The child lay still, awake but mostly divorced from space and time, on a couch in the centre of a sphere. It was dark at the moment, the only sound that reached her ears was the rising, falling hum of wind in power-lines. Sensors stroked and probed her from time to time but, for the most part, she was left to her thoughts.

The thoughts she thought were calm ones today. She dreamt of wide open spaces, of the endless and intricate patterns made by wind in ripe barley; of the sound of a glider coming down to land; of the shapes made by cumulus as they scud across sapphire skies.

She dreamt of a red bicycle, the fastest on the street, of how it sailed through the air and brought joy to excited faces. She dreamt of a large strong hand enfolding her own as she stood watching the field. She dreamt of a boat bobbing across the lake, stirred only by the wind whistling in the power-lines.

The sensors moved to probe her once more and her daydream was snuffed by the darkness.