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'And where are you going now?' Bulwell demanded.

'To see Roley. There's something he should know.' He spun on his heel and faced her. 'Coming?'

3.6

Tarr awoke to find Azoth's blank metal visage hovering above him. He did not start. Azoth was his friend. They looked after each other. Azoth was probably just watching him to make sure he'd absorbed all the learnings without ill effect.

'I felt something," said Azoth. 'Something was triggered in me.' He paused.

'We need more knowledge from Sam.'

It sounded more like 'Zaaaaam' the way Azoth said it, but Tarr knew what he meant. 'Or the man who was with her.'

'Sam is different.'

'I know, "she doesn't belong".' He got up from the metal couch. He felt fine, if a little light-headed. Edward Anthony Withers had had some interesting learnings, and the taste, the breathy beginnings of Samantha Angeline Jones's thoughts were truly remarkable... A lot of them didn't make any sense but Tarr was sure that would change when they had her whole head and not just a little bit.

He smiled, cheerily. 'I'll go out looking right away.'

Azoth barely got out four sentences in the minutes it took Tarr to put on his clothes: 'We could search for weeks. She will go. She does not belong. She knows what we seek.'

Tarr was very patient as he listened. He knew how aggrieved poor Azoth was now that he had such trouble talking. 'I'll just keep looking for that area we saw in her head.'

'Your kind...'

Tarr beamed in childlike delight."Thank you, Azoth!'

'Your kind are mistaken so often.'

Tarr pouted as he put on his shoes. 'Everyone makes mistakes.'

'Venus was Sam. A stupid mistake. Your kind arc wrong too often and die too easily.' Immobile like a tailor's dummy, Azoth made a peculiar sight, draped in the ill-fitting clothes Tarr had stolen for him.

Tarr sighed. 'Look, we'll take more learnings if we have to. We will find it.

I'm going off now to search extra hard.'

Still Azoth said nothing. Tarr didn't know whether he was sulking or whether he had stopped working again. He pulled on his heavy, dark blue overcoat and the huge metal doors in front of him slid open to reveal the dark, dank tunnel that led outside.

With a final worried glance at Azoth, Tarr set off.

***

'You're up early, Doctor.'

'Aren't I?'The Doctor breezed in, sat next to Roley at the breakfast table and lifted the man's fried breakfast out of reach. Roley protested, just as Maria stalked through the door after the Doctor. Roley watched as the Doctor thrust the plate upon her. 'Breakfast later, Dr Roley. What about the cysts?'

Roley looked aggrieved, and pawed his ruffled hair in consternation.

'Really, Doctor, you're a law unto yourself. May I remind you once again you're on my property and as such I -'

The Doctor slammed his hand down hard on the table, silencing him. 'What about the cysts?' he repeated, slowly.

'What are you talking about?' said Roley, swapping annoyed glances with Maria.

'"Strange, cyst like deposits lodged around the shoulder blade removed from each patient," to quote your own notes, Dr Roley.'

'How dare you read his private papers?' stormed Maria, but Roley waved a placating hand at her.

'I'll deal with this, Maria.' He noticed her flush, then turned back to the Doctor.

'You considered them to be some kind of somatoform disorder, apparently,'

said the Doctor.

'I still do. Simple psychological upsets manifesting themselves as physical symptoms.'

'Generating organic deposits such as that? Poppycock.'

'You are entitled to your views, Doctor -'

'I believe the growths removed from Mr Austen have renewed themselves.'

'Ridiculous,' said Roley, although his imperious tone was gone. 'And how would you come to believe that?'

'He sneaked into the Restraint Room,' sniped Maria.

'Is this true? You went to Dreamland without my say-so?' Roley demanded.

'Perhaps Mr Sandman hit me with his magic beam.'

Roley stared back at him.