool on the roof?'

'Yeah,' said Chris. 'The bottom of the pool is completely transparent. You can see right into the rooms below.' He remembered Roz and lowered his voice again. 'And there's a games room you won't believe.'

'Is that where you've been all afternoon?'

'I lost track of time.' Another glance at the Doctor's back. 'You know how it is.'

'Why don't you have a swim and then come down?'

'Yeah,' said Chris, 'that's what I'll do.' He looked down at Roz. 'She doesn't like it when dreams come true,' he said sadly. 'She thinks the universe is complicated enough as it is.'

Bernice watched as Chris headed for the stairs. There was a tightness across his shoulders that she'd never noticed before. She heard Roz snort softly in her sleep, shifting her position on the sofa. You get comfortable, old bean, thought Bernice. Enjoy it while it lasts.

And perhaps she should follow her own advice.

But then again, why break the habit of a lifetime.

Bernice paused on the threshold of the balcony. 'I'm not coming out there until you show me your hands.'

The Doctor raised his hands. 'Don't shoot, I'm unarmed.'

Bernice stepped through the invisible wall that separated the hot balcony from the cool interior of the villa. It wasn't just the contrast between sunlight and shade. Earlier on she'd stuck her hand halfway through to check; there was a precise demarcation between hot and cool. An invisible wall.

'Unspooned is all I'm interested in,' said Bernice, taking her seat. There was a wine cooler on the table and a single narrow-waisted wine glass. Neither had been there when she'd gone upstairs for her halter top. She was pretty certain they hadn't been there when she'd been talking to Chris inside.

'I ordered you some wine,' said the Doctor.

Bernice pulled the bottle out of the wine cooler; it was shaped like a glass corkscrew, the liquid inside a pale amber colour. 'I see,' said Bernice. 'First the stick and now the carrot.' The bottle was sealed with a real cork cork. She poured a half measure in the glass, swirled, sniffed, tasted.

'Good?' asked the Doctor.

'Unusual.'

'But good?'

'Excellent.'

'Aren't you supposed to spit it out afterwards?'

'Absolutely not,' said Bernice filling her glass. 'I've always felt that wine tasters have got the wrong end of the stick on that one.'

'They spit it out so as to avoid becoming incapacitated.'

'Proves my point exactly.' Bernice sipped the wine. It had a light flowery bouquet and tasted like summertime in the high Alps. 'I wonder what it's made from?'

The Doctor picked up the bottle and examined the label carefully. 'I haven't got the faintest idea.'

'If I could see through the walls of the sphere, what would I see?'

'Stars, constellations, galaxies, the usual sort of thing.'

'Would I recognize any of the stars?'

The Doctor thought about this for a moment. 'No.'

'Not a single constellation?'

'Perhaps,' said the Doctor. 'But what you think of as Human Space is a very long way away.'

'But you've been here before?'

'Actually,' said the Doctor, 'I don't visit this place very often. Nothing particularly interesting ever happens here.'

'Stagnant?'

'Peaceful,' said the Doctor. 'Terribly well organized.'

'Efficient?'

'Totally.'

'Prosperous?'

'Disgustingly so.'

'Boring?'

'Very.'

'People?'

'About two trillion.'

Bernice put the wine glass down, very carefully. 'Two trillion as in two thousand billion?'

'That's a G-class main sequence star up there,' said the Doctor, 'just like Earth's sun. The radius of this sphere