Vasilia went pale as he spoke: a little more so as she digested his words. She had expected a more whimsical answer, perhaps, and yet though that would have annoyed her, the frankness was somehow worse.

"Ah," she said quietly. Out of her tangle of questions, now so much less intriguing and more potentially horrific, one rose. "Is that the death experience for humans, as well? And--if there have been Time Lord inmates--did they die before arrival? I am told we all did. I do not remember dying."