The Non-Entities (9/10)
Title: The Non-Entities (9/10)
Incarnation: First
Companions: Ian, Barbara, Vicki
Ships: One/Barbara, Ian/Barbara
Rating: PG
Time: This story takes place between The Web Planet and The Crusade
Summary: The TARDIS arrives on Blykar and the travellers are soon involved in the local war. But on Blykar, things are not always what they seem.
Word Count: 2,682
Beta: Thanks go to renn for being my beta. You're a doll!
Archive: Archived at The Teaspoon.
A/N: This all started because I wanted to write the first scene in chapter one with the Doctor and Barbara. Then I just kept writing. The chapter lengths vary from 1,200 to 2,800 words each, and for that I apologize. That's just how it worked out. Comments are appreciated! Concrit is welcome.
The quartet climbed into one of the trucks and set off into the Wastelands. It was barren and rocky. Ian drove, and Barbara sat next to him, occasionally touching his leg, just to assure herself that he was really there. The Doctor and Vicki sat in the seat behind them. Vicki was talking about their drive to meet them.
“And that was when this massive animal, it looked like a deer or something, jumped out in front of the truck. I though Ian was going to hit it!”
“Vicki,” Ian chastised.
“I did! It startled me, and you nearly ran us off the road!”
The Doctor laughed at Vicki’s exuberance and Ian’s driving abilities, and Barbara found herself giggling at his expense as well. Ian threw a sideways glance at her, a smile in his eyes.
“Well, Doctor, do you have any idea where we’re going?”
The Doctor pushed himself forward and leaned over the back of the front seat. His head was just inches from Barbara’s and she self-consciously shifted away from him. “Well, my boy, I think if you head for that formation of rocks over there in the distance, we might find something.”
Ian squinted into the distance. “It’s quite a distance. Yes, that makes sense though. It is a natural shelter.”
“Indeed.” The Doctor sat back, and Barbara shifted back in her seat to where she originally was. Ian didn’t even notice.
They rode on as the sun rose higher in the sky. Vicki was talking incessantly about her previous four days, and Ian occasionally interrupted to correct her slight exaggerations. The Doctor found the whole thing rather charming and sufficiently distracting. Now that they were all together, perhaps the awkwardness between himself and Barbara would smooth out. She said very little, and occasionally the Doctor would notice her looking at Ian with contemplative eyes. No doubt she was deciding what to tell him.
Barbara could feel the Doctor behind her, but listening to Vicki’s chatter was a nice diversion. Once, she turned to look at her, and her eyes caught the Doctor’s. She stared at him, and he stared back for several seconds before she pulled her eyes away in laughter at Vicki. The child didn’t even notice.
When Ian pulled up next to the rock formations, they climbed out and began looking around for evidence of habitation. The rocks and pillars looked incongruous in the middle of the rocky plain. The ground was flat as far as they could see, but out here in the middle of nowhere, red rocks jutted from the ground like towers. A few were leaning, some at precarious angles.
“You know Doctor,” said Ian, “The more I look at this, the more it looks like it was grown.”
“Yes, that was my thought exactly. It’s almost crystalline in formation, isn’t it, Chesterton?”
Ian looked around. “Very.”
“Doctor! Over here!” Vicki’s shouts came from a few meters away, around one of the rocks.
The Doctor and Ian went to find her, and they saw Barbara and Vicki looking at a door shaped crack in the rock.
“Now that was not grown,” said Ian simply.
The Doctor scowled at Ian’s attempt at humour. Pushing past Vicki and Barbara, carefully trying to avoid touching her, the Doctor approached the door and pressed his hand flat against it. He pushed gently and with a grinding click the rock sank into the wall. He turned to look at Vicki, who was watching with immense interest. Pushing a little harder, the rock face sank further into the wall, then slid to the side. “Hmm.” Taking out his penlight the Doctor stepped into the darkness. The light bounced off of the walls in the dark cavern. The trio of friends followed closely, Barbara clutching at Ian’s arm. When they had all entered the stone room, the door suddenly slid shut with a heavy thud and they were left in complete darkness apart from the Doctor’s torch.
“Hello?” he called out experimentally. The word bounced around the walls ineffectively.
“Ian? Can you feel that?” Barbara asked suddenly, her hand grabbing for his.
“Yes, I can feel it too,” replied Vicki.
“We’re in a lift,” said Ian surprise in his voice.
“We’re going down,” said the Doctor. “Makes sense. It’s certainly cooler underground.”
“And easier to defend,” countered Ian.
The Doctor shone the light in his face. “Very true, young man. Very true.”
They didn’t descend very far before they slowed to a stop. The Doctor shone his light around at the walls, looking for an open door. After a moment, the door they entered the cavern through opened. A bright shaft of light fell on Ian and Barbara, and they held up their hands against the brightness. They stepped out into a room filled with monitoring equipment. Screens covered the walls; keyboards and panels of switches filled the gaps between them.
Barbara approached one of the monitors and found herself looking at General Flire’s office. He was sitting behind his desk, reading reports. Sari entered the picture and stood next to him. After a moment, Flire pushed her aside. When she didn’t move far enough, or quick enough, he grabbed her arm and pulled her from the picture. Barbara caught her breath, knowing what was probably happening off screen. She turned and almost jumped out of her skin when she saw the Doctor standing behind her. He looked into her eyes, and Barbara stared back. After a moment he turned away, his attention drawn by something else.
Ian came up to her. “What was that about?”
Barbara shook her head. “The girl we saw, I know her. She doesn’t deserve this sort of treatment, Ian.”
“None of them do, my dear,” said the Doctor from the other side of the room. “But there doesn’t appear to be anyone else here.” He looked around the room. “What is all this for, hmm?”
“It’s for study,” said a soft voice.
The friends turned towards the voice in the corner. A purple skinned man stepped out from a doorway hidden by a bank of computers and looked at them. He was tall, gaunt and looked about fifty years old. His jet-black hair was greying at the temples, and his eyes were dark pools of sorrow and despair. “It was built for study. I think.”
“You think?” asked the Doctor. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“It was like this when I got here. I’ve been here for thirty years, unable to leave.”
Barbara stepped towards him. “Who are you?”
“I’m Til Dinkari.”
“You were part of the last expedition,” said Barbara. “I read about you.”
Dinkari bowed slightly. “That was my father’s expedition. When we found the doorway we were allowed to enter, but they wouldn’t let us leave. They all died and I was left on my own.”
“They?” asked Vicki.
“The Overseers.”
“Why couldn’t you leave?”
He shook his head. “They wouldn’t let us. They said it would contaminate the results.”
The Doctor nodded. “So the N.E.s are an experiment.”
“An experiment gone wrong.”
“How?” Ian asked.
“The Non-Entities were introduced to the Blykarian population as a means of studying racial interactions.”
“Surely that wasn’t necessary? The Blykarians were already made up of two distinct races,” replied Ian.
Dinkari nodded. “Contrary to what you may have been told, the Blyks and the Karians didn’t live in peace before the arrival of the first Non-Entities. They fought, but they were minor and rarely did they involve actual deaths. The hypothesis was that if a new race were introduced the Blyks and the Karians would band together to force them out. The Overseers were hoping that they could force the Blykarians to get along.”
“But it didn’t work,” supplied the Doctor.
“It did not. You’ve seen the results. But they were much worse than the Overseers anticipated.”
“Genocide.” The Doctor almost whispered the word.
“Genocide?” asked Barbara.
The Doctor turned to her. “The war the Overseers instigated had the unfortunate consequence of wiping out the Blyks and the Karians.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It is indeed, my dear, it is indeed.” He turned to Dinkari.
He looked dejected and miserable. “I’m the only native left. When a Blyk or Karian was killed in the war, an N.E. was altered to replace him.” He pointed at the bank of computers that was hiding the door. “Using radio signals we tell their chips what they are to look like.”
“But what happened when an N.E. was killed?” questioned Ian.
“N.E.s are dispensable. They’re genetically engineered. When one was killed another was created to replace it. They were designed to not know the truth, that they were actually N.E.s unless the person they were replacing was an N.E.”
“Why didn’t the Overseers stop the war?” demanded Vicki. “If so many lives were being lost, why continue?”
“It was research,” replied Dinkari, as if it were the simplest answer in the world.
“What happened to the Overseers?”
“They died. When my expedition found this place and discovered what they were doing, we killed them. But we didn’t know that, since we weren’t Overseers, we couldn’t get out.” He looked directly at the Doctor. “You were able to get in because you have the dual pulse required to open the door.” He hung his head. “But we could not get out because we only have one heart.”
Ian stepped forward. “Surely, if you can make yourselves look like anyone, you can make yourselves have a double heartbeat.”
“The chips don’t work that way, Chesterton. They only alter the outside appearance, not the actual physiology.” The Doctor turned back to Dinkari, who was now sitting on a low stool. “So once the Overseers were dead you were trapped.”
The man nodded sadly. “I’m the only one left.”
“But why didn’t you stop it? Why didn’t you stop the war, the experiment?” asked Barbara.
“I can’t.” In explanation, he pulled himself to his feet and entered a command into the nearest console. After a moment a message appeared on the screen requiring user identification. Placing his fingertips on the screen, he waited. After a moment the screen flashed another message. “Unknown User. Command Rejected.” He looked sadly at Barbara. “I’m not an Overseer. I can’t stop it.”
One by one they turned to look at the Doctor. He stood in the centre of the room, his hands on his lapels, and a thoughtful expression on his face.
Vicki approached him. Placing a hand on his arm she looked into his face. “Doctor. You have to stop this.”
“I know, my child, I know. But what will happen when they discover they aren’t who they think they are, hmm?”
“But you can’t let this pointless war continue!” said Barbara hotly.
“I don’t intend to, my dear Barbara,” the Doctor replied, equally terse. His fingertips were rubbing at each other again, and his brow was furrowed in thought. After a few minutes he let out a deep breath. “We shall have to reprogram the N.E.s.”
“But you won’t be helping them if you’re just programming them for something else,” said Barbara.
“I know that. We’ll program them to end the war. If the Overseers can instigate a war, I can bring about a peaceful conclusion.”
“How can you have a peaceful conclusion to a war that has wiped out an entire civilization?” asked Barbara angrily.
“Do you have a better suggestion, my dear? If we simply deactivate the chips, can you imagine the havoc that would cause, hmm? Thousands of people suddenly realizing all at the same time they aren’t who they think they are? That this war isn’t what they know it to be? What do you imagine their reaction would be?” He glared at her.
She glared back. Ian stepped up behind her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. Her expression softened. She nodded and turned her back to the Doctor. Vicki cast a questioning look at Ian who shrugged in reply. The Doctor brushed off Vicki’s hand and went to the computers. Barbara went to the corner and sat down on the floor. Ian stood next to Barbara and watched the Doctor as his fingers flew over the keys.
For nearly ninety minutes the room was silent apart from the clicking of keys and the Doctor’s occasional muttering. Dinkari watched the Doctor with fascination. Barbara couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Of course, the Doctor was right. He usually was. But she hated the idea of the Non-Entities not knowing the truth of who they were, of what had happened. It was unfair.
Finally the Doctor stood back with a self-satisfied smile. “I think that program will suffice.” He turned to address the room, but he looked directly at Barbara, his hands folded in front of him. “Within the next three months the Non-Entities will bring the war to a peaceful conclusion. But I’ve added a few specialities to the program. When the war is over the Non-Entities will gradually learn the truth. In five years Blykar will be populated with pink skinned Blykarians.”
“And what about the real Blykarians? The Overseers should have to pay for what they’ve done here.” Vicki asked.
The Doctor placed a hand on her shoulder. “I quite agree, my child, but they’re dead too.”
“But they must have come from somewhere,” said Ian. “Their physiology was so different, they must have come from another planet.”
Dinkari sat up. “They never told us where they were from.”
Barbara pushed herself to her feet. “Isn’t there anything in this room that can tell us who they are?”
The Doctor looked around at the technology in the room. “None of this qualifies as unique,” he said, gesturing at the equipment. “There are any number of races capable of producing this technology.”
“Are you saying we’ll never know who the Overseers were?”
Slowly the Doctor nodded. “It does seem that way.”
“But we know so much about them. They have two hearts, and they can make those chips. And they built this shelter.” Barbara gestured around at the stone walls. “Surely that can help us find them!”
The Doctor looked sadly at her, then crossed the room and placed a hand on her shoulder. “The universe is infinite, my dear Barbara. There are a great number of races that would fit that description. Even my own.” He stared into her eyes, and Barbara fought the impulse to look away. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Barbara. But look at it this way. The Non-Entities will be free. In five years they will have their own lives, their free-will restored. They can live their lives for themselves. No longer will they be forced to do things they don’t want to. Freedom. Yes, the Overseers will get away with what they’ve done, but sometimes that happens. At least we’ve managed to free the Non-Entities.”
“But … the Blykarians,” she said, a sob in her throat.
“I know,” he said softly. “I know.” He patted her shoulder and turned away to talk to Dinkari. “You, my good man, will have to help the Non-Entities rebuild this planet.”
“It will be difficult,” Til Dinkari replied.
“Yes. Most difficult.”
“Doctor, we must help him. We have to stay and help them.” Barbara didn’t like to leave without knowing that innocents like Sari would be all right.
“And do you propose we stay here for the next five years, hmm?” When Barbara didn’t respond, he questioned her again. “Well?”
She shook her head and turned away.
“Oh, by the way, my good man,” said the Doctor turning back to Dinkari. “I’ve also altered the user protocols. The computer will recognise you as a valid user, but it will not allow you to make changes beyond what I’ve already programmed. And in five years they will automatically terminate their programs and shut down.”
“The Non-Entities will be completely independent,” he said. “They’ll be free.”
The Doctor nodded. “And it will be up to you to help them. And to make sure they never forget what has happened here.”
Incarnation: First
Companions: Ian, Barbara, Vicki
Ships: One/Barbara, Ian/Barbara
Rating: PG
Time: This story takes place between The Web Planet and The Crusade
Summary: The TARDIS arrives on Blykar and the travellers are soon involved in the local war. But on Blykar, things are not always what they seem.
Word Count: 2,682
Beta: Thanks go to renn for being my beta. You're a doll!
Archive: Archived at The Teaspoon.
A/N: This all started because I wanted to write the first scene in chapter one with the Doctor and Barbara. Then I just kept writing. The chapter lengths vary from 1,200 to 2,800 words each, and for that I apologize. That's just how it worked out. Comments are appreciated! Concrit is welcome.
The quartet climbed into one of the trucks and set off into the Wastelands. It was barren and rocky. Ian drove, and Barbara sat next to him, occasionally touching his leg, just to assure herself that he was really there. The Doctor and Vicki sat in the seat behind them. Vicki was talking about their drive to meet them.
“And that was when this massive animal, it looked like a deer or something, jumped out in front of the truck. I though Ian was going to hit it!”
“Vicki,” Ian chastised.
“I did! It startled me, and you nearly ran us off the road!”
The Doctor laughed at Vicki’s exuberance and Ian’s driving abilities, and Barbara found herself giggling at his expense as well. Ian threw a sideways glance at her, a smile in his eyes.
“Well, Doctor, do you have any idea where we’re going?”
The Doctor pushed himself forward and leaned over the back of the front seat. His head was just inches from Barbara’s and she self-consciously shifted away from him. “Well, my boy, I think if you head for that formation of rocks over there in the distance, we might find something.”
Ian squinted into the distance. “It’s quite a distance. Yes, that makes sense though. It is a natural shelter.”
“Indeed.” The Doctor sat back, and Barbara shifted back in her seat to where she originally was. Ian didn’t even notice.
They rode on as the sun rose higher in the sky. Vicki was talking incessantly about her previous four days, and Ian occasionally interrupted to correct her slight exaggerations. The Doctor found the whole thing rather charming and sufficiently distracting. Now that they were all together, perhaps the awkwardness between himself and Barbara would smooth out. She said very little, and occasionally the Doctor would notice her looking at Ian with contemplative eyes. No doubt she was deciding what to tell him.
Barbara could feel the Doctor behind her, but listening to Vicki’s chatter was a nice diversion. Once, she turned to look at her, and her eyes caught the Doctor’s. She stared at him, and he stared back for several seconds before she pulled her eyes away in laughter at Vicki. The child didn’t even notice.
When Ian pulled up next to the rock formations, they climbed out and began looking around for evidence of habitation. The rocks and pillars looked incongruous in the middle of the rocky plain. The ground was flat as far as they could see, but out here in the middle of nowhere, red rocks jutted from the ground like towers. A few were leaning, some at precarious angles.
“You know Doctor,” said Ian, “The more I look at this, the more it looks like it was grown.”
“Yes, that was my thought exactly. It’s almost crystalline in formation, isn’t it, Chesterton?”
Ian looked around. “Very.”
“Doctor! Over here!” Vicki’s shouts came from a few meters away, around one of the rocks.
The Doctor and Ian went to find her, and they saw Barbara and Vicki looking at a door shaped crack in the rock.
“Now that was not grown,” said Ian simply.
The Doctor scowled at Ian’s attempt at humour. Pushing past Vicki and Barbara, carefully trying to avoid touching her, the Doctor approached the door and pressed his hand flat against it. He pushed gently and with a grinding click the rock sank into the wall. He turned to look at Vicki, who was watching with immense interest. Pushing a little harder, the rock face sank further into the wall, then slid to the side. “Hmm.” Taking out his penlight the Doctor stepped into the darkness. The light bounced off of the walls in the dark cavern. The trio of friends followed closely, Barbara clutching at Ian’s arm. When they had all entered the stone room, the door suddenly slid shut with a heavy thud and they were left in complete darkness apart from the Doctor’s torch.
“Hello?” he called out experimentally. The word bounced around the walls ineffectively.
“Ian? Can you feel that?” Barbara asked suddenly, her hand grabbing for his.
“Yes, I can feel it too,” replied Vicki.
“We’re in a lift,” said Ian surprise in his voice.
“We’re going down,” said the Doctor. “Makes sense. It’s certainly cooler underground.”
“And easier to defend,” countered Ian.
The Doctor shone the light in his face. “Very true, young man. Very true.”
They didn’t descend very far before they slowed to a stop. The Doctor shone his light around at the walls, looking for an open door. After a moment, the door they entered the cavern through opened. A bright shaft of light fell on Ian and Barbara, and they held up their hands against the brightness. They stepped out into a room filled with monitoring equipment. Screens covered the walls; keyboards and panels of switches filled the gaps between them.
Barbara approached one of the monitors and found herself looking at General Flire’s office. He was sitting behind his desk, reading reports. Sari entered the picture and stood next to him. After a moment, Flire pushed her aside. When she didn’t move far enough, or quick enough, he grabbed her arm and pulled her from the picture. Barbara caught her breath, knowing what was probably happening off screen. She turned and almost jumped out of her skin when she saw the Doctor standing behind her. He looked into her eyes, and Barbara stared back. After a moment he turned away, his attention drawn by something else.
Ian came up to her. “What was that about?”
Barbara shook her head. “The girl we saw, I know her. She doesn’t deserve this sort of treatment, Ian.”
“None of them do, my dear,” said the Doctor from the other side of the room. “But there doesn’t appear to be anyone else here.” He looked around the room. “What is all this for, hmm?”
“It’s for study,” said a soft voice.
The friends turned towards the voice in the corner. A purple skinned man stepped out from a doorway hidden by a bank of computers and looked at them. He was tall, gaunt and looked about fifty years old. His jet-black hair was greying at the temples, and his eyes were dark pools of sorrow and despair. “It was built for study. I think.”
“You think?” asked the Doctor. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“It was like this when I got here. I’ve been here for thirty years, unable to leave.”
Barbara stepped towards him. “Who are you?”
“I’m Til Dinkari.”
“You were part of the last expedition,” said Barbara. “I read about you.”
Dinkari bowed slightly. “That was my father’s expedition. When we found the doorway we were allowed to enter, but they wouldn’t let us leave. They all died and I was left on my own.”
“They?” asked Vicki.
“The Overseers.”
“Why couldn’t you leave?”
He shook his head. “They wouldn’t let us. They said it would contaminate the results.”
The Doctor nodded. “So the N.E.s are an experiment.”
“An experiment gone wrong.”
“How?” Ian asked.
“The Non-Entities were introduced to the Blykarian population as a means of studying racial interactions.”
“Surely that wasn’t necessary? The Blykarians were already made up of two distinct races,” replied Ian.
Dinkari nodded. “Contrary to what you may have been told, the Blyks and the Karians didn’t live in peace before the arrival of the first Non-Entities. They fought, but they were minor and rarely did they involve actual deaths. The hypothesis was that if a new race were introduced the Blyks and the Karians would band together to force them out. The Overseers were hoping that they could force the Blykarians to get along.”
“But it didn’t work,” supplied the Doctor.
“It did not. You’ve seen the results. But they were much worse than the Overseers anticipated.”
“Genocide.” The Doctor almost whispered the word.
“Genocide?” asked Barbara.
The Doctor turned to her. “The war the Overseers instigated had the unfortunate consequence of wiping out the Blyks and the Karians.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It is indeed, my dear, it is indeed.” He turned to Dinkari.
He looked dejected and miserable. “I’m the only native left. When a Blyk or Karian was killed in the war, an N.E. was altered to replace him.” He pointed at the bank of computers that was hiding the door. “Using radio signals we tell their chips what they are to look like.”
“But what happened when an N.E. was killed?” questioned Ian.
“N.E.s are dispensable. They’re genetically engineered. When one was killed another was created to replace it. They were designed to not know the truth, that they were actually N.E.s unless the person they were replacing was an N.E.”
“Why didn’t the Overseers stop the war?” demanded Vicki. “If so many lives were being lost, why continue?”
“It was research,” replied Dinkari, as if it were the simplest answer in the world.
“What happened to the Overseers?”
“They died. When my expedition found this place and discovered what they were doing, we killed them. But we didn’t know that, since we weren’t Overseers, we couldn’t get out.” He looked directly at the Doctor. “You were able to get in because you have the dual pulse required to open the door.” He hung his head. “But we could not get out because we only have one heart.”
Ian stepped forward. “Surely, if you can make yourselves look like anyone, you can make yourselves have a double heartbeat.”
“The chips don’t work that way, Chesterton. They only alter the outside appearance, not the actual physiology.” The Doctor turned back to Dinkari, who was now sitting on a low stool. “So once the Overseers were dead you were trapped.”
The man nodded sadly. “I’m the only one left.”
“But why didn’t you stop it? Why didn’t you stop the war, the experiment?” asked Barbara.
“I can’t.” In explanation, he pulled himself to his feet and entered a command into the nearest console. After a moment a message appeared on the screen requiring user identification. Placing his fingertips on the screen, he waited. After a moment the screen flashed another message. “Unknown User. Command Rejected.” He looked sadly at Barbara. “I’m not an Overseer. I can’t stop it.”
One by one they turned to look at the Doctor. He stood in the centre of the room, his hands on his lapels, and a thoughtful expression on his face.
Vicki approached him. Placing a hand on his arm she looked into his face. “Doctor. You have to stop this.”
“I know, my child, I know. But what will happen when they discover they aren’t who they think they are, hmm?”
“But you can’t let this pointless war continue!” said Barbara hotly.
“I don’t intend to, my dear Barbara,” the Doctor replied, equally terse. His fingertips were rubbing at each other again, and his brow was furrowed in thought. After a few minutes he let out a deep breath. “We shall have to reprogram the N.E.s.”
“But you won’t be helping them if you’re just programming them for something else,” said Barbara.
“I know that. We’ll program them to end the war. If the Overseers can instigate a war, I can bring about a peaceful conclusion.”
“How can you have a peaceful conclusion to a war that has wiped out an entire civilization?” asked Barbara angrily.
“Do you have a better suggestion, my dear? If we simply deactivate the chips, can you imagine the havoc that would cause, hmm? Thousands of people suddenly realizing all at the same time they aren’t who they think they are? That this war isn’t what they know it to be? What do you imagine their reaction would be?” He glared at her.
She glared back. Ian stepped up behind her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. Her expression softened. She nodded and turned her back to the Doctor. Vicki cast a questioning look at Ian who shrugged in reply. The Doctor brushed off Vicki’s hand and went to the computers. Barbara went to the corner and sat down on the floor. Ian stood next to Barbara and watched the Doctor as his fingers flew over the keys.
For nearly ninety minutes the room was silent apart from the clicking of keys and the Doctor’s occasional muttering. Dinkari watched the Doctor with fascination. Barbara couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Of course, the Doctor was right. He usually was. But she hated the idea of the Non-Entities not knowing the truth of who they were, of what had happened. It was unfair.
Finally the Doctor stood back with a self-satisfied smile. “I think that program will suffice.” He turned to address the room, but he looked directly at Barbara, his hands folded in front of him. “Within the next three months the Non-Entities will bring the war to a peaceful conclusion. But I’ve added a few specialities to the program. When the war is over the Non-Entities will gradually learn the truth. In five years Blykar will be populated with pink skinned Blykarians.”
“And what about the real Blykarians? The Overseers should have to pay for what they’ve done here.” Vicki asked.
The Doctor placed a hand on her shoulder. “I quite agree, my child, but they’re dead too.”
“But they must have come from somewhere,” said Ian. “Their physiology was so different, they must have come from another planet.”
Dinkari sat up. “They never told us where they were from.”
Barbara pushed herself to her feet. “Isn’t there anything in this room that can tell us who they are?”
The Doctor looked around at the technology in the room. “None of this qualifies as unique,” he said, gesturing at the equipment. “There are any number of races capable of producing this technology.”
“Are you saying we’ll never know who the Overseers were?”
Slowly the Doctor nodded. “It does seem that way.”
“But we know so much about them. They have two hearts, and they can make those chips. And they built this shelter.” Barbara gestured around at the stone walls. “Surely that can help us find them!”
The Doctor looked sadly at her, then crossed the room and placed a hand on her shoulder. “The universe is infinite, my dear Barbara. There are a great number of races that would fit that description. Even my own.” He stared into her eyes, and Barbara fought the impulse to look away. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Barbara. But look at it this way. The Non-Entities will be free. In five years they will have their own lives, their free-will restored. They can live their lives for themselves. No longer will they be forced to do things they don’t want to. Freedom. Yes, the Overseers will get away with what they’ve done, but sometimes that happens. At least we’ve managed to free the Non-Entities.”
“But … the Blykarians,” she said, a sob in her throat.
“I know,” he said softly. “I know.” He patted her shoulder and turned away to talk to Dinkari. “You, my good man, will have to help the Non-Entities rebuild this planet.”
“It will be difficult,” Til Dinkari replied.
“Yes. Most difficult.”
“Doctor, we must help him. We have to stay and help them.” Barbara didn’t like to leave without knowing that innocents like Sari would be all right.
“And do you propose we stay here for the next five years, hmm?” When Barbara didn’t respond, he questioned her again. “Well?”
She shook her head and turned away.
“Oh, by the way, my good man,” said the Doctor turning back to Dinkari. “I’ve also altered the user protocols. The computer will recognise you as a valid user, but it will not allow you to make changes beyond what I’ve already programmed. And in five years they will automatically terminate their programs and shut down.”
“The Non-Entities will be completely independent,” he said. “They’ll be free.”
The Doctor nodded. “And it will be up to you to help them. And to make sure they never forget what has happened here.”