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ponytail and was wearing black leather trousers, a Stone Roses T-shirt and a black bomber jacket covered in badges. Young with no sense of style.
    'You were clinical y dead for about twenty minutes,' she said.
    Dorothee peered down her blouse. There was a dry burn scar dead centre of her chest. A fierce little hole was scorched through the Chantil y lace. No blood. 'At that range you could hardly miss. I didn't think you could adjust the level on those things.'
    Ace studied the gun. 'You can't,' she said.
    'So how come I'm still here?' Dorothée sat up and reached for the weapon. 'Show me.'
    'No chance.' Ace jerked it away. She produced a small flask from her bomber jacket. 'Here. Drink this.'
    Seeing the look of distrust on Dorothée's face, she grunted, 'Yeah. I'd feel the same.' She unscrewed the cap, took a hefty swig and blenched a little. 'Half way across the universe and it still has a hell of a kick.'
    Dorothée took the flask. 'I left this at home. In my room in Paris. How did you get hold of it?'
    One corner of the girl's mouth edged into a smirk. 'It was a present from a starship trooper. It's a keepsake. For services rendered.'
    'Not like that,' snapped Dorothee and resisted the impulse to hit the little bitch.
    'Yeah?'
    'Six days we were together. On Crocarou Station, before I flew out on a mission. We didn't think I'd come back.'
    'Tell me about,' interrupted Ace. 'And when I did, the base had been blown apart by Dalek shock troops. I threw up in someone else's kit bag. I still cry when I remember him.'
    Dorothée gulped back her anger. 'That was me! I did that. No one knows about it. I never told anyone!'
    But Ace had tears in her eyes.
    Dorothée swigged hard from the flask. This Ace knew exactly which raw nerve to hit. Stil , the brandy had the desired effect. She could kid herself she wasn't half famished or frightened for a while. The flask was fuller than she had ever kept it. Enough to drink her tormentor under the table. She passed it back and studied the girl.
    Ace's face was wrong. It wasn't quite a mirror image. It was the wrong way round. Dorothée got a bad feeling that the girl was real. 'Tell you what,' she said. 'There's no afterlife. There wasn't a tunnel with a bright light at the end of it.'
    'Tough,' said Ace and swigged at the brandy. She shifted further up the bed. 'How long have you been following me?'
    Dorothée hunched herself up at the pillow end. 'And I thought you were following me.'
    'First sign of madness. Talking to yourself.'
    'But I'm not, am I?' said Dorothée. 'I'm Dorothée McShane. And I never wore those trousers with that jacket.'
    Ace leant forward. Her eyes were like ice. 'Can't both be real, can we?'
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    Dorothée held her ground. 'Truth or dare,' she said.
    'OK,' nodded Ace, unfazed. 'Be my guest.'
    'Tell me your name first.'
    'Easy,' she said. 'I'm the cat-girl. I'm the Dalek-killer and the lion-hunter. I'm Time's Vigilante. My name's Ace. So what's yours?'

    ***
The Doctor was in the TARDIS console room, where Chris somehow knew he would be. He sat hunched in a chair, staring at the scanner screen, which was switched off. Under his jacket, he was wearing his old pullover -
    the one with question marks that Chris thought they'd seen the last of. He wondered if the Doctor had somehow changed into it without taking his hat off. He hoped it signalled a return to the Doctor's old indomitable self. No more worries about sudden death and regeneration.
    'The teabags have run out,' the Doctor complained without looking up.
    Chris was not in the mood to find out that someone else was worse off than he was. 'Are you having trouble sleeping?' he asked.
    'Oh sleep, that some have called the cousin to death,' the Doctor quoted unhelpfully. He shrugged without looking round. 'I wouldn't cal it trouble. Why? Are you still having trouble?'
    'Yes.'
    'Not sleeping at all?'
    'Yes. I mean, I sleep. It's the dreams.'
    The Doctor sighed and stared at the blank screen. 'I don't seem to