Faith put her hands to her ears. “It's so silent. I feel as if I've gone deaf.”

“And it's cold.” Charity shivered.

Ruth laughed. “It's the same temperature as the rest of the Ark, honestly it is.”

“Well, I'm freezing.”

Angela ignored their complaints and walked boldly round the room, touching the black walls. She stared up at the black ceiling and down at the black floor. “You lied to us, Ruth!”

“What are you talking about?”

“All that stuff about knives and the fiery pit in the floor. I just knew it was a story.”

Ruth blushed and then laughed. “I'd forgotten about that. Actually it was a story. A story I'd read, and I kept thinking, what if this were to happen? Well, it was very brave of you to come in here, remembering that. So now you know there's nothing to worry about. All the other members of the team went through it and came out healthy and sane, didn't they?”

“Ye .. s. But an awful lot of people didn't make it.”

“You just have to open the door if you can't bear it,” Ruth said gently. “But I hope you don't have to. You'll be such good company on the trip.”

She saw a peculiar expression flash across Angela's face. What was it? She was still no good at empathising with other people's feelings, though her kinetic powers were growing stronger every day. Faith and Charity were looking embarrassed, as if they had caught Angela's unspoken message. There was a silence.

“Well, shall we play cards or do a puzzle? Something to pass the time and take your mind off the room,” she suggested; and the rest of the day passed amicably enough. But Ruth woke in the middle of the night to hear someone crying softly.

She sat up in the darkness. “Who is it? Can I help?”

The crying stopped and there was silence. Was it Faith? Or Charity? Next morning they looked quite cheerful. Surely it couldn't have been Angela? Angela, the strong one, the leader.

She had woken feeling that something was missing. She was certainly not missing the Web. She puzzled over it through the day and realised at last that she was actually missing her dreams. The sense of that other person far away, joined to her by a gossamer thread. For the first time she put a name to the unknown fellow dreamer: Tomi. And then she thought, I wonder how I know?

I miss you, Tomi, she said to herself. But it won't be long before we meet. I wonder what you're like? As handsome as Luke? A telepath or a healer?

Two months to wait. Two months for the snow to melt and the land to dry up. And then ...