The smell of someone unalike was in the air.  Someone who didn't belong here, who reeked of difference, close by.  It was either the young woman, or the tall man.  Azoth's senses tingled, the black gap in his memory teased by the scent.

'We'll find them again,' said his friend, Tarr.

'You must be my eyes,' he meant to say, but his voice sounded slurred, broken.  Tarr was well used to him, though, and understood the words.  'I will be, Azoth.'

Azoth nodded.  He was so old, now.  It seemed wrong that he had outlived both his sight and his memory.  He shouldn't be able to smell someone different so strongly.  It was the young woman, he was becoming certain.  And there was something else: she was linked somehow to the half-glimpsed things that had haunted him these last months, since his awakening.

'We must know more.'

'If it makes you happy,' Tarr said, 'then we shall.'


'Here's everyone, Doctor!  Come and join our party!'

Lucy threw open the heavy doors to the dining room and Roley winced as they crashed into the walls.

'Thank you,' said the Doctor, peering inside and noticing the remains of several meals.  'Oh good, you've all finished.  I wouldn't want to interrupt you.'

Sitting around the long, oak table were three men and a frail-looking old woman.  Nurse Bulwell was watching over them from a chair in the corner, and was the only one to acknowledge his presence.

'I didn't realise you'd still be here,' she said, stiffly rising to her feet.  'We've got no food for you, I'm afraid.'

'Well, I'm really not all that hungry,' the Doctor said.  'I'll just sit and watch you and Dr Roley.'  He glanced round the long table at the people seated there.  'If I may join you, that is?'

The cheek of the man.  'I'm only supervising.  We don't eat with... we don't eat here.'  Maria checked herself as Charles shifted uncomfortably.

Lucy spoke up, skipping over to her place at the table.  'Shall I introduce you, Doctor?  This is Russell, Davydd, Muriel and Peter.'  She pointed vaguely to a different person as she gabbled each  name and smiled.

The Doctor smiled back.  'Delighted to meet you all.'

He seemed to be, too, thought Maria.  He didn't flinch in the slightest Peter Taylor looked him over, a surly scowl on his face.  That a thug like that should be so indulged...

'You a friend of Roley's then?' Taylor asked.

'Dr Roley,' Maria said, unable to help herself.

'You could say I'm a sort of colleague of his, certainly... Peter?'

Lucy nodded approvingly.  Taylor sniffed, losing interest already, and got up from his chair without another word.  He was a big man, his paunch hanging over his belt, creased shirt barely holding it in.  Ignoring Roley, he slouched out of the room.

'Don't mind Peter,' chimed Lucy, grinning broadly.  'He's like that with everyone he doesn't like, and he doesn't like anybody.'

She was a bad one, thought Maria.  She wasn't really sick, or even misguided - she was just a little slut.  Carrying on even here, or trying to.  She'd watched her flirting with Captain Watson each day.  The poor soul was too much of a gentleman to dissuade her.

'How are you feeling now, Mr Watson?' the Doctor asked.

'Captain,' Watson corrected him automaticaily.

'Forgive me, Captain.  I attach a good deal of importance to titles myself.  I'm the Doctor.  Lucy told me you were feeling a little under the weather'