In a sizable room, many and many people were feasting and making themselves merry. Of course, the term 'people' might be considered misleading under the circumstances. Most of them didn't appear to be human in the slightest at the moment.

There were contingents who were singing the songs of battles and victories on distant planets - not all of them in tune, or agreeing on which lyrics to use at what time. Fantastically exotic dishes and roasts were laid upon the tables. At the head table, a lively debate was raging over the legitimacy of the reign of a particular Galactic emperor, and the historical circumstances of his downfall.

Sitting at the far left end of that table, keeping to himself, Max Evans reflected how tired he was of the pageantry of the annual UFO convention in Roswell, New Mexico, and how he wished that he really was off with his friends on another planet. Then the slight surreality of that sentiment hit him and a string of laughter escaped from him, which earned him a few dirty looks from the true believers who didn't think that there was anything funny about their conversation.

He attempted to console himself by scanning the UFO center of a glimpse of Liz, since just seeing her always made him feel better. She had applied for a spot waiting on the dinner, since the money was better than she'd likely get at the Crashdown, and her parents had enough temporary help to last them through the night, even without Maria and Michael being there. Max did spot her dark hair, wearing the black dress that had been provided as uniform, but she was across most of the tables, hard to spot among the other people who occasionally stood up or walked between tables, and he couldn't catch her eye because she was so busy delivering new treats and clearing away old dirty dishes of various descriptions. He'd have to wait until the dinner was done. It was so frustrating - there wasn't even really any reason for him to be there, it wasn't like the conversation up here was anything that Brody needed him for in order to make a good impression.

Soon enough, though, Brody Davis had gotten up and made a short but upbeat speech about the drive for truth and open-ness of mind that had brought them all to Roswell for the convention, and after the chocolate ice cream flambee had been served, there really wasn't that much to keep Liz and the rest of the wait staff. Once they were alone together, in the alley behind the building, Max pulled his beloved lady close to him for a kiss that he expected to be hotter than a solar flare - but after just a second he could tell that some part of her, (mind, heart, soul, whichever,) wasn't really in her response. "Okay, what is it?"

"Oh, I - I'm really sorry, I miss you too, and you really do make me feel..." Liz couldn't seem to find a word to end that thought, and settled for an excited shiver that did make Max's ego feel considerably better. "But I was just wondering about... well, our friends, Maria and Alex and Kyle and Michael and Isabel."

"If you're worried about them - well, of course, I am too," Max pointed out. "But until the agreed on rendezvous time, there really isn't any point in dwelling on worry, or trying to check up on them."

Liz smiled a huge smile, and Max suddenly realized that she thought she knew something that he didn't know - not a terribly rare thing for her to do, Max realized. "So you might think. But - well, I guess I didn't mention this. Michael passed me Rose's cell phone number in English class today."

"Yeah, so? If she's out of cell coverage range herself, what good will that..." Max trailed off, suddenly remembering something. "Oh, right, she mentioned something about that, when she was using the phone to try calling the Doctor last night, but I guess I didn't realize exactly what that meant. She can call anybody or have anybody call her, no matter where?"

"Yeah, something like that," Liz agreed. "I'm not sure if it's compatible with the local communication systems of every planet in every galaxy, but definitely if we call from here, she'll get it - no matter what planet she's on or what era in time. The Doctor installed some kind of expansion card that routes the calls through the TARDIS systems, she said."

Max considered that for a moment, and took out his cell phone. "Then I won't have to pay for long distance, I guess?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't automatically add itself to your free calling plan - but don't quote me on that. You wanna give it a try?"

"Hmm." Max took a look at the slip of notebook paper that Liz presented him with, tapped the numbers into the phone's keypad, (more numbers than he'd need for an ordinary US call, but not that many more,) and then passed the phone off to Liz without hitting the green talk key. She nodded at him, raised the phone close to her ear, (and posing so that Max could bend close and listen in if he chose to,) and connected the call.

It rang for maybe seven or eight times, each a distinctive brr-brr that was probably the usual English land line ring thing, and then finally a voice came. "Hello, Lizzie? Is that you, dear?"

"Um, uh, yes, actually," Liz said. "Nice to hear your voice..."

"Yes, it's nice to hear from you too, but you'll have to speak up, hun." Now Liz heard the din coming through as background noise, a racket that seemed oddly familiar to her, and realized that Rose was nearly shouting into her end of the phone. "Was there anything you wanted? I'm sort of busy over here."

"No, umm - just wanted to call, and check in, make sure that you'd arrived okay," Liz said. "And our friends."

"Yes, we're fine - the Doctor and Kyle and I are at a banquet," Rose explained. "The rest of your friends are all together - shall I go find them as soon as I'm able and call you back?"

"Yes, of course, certainly," Liz agreed. So that was familiar about the noise. She and Max had been in a fake alien banquet, Rose was at the real thing - but the noise seemed to be just about the same. "Tell Kyle hi from me, and we'll wait for your call. Thanks."

"You're very welcome, Liz. Until then." It was easy to tell when the line was disconnected because of the background noise of the banquet suddenly stopping. L:iz looked up to Max, wondering how much of the conversation, especially Rose's side, he might have heard.

"They've arrived alright?" he asked with a smile, and that gave her her cue, as Max must have intended.

"Yes, and Rose will call your phone back, when she's free to talk and back with everybody - I guess they split up," Liz said, not wanting to go into all the details about the banquet yet. "So I guess I need to stay close to you until your phone rings again, if we can manage that."

"I'm sure I won't have a problem with that," Max said, pulling her close.

"And not get so, um, distracted with anything, that neither of us will even hear the phone ring," Liz continued with a slight smile on her face. Max raised an eyebrow at her.

In point of fact, they didn't have that long to wait before that phone rang again - they agreed to go back to Max's place, (though he'd have to drive her back downtown before the evening was over, really,) and he was just about to pull into the driveway when the familiar ringtone sounded. Liz felt sure that this was somebody else entirely, maybe Davis with a new Convention-related emergency or Maria's mother calling to harangue them for letting the others leave.

"Hello?" Max said, picking up the phone once his Jeep was no longer quite blocking the way and its front wheels, at least, were on the driveway of his parent's house. "Yes, hi Rose, I'm a bit surprised to hear from you so quickly, are you okay? ...Yes, of course, I'd love to hear from Michael, but - wait a second. Nearly two hours? Are you sure?" He put the phone down slightly and turned to Liz, who had already gone to check her own watch. "How long has it been since..."

"Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty." She shrugged. "I know that they're not supposed to be travelling in time yet, but it's a faster than light signal. Who can tell if it's supposed to react the same as a local call?"

Max just nodded - and returned his attention to the phone, because Michael's voice was cearly coming out of it now, though Liz couldn't quite make out what he was saying, just his identity. "Hey yourself, man - we just - well, Liz and I didn't quite make it back to my place. How's Kaalto - did you think much of alien-style dinner?"

#

"This is a good idea," Alex admitted, perching himself on the edge of the bed in Michael and Maria's room. One of the 'alien things' that he hadn't much noticed on his first look through the room turned out to be a holographic display tied into the communicator system, and in addition to more obvious uses, (like showing the face of somebody that they were talking to,) it was apparently capable of scrolling through a sort of room-service menu with three dimensional full color, so that they could attempt to judge what might be appetizing before ordering.

Of course, even though sight was a bit better than names, it still wasn't the best sense for making those determinations. Sadly, though, the room was not equipped with smell-o-vision, so they were making do.

"Yeah. Hey, does that look promising?" Maria said, pausing on one particular image before clicking along. "A bit like a deep-dish pie with chicken and - and blue peppers, I guess, but still."

"Okay, yeah, add it to the list to try," Michael agreed. "Maybe blue peppers are great."

"Alright, just a second." Isabel had found a sort of touch-sensitive clipboard and was making notes on their 'list' by dragging her fingernail across it to leave a mark that would apparently last until someone pushed the 'clear' button down hard for a few seconds. "Garben dur fallizi. I hope that the TARDIS translation effect works well enough that we can be understood just be pronouncing the text that we see, for things like this."

"I would think it'll be fine," Alex said. "If it couldn't, or wasn't working at all on names of things that Earth doesn't have words for, then we'd see an alien alphabet after all, not Latin letters spelling out something that sounds a bit food-like."

"Worst comes to worst, we'll summon someone in here and point at the pictures," Maria agreed. "Okay, so what do we have already?" Isabel opened her mouth. "No, I don't really want the list of names that don't mean anything to me."

"There was the triangular bread," Michael rhymed off, "yellow drink, bowls of orange porridge, and... and the red pancakes. I think that was about it."

"Do we need anything else?" Alex asked.

"Maybe something that looks a bit meaty," Isabel suggested. "I mean, everything else, except for the possibly-chicken on the pizza, is more on the starchy side. Wouldn't hurt to try for some veggies, actually." Michael let out an impassioned groan. "Or fruits at least."

Maria started jumping around from section to section of the menu blindly, (since she couldn't make out on what basis it was organized,) and they completed the list with pink bacon and small black things that would be larger than cherries and smaller than apples. Alex took the list from Isabel and went over to the communicator to talk with someone in the Township kitchen.

"Ahh, alright, that's one problem solved," Michael declared, lying back in satisfaction and stretching himself out on the bed for the first time. "Oooh, and another one discovered, maybe. Honey, give this mattress a try, but very carefully. Maybe we shoulda done this before we took the room."

"What, what could be wrong with it?" Maria said, stepping over. "It looks like a fine bed."

"Just stretch yourself out on it. There's something about the mattress, or what would be a mattress in an Earth bed, I dunno even what to say about it, except..."

Maria considered the bed far more dubiously this time, and crept onto it a little bit at a time, first resting one leg and hand on the edge, then arranging herself on her hands and knees on top of the bed, and ever so gradually lowering herself down to a lying position, stomach downwards. Almost immediately she shot a little ways back up, and tried to arrange herself again, curled up on her side as if she were spooning somebody invisible. The look on her face was immensely dissatisfied.

"Yeah, I, umm, I kinda see what you mean." Quickly Maria arranged herself into a sitting position crosslegged on the bed. "This is fine, but - it's like there's crossbeams and water pockets inside, and - and whatever principles they're based on, they do not work happily with my body."

"Yeah, that's it," Michael said. "Isabel, did you or Alex check yours?"

Isabel had been watching all of this display anxiously from the desk, where she'd gone to switch off the visual menu. "No, umm... I didn't, and I didn't see Alex do anything like that. Not sure that he'd have had time to."

"To do what?" Alex called from the other side of the bed.

"Are you done with the order?" Maria asked him.

"Just, err, just waiting for a confirmation on how long it'd take with the pizza. I didn't ask for an ETA straight out, but they wanted me to stay on until they could tell me, so..."

"Okay, that's fine," Michael said. "It's just, there's something weird about the beds, and we might need to - ohh." Alex had put up his hand, and as Michael trailed off they realized that somebody was speaking over the room communicator again.

"Thank you, that'll be fine," Alex said, and turned away. "Nearly half an hour. I, umm, I did ask about delivering some of the quicker stuff first, but I guess they don't want to make a lot of trips."

"Oh," Isabel said, her face falling. "I, well, I understand how they feel, and I'm not so hungry that I can't last half an hour, but... but what if we don't like any of what we've ordered?"

"Then we suck it up and go to the dining room, or anywhere else that's more convenient and close to the kitchen," Michael suggested.

"Yeah, I think that's only fair," Maria agreed. "But, Alex - did they really talk in terms of hours?"

"Yeah, that threw me for a moment too," Alex agreed. "Translation effect, I guess. I just hope that it's not referring to a local unit of time that's more or less comparable to an hour, without doing a conversion."

"I guess we'll find out," Michael pointed out. "So what now?"

"We go and test drive our bed," Isabel said, reaching out to Alex for his hand. He offered it quickly enough, but raised one eyebrow in a silent question. "In terms of relaxation and general comfort, to start with, not actual sleep or - mutual affection, though we might try the latter out if there's so much time. Michael and Maria thought that theirs was - not good for sleeping on."

"Oh." Alex blinked. "I'd have thought something like a comfortable mattress would be universal, for humanoids."

"They overengineered it inside," Michael guessed. "Probably it's great for a native, but our bone structures and joints are out of tolerance."

"Ooh, I see," Alex managed as Isabel led him back out into the hall.

"What do we do about ours?" Maria asked Michael. "I mean, even if theirs is fine, they got lucky, and won't want to switch, unless it's a random thing that they don't notice. And if we ask for something else - then they may want to put us in a room that's far away, instead of moving new furniture in here. Heck, maybe if this is the normal thing, they don't have any other kinds of mattresses."

"I - I don't know," Michael admitted, sliding close to her, (and feeling the discomfort as his bottom had to pass over a supporting rod,) and reaching out to stroke Maria's back comfortingly. "There'll be ways. For one thing, if they've got ropes, and straight rods, then we can work out something in the way of a hammock. This bedspread is crazy strong, it'd make a hammock fabric strong enough to take both of us together."

Maria turned to him, smiling a little, but her hazel eyes were still worried and a bit sad. "I've never tried a hammock except for summer camp when I was seven, and I didn't like it then."

"There'll be something," Michael insisted. "I could try using my powers to 'fix' this thing... or if that doesn't work, umm... oh, I know! The doctor's screwdriver. He can fix just about anything with that, I can tell. We'll just ask him as soon as they get back from their banquet."

"Right, okay," Maria said, letting out a long-held breath. "We'll have to tell Kyle to check his mattress in the single room, too."

"Yep." Michael nodded firmly. "Okay, so then, do you wanna see if this holograph thing has a general orientation to the township, for visitors?"

"Umm, sure, okay." Maria brought out the remote again, turned the unit on, and tried an icon that she'd noticed before, that might represent someone speaking into a box. "Orientation information for Kaalto."

"Program has been found," the holo crystal announced after a few seconds, much to Michael's surprise that that trick actually worked. "Beginning play." And the display showed them a sort of a cave mouth, covered by a huge glass and steel door, as seen from far above, in the middle of a barren, almost airless landscape.

"Kaalto township was founded two hundred years ago," an announced informed them, "by the compliment of the Rahlicx hybrid exploration and colonization vessel 'Cherilew'. Cherilew was on a mission to discover an oxygen/water world which could be settled by Antarians without requiring pressurized living quarters and full environmental recycling, but it failed in this primary mission and was unable to return to a previously established base world when an accidental fuel tank leak compromised one of its engines and poisoned hundreds of sleeping would-be settlers in a cryogenic suspension bay. Rather than further risk the lives of the rest of his settlers, the Cherilew captain landed on the nearest stable world, which they had surveyed two days before the accident, and began working on a community site that could keep the frozen volunteers in the riskiest suspension bays alive. The first pressurized settlement on the planet, which was christened Kaltonin, was a silicon-plastic tent inflated with oxygen/nitrogen air, but..."

Before too long, Alex and Isabel returned, reporting that they also had issues with the mattress in their room, and Maria quickly mentioned Michael's hopes for the Doctor and his screwdriver to save the night. The four of them kept watching the educational show about this place that they had ended up, and time flew to such an extent that Maria was startled when their delivery guy knocked on the door.

"How long was it?" She asked as the various dishes were set down on a convenient end table. "Alex, did you check your watch?"

"Yeah, I did - um, let's see - around twenty-four or twenty-five minutes."

"Great," Isabel said, and nodded at the courier. "Thank you very much." He nodded back, an oddly contented smile on his face, and headed back out of the room. "And now, it is time for the moment of truth." Isabel used a double-edged steak knife like thing to cut a huge square 'slice' out of the pizza, and transferred it to one of the hard plates that had been provided. (It didn't feel like metal, or plastic, more like porcelain or something like that.) From the plate, she lifted it to her mouth, and took a large bite including both a pepper and a chunk of the toppings that had originally been guessed as chicken. "And it's good!" she announced, her mouth still full.

"Yay!" Alex cheered, throwing his arms in the air and shaking them around like a crazy man.

"The crowd goes wild," Maria chimed in, matching his actions. Michael looked at both of them like they were going nuts. "Hey, so what? It's been a kindof stressful evening, our first trip to an alien planet and all, so if the two of us want to blow off a little steam by acting silly and excited over little things when we're alone, what does it hurt?"

"Nobody at all... um, gets hurt, I mean," Isabel agreed, nodding firmly as she swallowed the last of her bite. "Come on, guys, have a try, but one warning. It doesn't really taste that much like pizza, somehow, though it is good, or at least I liked it - and the blue peppers are incredibly spicy."

"Okay, well, let's see. I'll just start with bread, bacon, and drink," Alex said. "Umm, if I can figure out how to get a serving of this bread. It's such a big - loaf or whatever, that the knives won't go all the way through."

"Well, the hacksaw looks big enough," Michael pointed out. "Presumably it's here for some of the food, and I can't see anything else where it'd be helpful." So Alex tried hacking off a slice of triangular bread, which he found worked quite well.

Dinner turned out to be an almost unqualified success, despite the exotic and unfamiliar nature of most everything that they'd ordered. The bread, or 'darva,' was the only thing that did taste more or like what they were expecting, but at least two out of the four of them approved of each item. Michael was the only one who had a real disappointment, in that he found the beverage they'd selected very sweet and sticky, but he made do with a cupful of water from one of the 'fountains' in the bathroom down the hall, (once he had figured out how to keep the water from foaming with soapy cleaning suds.)

They had more or less finished eating, discussing if they should try searching for something else helpful or entertaining on the holocrystal, and debating the points of the various food items, when the door just burst open and Rose hurried in, carrying her cell phone. "Well, hello there, nice that you didn't bother to knock," Isabel drawled. "Or - or is something actually an emergency?"

Rose dragged herself to a stop and reconsidered, smiling apologetically. "No, umm... not an emergency, no, and I'm sorry about just barging in like this," she muttered. "But, umm, but Liz called while we were still at the banquet, and I - well, I couldn't spend long talking with her. I - I told her that I'd call back, and let you guys talk with her and Max, as soon as I could - and this was 'as soon as I could.' She sounded a little bit concerned."

"It's somehow nice to know that she worries," Maria decided with a lazy smile. "Oh, hi Kyle. Kyle had just shown up at the door, presumably trailing behind Rose's dramatic entrance, and the Doctor wandered into view as well.

"Yeah, sure, give her a ring back," Alex urged. "I'd be happy to talk to either of them." There was a muted chorus of agreement with that, so Rose focused her attention on the phone for a few second - probably identifying the recent incoming call and initiating a callback. Then she put the speaker to her ear, waiting through the ringing, and brightened noticeably before opening her mouth.

"Hullo, Max?" There was a short pause. "Yes, I'm finally out of the banquet, so sorry that I kept you waiting, but - who do you want to talk with first? Your mate Michael is right here... Yes, waiting, it's been nearly two hours since Liz called, it has to be." Rose switched the phone to her other ear in order to more easily check her watch. "Yes, I'm sure, but it doesn't matter. Here's Michael." She shrugged and passed the phone over, and Michael took it immediately.

"Hey, man, how's Roswell doing?"

There was a slight pause before Michael heard anything other than the indistinct sounds of Max and Liz conferring about something, and then: "Hey yourself, man - we just - well, Liz and I didn't quite make it back to my place." There was a short pause. "How's Kaalto - did you think much of alien-style dinner?"

Michael laughed. "A bit strange but good - triangular bread that was actually pretty normal otherwise, this sort of shepherd's pie thing with hot blue peppers, pizza oatmeal, fluffy sausage cakes and sweet strawberry bacon."

"Interesting," Max said, with the tone of voice that suggested to Michael that he was filing the information away to ponder later - and discuss with Liz, of course. "Is there anything else important that's happened?"

"Not to us, except that the beds suck and we're going to have to figure out what to do about them. I'm actually a little more curious about what this banquet was like than in telling you our stories about getting dinner and rooms, and the little history documentary or whatever. Do you want anybody else?" Michael turned to look at his friends, to see if anybody was expressing interest. Maria waved her arm and mouthed something with excessive clarity. "Maria wants your girlfriend."

"Yeah, like there's anything new about that," Max said with a little laugh. "Well, give Isabel some brotherly love for me, and we'll see you in - I guess it'll be a few days for you, or longer, and less than a day for us, until we meet again. Hey!" Michael had been about to pass the phone to Maria, but he hesitated. "Maybe that's why there was a different time gap between the phone calls on each planet - because the Doctor already knows he's going to come back in time on the return trip, he wanted to make sure that if you ring us two hours before you leave, it won't come through after you've already gotten back here. I mean..."

"This stuff gets too complicated for me, Maxwell. Ask Liz about it once she's off the phone."

"Yeah, but - any idea how long you were there before Rose and the Doctor left for the banquet?"

"Couldn't have been more than two or three hours."

"Huh." While Max mulled that over, Michael finished the phone handoff, and went over to where Rose was already telling Isabel and Alex about the grand banquet that they had been the guests of honor at.

The Doctor interrupted her gently as Michael arrived, though. "You mentioned something wrong about the actual sleeping facilities?"

"Yes, the mattress on the bed," Michael agreed, waving back to the item in question - which Maria was sitting on the far edge of, unconcerned about it as long as she wasn't trying to actually lie down on it. "Umm..."

"Let me see." The Doctor immediately hurried over and actually jumped back-first onto the bed, which prompted Maria to turn around and look to see what had bounced it - but she must have realized that they were working on fixing the mattress, and got up to sit down in a chair of uncertain construction instead. "Actually, I feel fine and even, dare I say it, dandy." Michael groaned. "However, I'm not even partly human, and I think I can see what the problem might be if I were. The flexible gel packets inside shouldn't pose a problem, if we can simply get rid of the supportive rods, which as you may have discovered, support in the wrong places and the wrong ways for human bones, especially that spinal column of yours."

"Okay, so can you take them out?" Isabel asked him.

"Not entirely out of the bed, at least, not without creating an enormous mess," the Doctor shot back gaily. "But I believe that I can do something just about as good. Each rod is held in place by telescoping support staffs, and if we can adjust those telescopes, the rods will retract down into the bed to the point where you wouldn't notice them any more." Something about what he'd said struck the Doctor as significant, and he got up from his supine position to examine the headboard, foot, and sides of the bed in some detail. "You know, come to think of it, I wonder if there's a user-accessible control so that these rods can be adjusted without any more extraordinary methods. But if not, then they certainly should be amenable to my sonic screwdriver, as you might have been thinking, Michael - or to your own abilities."

No push-buttons or dials had been found on the bed by the time Maria had finished talking on the phone and offered it to Alex or Isabel, though, and the Doctor got his screwdriver and went to work. Michael considered trying to use his powers on the bed - and then decided just to let the Doctor handle things as long as he was comfortable with that.

"So, what about you, Kyle?" Alex asked. "Do you think you need to check your bed to see if you can handle it, or are you just going to take our words for it, or what?"

Kyle considered. "Well, I'll give it a try, but if it's not great, I don't think I need anybody to go in and futz with its workings. Actually, there's a spot on the other side of the room that would be great for stringing up a hammock, and I always kinda liked them, so I'll try that."

"Do you need any help getting one put together?" Michael suggested. "Or materials to work with, that kind of thing?"

"Sure, I guess," Kyle allowed. "If you're not going to be busy with your girl."

"So, making hammocks is a guys' club only thing?" Maria chimed in.

Kyle let his eyes roll up just slightly as he pondered this, and then admitted, "Yeah, pretty much. No girlses allowed."

"Not even Rose?" Isabel chimed in, and started to giggle.

"Isabel?" The Doctor looked up and fixed her with a fairly severe look, and for a moment she was feeling concerned. The Time Lord had a particular kind of authority that unnerved her like her teachers or parents never could. (Mister Valenti could occasionally match it, like that one time in Vegas...) "I'm sorry, it's just that I'd like to be turning in sometime before the early workers here start waking up. With that in mind, could you possibly come over and lend your powers to the bed repair effort? As soon as we're done with Michael and Maria's, we'll start on yours." His expression now was much more pleasant and friendly, if a bit tired.

"Umm, sure, okay," Isabel agreed. "What do you want me to do?"

"Come on, Kyle, Michael," Alex suggested. "Let's see what we can arrange in terms of a hammock."

"And leave the Doctor with all of the girls?" Michael pointed out with a smile of his own. But he went along with the other guys, after hugging Maria and whispering something in her ear. Maria looked after Michael as he left, and went over to sit with Rose and watch the Doctor and Isabel at work.

"So, what did you think of the banquet?" Maria asked Rose. "The food was all okay?"

"Mostly, there was some kind of spicy pudding that I didn't care for, but the finger meats were delish," Rose enthused. "I just wish that we could have stayed for the dancing." She shot a meaningful look over in the Doctor's direction, but he was bending over the mattress, pointing something out to Isabel, and didn't look up.

"Don't worry, there'll be another time and another ball, Cinderella," he said after a quiet moment, though, his voice full of promise and mischief.

#

"So, come on, Kyle, man," Alex said as he held out a metal post that they'd scrounged and the borrowed bedspread for Michael to start joining them together with his powers. "How'd it go at the banquet... with Rose?"

"Okay, so has everybody figured out that I want to jump her by this point?" Kyle asked with a good-natured smile. "Or is it just the girls who are spreading the word? I know Maria had called it by last night."

"I don't need to depend entirely on Isabel for this sort of info, man," Alex insisted. "I think it's good. Not to make too much of it, but you've been a little reluctant to get back into the game ever since Tess - took off."

"Yeah," Michael agreed. "And that whole Shelby deal with your Dad didn't help your confidence, I'm guessing."

Kyle shot Michael a look that was less friendly before he continued. "Anyway, there's good news and bad news. She gave me some decent flirt, but - but I'm starting to think that it might be harder than it seemed to slip into the middle of whatever's going on between her and the Doctor."

"What makes you say that?" Alex continued. "Just what happened?"

"It was no big thing, just - I dunno, every time he said something, or even did something much beyond the trivial motions of eating - then I didn't exist anymore in Rose's galaxy." Kyle sighed with resignation. "And she made a big fuss about not being able to stay to dance with him, after Liz called her phone."

"She's one for the dancing," Michael repeated pensively. "You may have to step up and win her heart that way, Valenti. Think that your rhythm is up to the challenge?"

"Hey, I know my way around a dance floor," Kyle insisted. "Maybe not whatever freaky alien moves they'd have in a place like this, but I can bluff my way through reasonably well."

"She may have experience with a lot of alien places and times, but she hasn't been anywhere like here or Antar before," Alex added supportively.

"I dunno, it wasn't just about dancing, it was like - when she said that, it was something private between the two of them. I was right there, but I didn't know what she meant by it, the way that he did. And that's why I don't think she'd let me dance with her just for asking, the way she'd go for him." Kyle let a long breath whistle through his lips. "But I'm not giving up, let that be perfectly clear. A girl like Rose - she's worth the time and effort it takes to get to know her, to understand what she's looking for in a man and win her heart the old fashioned way."

"Best fortune with that dream, brother," Alex said softly.

"Thanks. So, moving on from the prospects of my own love life, such as they are - how do you boys feel about the rooming arrangements with your sweeties?" Kyle let out a suggestive laugh, and Alex rolled his eyes, blushing faintly.

"Hey, I'm looking forward to it, are you kidding me?" Michael shot back. "It's not like this is entirely unfamiliar ground for Miss DeLuca and myself. Just a nice change to get a chance to bunk down without worrying about her matre - at least, not until we go back to Earth to pick her up too."

"So she doesn't do anything that irritates you when you're sharing space together?" Alex teased. "Hog the covers, kick you in her sleep? Nag you about unpacking your luggage neatly, and folding your dirty clothes?"

"All of the above, obviously," Michael admitted. "It's Maria we're talking about, right? But when it comes down to it... just a second, hold this steady, right?" He held out one of the non-wood spars out in front of him, (some kind of very hard plastic, it seemed to be, in a vividly bright blue.) Both Alex and Kyle took his words as aimed at them, and seized one end of the rod each. Michael blinked slightly, then considered how well they were holding the stick motionless between them, and decided not to disrupt a circumstance that was working well enough. "I'm more than willing to cut her some slack, in a circumstance like that, and Maria also... she's not really one to be difficult just for the fun of it or to insist on something that she can see is bugging me. Where we mostly get into trouble is the places where the lines of communication break down." As he finished his explanation, Michael started to use the power of his thoughts to 'drill' through the plastic, and run heavy cotton rope, (or something like cotton, it did seem to be a natural plant fiber at least,) through the drill holes.

"Okay, good answer," Kyle agreed. "What about yourself and the lovely Miss Evans, Whitman?"

Alex flushed fairly hard before he even opened his mouth up to reply. "Well, first off, I do take the 'no kissing and telling' stuff very seriously, so you guys shouldn't expect much in the way of details. I - I don't think that we've gotten quite as used to serious intimacy as - as you have, Michael, but there have been a few memorable moments. Hopefully tonight will be one to add to the book of memories inside my head."

"Alright. One more question, man, you don't have to answer but I feel like I need to ask - Isabel totally takes charge when you're in the bedroom, doesn't she? I mean, it's pretty easy to guess that dynamic, just by watching the two of you in any other situation."

"Oh, you might be surpri-prised," Alex muttered, but the stammer might have ruined whatever effect he was going for.

It wasn't too long before Kyle had his hammock arranged to satisfaction, and a few more ribald tales had been told by that time - mostly Kyle bragging about Vicky Delaney and a couple other notable ex-girlfriends he had had before really joining the 'I know an alien' club.

Wandering back down the hallway, Michael and Alex found that the Doctor and Isabel were by this point hard at work on the bed in the Isabel/Alex room, while Maria and Rose had remained behind in Michael and Maria's quarters to keep talking among themselves. Michael lost no time in suggesting to his girlfriend that they should give the bed 'a really thorough test run' to make sure that the Doctor's labors had been successful.

That left Rose with only Alex to talk to as they waited for the final mattress conversion to finish. "So, is it different sleeping on another planet?" Alex asked the slightly older girl. "Can you tell?"

"Hmm." Rose considered that. "I can tell waking up on another world, I think. Something in the gravity and the air, or something inside my head if nothing else is really different. In terms of falling asleep - actually not so much, assuming that I actually can get to sleep."

"Is that so hard, usually?" Alex asked, smiling just slightly.

"Well, it can be - depending on what's going on, how excited I am, what the noise and lighting levels can be," Rose admitted. "I usually manage to get enough sleep to tick over, even if it's not always at the usually expected times."

"Makes sense," Alex admitted. "Well, maybe you should go in and wish Kyle a good night. Just so that he isn't sitting up all night trying to figure out the trick of getting some rest."

Rose shot him a confused look for a second, then stood up and balanced on the tips of her toes for a second. "Sounds like a very nice idea, and thank you for it." And she headed off down the hallway to Kyle's door.

Alex smiled to himself and watched Isabel and the Doctor working. Hopefully it wouldn't take too much longer before he could use the bed. He did feel pretty tired.