A/N; Thank you so much everyone for your positive reviews so far. It's made my day to find that someone is actually still reading this. I can't believe this is the 12th chapter though. I didn't think this story would end up this long... and it's not really that close to the ending yet. There will probably be a few more chapters yet to go. Also, no promises on this, but today at work I was thinking over the idea of a possible sequel to come.
This chapter contains mention of and reference to the time war, which of course I know next to nothing about. (It seems no one really does. There is nothing much at all mentioned on the television series.) So I did what any author does best in such a case. I exercised creative license and I speculated.
"You still want to leave then I take it?" the Doctor asked, looking up at his young student as she held into the straps of her bag. He was filled with regret over a misunderstanding, that had so obviously gotten so completely out of control. He dreaded her answer, though he already knew what it would be. He saw Hailey nod her head slowly, and his understanding of the situation was quickly confirmed.
"You can't just leave," Rose said, jumping to her feet. "This wasn't supposed to happen."
She was so greatly upset by the idea of her good friend leaving the life of adventure through time and space by her own choice. It bothered her so much more to think of her just outright leaving and walking away from it all, because she so obviously belonged on board in involved in such a life. The girl had so recently found her own heritage and began to learn so very much. In a few short months, she'd gained so much in the way of confidence. She'd leaned her own sense of self worth and found a place not only on Earth, but in the universe. Rose had to admit it to herself, that as much as the fact saddened her Hailey belonged with the Doctor probably even more than she did.
All was silent in the console room for a few long moments, before the Doctor finally decided that since no one else was speaking, he had better say something.
"You don't have to leave, you know," he said calmly. "If you really do want to go, of course I'll take you home, but that's not my idea of a happy ending."
"I... I know." Hailey replied quietly, looking at the floor. "I just feel that's the best thing to do."
"Put your backpack down for a minute. No need to stand around holding onto that heavy thing," the Doctor said. He took the pack from her as she slid the straps over down off her shoulders, and set into down onto the floor as she reluctantly slid out of the straps. He led her to sit down and he sat beside her. "Now, why do you really want to leave?"
Hailey sat quietly, looking at her knees and fidgeting nervously. She had no clue what to say. Of course honestly was the best way that she knew of on a basic level, to handle this situation. But throughout her life, honesty had only seemed to lead to insults and violence. Finally, convincing herself that she didn't care how badly things ended, yet still unable to really accept the idea of more attacks against her someone who promised to protect her, she spoke up.
"I feel very uncomfortable around so much anger and resentment," she explained. She went on quickly, determined to avoid her point being misunderstood. "I mean, I know we are all just who we are, and it's not as though you'd actually beat me up or anything. I lived for years with a man though who used to punch the walls in his house when someone said something he didn't want to hear. A wall was only a wall, until one night he hit his wife so hard he busted her nose."
"It's too bad children have to be around that sort of thing," the Doctor replied slowly. "That's one of that sad things that's always stood out about humans; the way some of them are just so quick to go after each other with their fists. Someone hitting a wall though doesn't always mean they are going to one day hit a person. I'd have a terrible time keeping companions around for long if I went around hitting them for making mistakes."
"That's true," Hailey mumbled quietly. "I guess I just got so tired of getting hit and seeing others hurt all the time. I get so nervous about someone punching the walls."
The Doctor looked at Rose with anger in his eyes. This time though it was caused by something completely different than his earlier upset had been. He looked at the floor for a moment, rid himself of the look that had come over his face, and them looked up at Hailey who still sat looking at her knees.
"It's always the children that suffer for other's inability to get their own minds together," he muttered almost under his breath.
"I'm sorry," Hailey said. She looked up at him, with unshed tears shinning in her eyes. "I know you'd never just decide to hit anyone. I hate being such a messed up idiot."
"You aren't an idiot," Rose said, stepping closer to the two of them. "Your childhood is not your fault. The way a person grows up is never their own fault."
"I just hate feeling so paranoid and uncomfortable with so much. I want to be able to just assume that someone who is mad at me or someone else, is just angry and not ready to hit someone. I hate fearing that every time someone raises their voice, someone else might get hurt. I wish I'd gotten to have something that at least resembled a happy childhood."
Hailey looked for a minute from one of them to the other and then back and forth a few times, silently. Finally her eyes went back to the Doctor, and she looked at him sadly.
"I'm sorry for saying something so stupid earlier. I didn't mean it the way it probably sounded. I didn't mean to say that I thought your people were actually murderers and terrorists. I just couldn't understand why you seemed to say they did things that could imply such if I didn't know any better."
The Doctor didn't bother to give a reply to Hailey's last statement. Both were sure it was best that the whole morning was forgotten all about, and without either mentioning any such thing, it seemed there was a mutual agreement between everyone to simply drop the matter for the time being. It was only after a couple of long silent minutes that he spoke again. "I have a place in mind to take us to. There's something I want to show you."
"You're so sure I want to stay with you two then?" Hailey asked, understanding his intention immediately.
"Pretty sure, yeah," the Doctor said. "You're part of the team. There will be a time you'll leave for some reason or another, I'm sure, but I don't think it's now."
"I think you're right. I suppose leaving now would be a bit silly."
"Yeah. And you have a chapter exam coming up soon."
"I still have to study for that one," Hailey said. "Hey, did you ever get around to grading the last one I handed in?"
"Ninety-six percent. I graded it yesterday," the Doctor said, stepping back toward the console again. "Don't worry so much about studying right now though. Plenty of time to do that later. Honestly I think you study too much most days."
"How can someone study too much?" Hailey asked, with a laugh. "Isn't that a good thing."
"Well yeah... but back in my school days, the academy bookworms and the top students were the boring sort. So, off we go then?"
"Ready."
"Ready," Rose said, adding her agreement to Hailey's.
The TARDIS materialized after a short flight, and hit the ground in one of it's rougher landings. All three of it's occupants were thrown from their feet and onto the floor near where they had been standing at the console. Rose fell onto her backside, and slowly stood back up again with serious concerns about possible bruises present in her mind. Hailey had flown backwards several feet and come within inches of banging into one of the support beams. She pulled herself to her feet quickly, with her eyes filled with concern. The Doctor had at least been hanging onto something when they landed, therefore he simply stumbled, let go of it and landed on the floor safely. He stood back up, and looked from one of his companions to the other to be sure both her unharmed.
"Nice driving skills," Rose said, her voice full of sarcasm. "Though certainly no worse than most drivers in London over rush hour."
"What the heck was that all about?" Hailey mumbled. "We've landed hundreds of times and never risked injury."
"Sorry, I think I might have forgotten to set the gravity compensators," the Doctor explained, looking over the monitor mounted on the control panel. He walked toward the door with both of the ladies following close behind. Slowly he walked off the ship. Rose walked off right behind him and Hailey hung back for a few long seconds before she too walked through the doors. The mood had become serious once again. Both of them could sense it the moment the Doctor had pulled open the door.
They looked slowly around them at the less than cheerful landscape they'd landed in the midst of. They stood near the edge of a steep, rock littered dusty cliff. Down below as far as they could see, a desert wasteland of gray ash colored sand and jagged shards of rock spread out for what could easily have been miles and miles. Here and there, over the landscape, buildings made of bricks and stone lay in various stages of ruin and destruction. Some were crumbled to piles of white dust and a few metal and wood support beams, while others stood still stable and sound in structure, with missing walls or parts of roofs. Wide paths of crumbling concrete covered in heavy layers of dust, that had clearly once been roads, lay between the building structures, and burned out bodies of vehicles sat in a disorganized mess over the remains of those roads On the edge of what seemed to be the boundary on the edge of the area, there stood long dead blackened trees, and small piles of their fallen branches.
"There used to be a town down there," Hailey observed aloud. Her voice was sad. "Now it's just a pile of rubble in the middle of a desert wasteland. It looks like people were just minding their own business, living their lives not expecting a thing at all, and suddenly everything was just destroyed."
"Doctor, where are we?" Rose asked. The place made her nervous and even slightly frightened her.
"What happened to this place?" Hailey questioned. She stepped closer to the edge of the cliff and looked more closely at the ruins below.
"This place, the village below... the whole planet... was ravaged by war," the Doctor explained. He walked closer to the cliff's edge to stand with Hailey. Rose followed him slowly.
"The people that lived and worked here were just carrying about their day, when the first of the bombs went off," he continued explaining, as he stood with his companions on either side of him. There was a a little bit of warning, but only an hour at most. Some made a run for their ships and a few others made it to the teleports. There wasn't enough time though. The few ships that managed to launch, were destroyed, and everyone on the ground was killed. You could count the total number of survivors on the fingers of both hands."
Hailey could tell from the look in his eyes, that this world and this war mattered to him perhaps much more than a tragedy normally would have. It seemed to him to be almost personal. Her young mind tried to imagine what might have happened to the planet. How horrible, it must have been, she knew, for an entire world to be suddenly no more.
"Who were they?" she asked. He looked back at her, as though he'd barely heard her. "The people of this planet I mean. Who lived here before the war destroyed them?"
"It was mostly Time Lords here," the Doctor answered, staring distractedly over the wasteland of dust and brick and ruin.
"Is this your planet?" Rose asked, the shock of the latest revelation evident in her voice. "This can't be all that's left of your world."
"Gallifrey and everything that had do with the end of the time war is time locked. I couldn't bring you there if I wanted to," the Doctor answered. He sounded completely matter of fact, but yet sad all the same.
"A time locked event?" Hailey mused out loud. "In other words, nothing can ever again get in or out. So then where are we? What did it have to do with the Time Lords?"
"This was one of our off world planetary outposts. The first one we ever claimed. The planet was uninhabited before our society found it and made a claim on it. This world eventually housed many of the people that choose to live off the home world, but wished to continue their work and lifestyle. At the time of it;s destruction, it was just full mostly of younger people, trying to make names for themselves at the scientific centers, and students at a few small alternate schools. Anyway one night somebody tracked a signal from a ship coming in with hostile intent. He overheard the intention to target the place with a high powered particle energy bomb. He warned the people, but there was no time to react properly.
"After word made it back to Gallifrey that an entire Time Lord outpost had been targeted with such extreme violence, in a completely unprovoked attack, the council decided that if this happened again law of non-interference or not, something would have to be done. It was months later that the next of our off world outposts - a small space station - was attacked and blown to pieces without even a half hour's warning. It became perfectly clear that our civilization was being picked off a few people at a time here and there. It happened again in a few weeks, but this time Gallifrey was prepared. This time the department of defense was able to crack the enemy's camouflage codes, and find and track them, after the attack on another of our stations. Our battle fleet, followed their trail and finally shoot one of their ships down over our airspace. We later learned it wasn't actually going to bomb us, just try to confuse us. In any case that's exactly what they were waiting for us to do. As soon as we attacked back they viewed it as a full on war, and thus began the time war."
"So then Gallifrey was tricked into starting the time war?" Hailey asked, her question more of a statement than anything else. The answer was already plainly obvious to her.
"That's terrible," she said, sitting down on the sandy ground at the cliff's edge and contemplating while she spoke. A loose rock bounced down the cliff face and disapeared from sight. "They just provoked and provoked attack until there was no choice but to do just that and attack back. They were looking for a war with the Time Lords all along, but they didn;pt want to be the only ones firing on anyone."
"Oh, I'm sure they'd have not minded being the only ones attacking anyone," the Doctor explained, sitting beside her. "This was a race intent on wiping the Time Lords from existence entirely. A war would make it far more likely that others would get involved. This was a fleet that wanted to see others pulled into it all. With that one ship shoot down by our people, and that only as an act of self defense, we left it at that and asked them to stop their attacks. The Time Lords didn't want a war. Our pleas for piece made no difference, and it quickly came down to either go to war with the enemy, or sit by and and stay out of it while they destroyed ever off world base we had. Our people had to defend ourselves. It became a matter of basic survival instinct. When they started to fire weapons at Gallifrey itself and take so many lives there, we fought back against them harder. Of course other races were dragged right into it, most only defending themselves and a few defending us."
He went on speaking. "It's so hard to say for sure really who technically started it. As tends to be the case in war, everyone was pointing fingers at someone else. There were tow main sides to it and both of us were raging furious at each other, hardly in a mood to reason things out anymore. It got so far out of control so fast. This was a battle between two of the oldest and most advanced races in the universe. The wars on Earth, the wars that you would know of, in the more recent of times, have been fought mostly with relatively primitive guns and explosive devices... and that; gets tragic and downright dirty enough. The time war was fought with anti- matter bombs, the use of conjured armies from parallel dimensions, time machines, and things worse than you could ever understand of imagine. The very structure of time itself was compromised and had the war not be put to a stop, ten entire universes would have eventually fallen into nothingness and never have existed."
"I think I understand now what you wanted me to realize," Hailey said quietly. Her look of sad comprehension matched the Doctor's look of sad acceptance. "They did the only thing they could by continuing to fight until nothing was left standing. Someone must have eventually put an end to the whole thing by destroying it all and then time locking the entire main area of the event. Whoever it was that finally did that, he was only doing the only thing he could have done as well. The Time Lord that made the final move saved reality."
The Doctor stood looking out over war torn and devastated landscape. Hailey had surprised him again. It had been too long, he realized completely, since he'd known and traveled with another Time Lord. He'd grown so used to being around humans and the way most human minds seemed to work. Of course this was not at all a bad thing. There was so much he loved and admired about every human he'd even befriended. But something about Hailey was so different from everything he'd become so accustomed to. She had a way of understanding things related to the time as a science instead of just something that happened and then was gone moment by moment. Her mind understood time and reality in a way that no human ever could. She had the kind of mind, in that regard, that he quickly realized he'd forgotten to openly acknowledge within his own thinking. She showed him all over again, why he was different from the people he'd taken to forming such close friendships with,a nd she understood the things they could never learn. He forced his own mind to remember that she was only a student yet, still years and years away from being anywhere near her full capacity for knowledge and understanding. She had not yet even completed an initiation, which while he had so often looked back and seen the overall practice as it was done in his life time and the several generations before his own, as somewhat brutal and wrong, the overall principal behind it was a necessary and important step to make. The possibilities of what she might be capable of after that, were a matter of wonder.
He made his way back to the TARDIS quickly, realizing that all three of them were equally motivated to get out of that place as soon as they could. The purpose of the trip had been filled and there was little reason at all to stay someplace where they were all becoming at least slightly depressed. He shut the door behind the two young women as they entered, and all three stood looking at one another, with sad eyes and somber expressions. Making his way back to the console to dematerialize back into the time vortex, the Doctor continued on in his intent thinking. Hailey had made the mental step in understanding that if the time war was a time locked event, then someone must have placed it into the time lock in the first place. She had stated her realization out loud. She'd said she understood the reason for the action, and implied that it made sense to her that it had happened as it had. She said that the one to make that tragic decision to end the war by destroying their own planet and the entire Time Lord civilization had saved the universe. She was so forgiving, but then again, she still had no idea at all, who the one had been that had actually carried out that final desperate action in order to save reality.
Could he ever tell her it had been him? This question ran through his mind as he set the controls. She appeared to easily forgive the anonymous destroyer of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, but could she just as easily forgive a man whose identity she knew well? The loss of her father was the event that had so very likely set her life onto it's tragic path. The innocence of her childhood had been crushed by the events his disappearance had caused. Could she ever again think of him with anything other than hate, if she ever knew it was him who might have taken her father from her?
"Well," he said, smiling again and trying in his customary way, to hide his despair. He flipped a blue switch that was just within arms reach of where he stood. "Either of you have any place in mind you'd like to visit next?"
~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~
Hailey happily took a seat at at a corner table in the small town cafe, and looked around a bit. The place was certainly cozy and cheerful, with it's old fashioned and bright decor. It reminded her slightly of the photos of traditional English cottages she'd so often seen in home decorating and real estate magazines. She read the day's lunch specials written on a chalkboard near the doors, and hung her black denim jacket over the back of her chair.
"I come here once in a while for lunch with a few of the other ladies from the hospital, that have off site privileges," Abigail Andrews explained, as she took her own seat. "It's so nice to be able to get out once in a while and do something as normal and typical as eating in a lovely little cafe in the village. So, how have you been? You still traveling around seeing the world?"
"I've been good for the most part. It's been... well... interesting would sum it up well. And yes, I'm still traveling around." Hailey looked around the restaurant, almost relieved at finding a moment of doing something so typically as going out for lunch with her mother. She looked around again, almost expecting some alien beast to teleport inside the cafe, or a sudden Earthquake to shake the foundations of the place. She would not have be terribly surprised if the people out in the street began screaming in fright at a spaceship in the air overhead. The months she'd spent with the Doctor and Rose had been far from dull, but they had also made her used to disaster and chaos striking so often when they seemed only to have the intention of leisurely activities and peacefully minding their own business. Sure there were plenty of times they did travel to far off places and simply enjoy uneventful trips. But if she had to put a number on it she'd have to say that seventy percent of the time they found themselves either running for their lives, or reasoning with doom bent aliens.
"Bring your friends with you one day, when you come to visit again," Abigail said. "I'd love to meet them."
"I'm sure they'd like to visit one day. Rose is just a typical Londoner, well sort of anyway. she's an adventurer now. And the Doctor... well he's sort of different."
"How do you mean different? Nothing too terribly questionable, I hope. Sorry, I know I shouldn't poke my nose into your life. But I missed so many years of chances to be a proper mother. Even though you grew up, and faster than you should have had to I might add, I still find myself so concerned."
"Nothing questionable," Hailey said. "Just... I have no idea if you'd understand or not. Years in an institution because of things that happened years ago. I don't know how you see reality now, what you think is true or untrue."
"Hailey, what does any of this have to do with this friend of yours?" Abigail questioned with her concern evident in her voice. She lowered her voice so that anyone who happened to be sitting in the still nearly empty cafe would not overhear anything. She stared at her daughter with a look somewhere between excitement and dread over what she might say next.
"I know who my Dad was," Hailey blurted, keeping her voice low and looking to make sure no on else was listening. "More accurately I know what he was. I still barely know who he was as a person, but I do know where he came from. The official records say he was thought to be from Northern England, but I know he came from somewhere farther away then that."
"Hailey... this is not a matter to take lightly..."
"I know Mum. I haven't taken lightly at all. But Gallifrey and the Time Lords; all that has meaning to me now. I understand it and now my whole life is actually starting to make sense!"
"Well then I'm happy. Every time I thought of you while you were growing up- and believe me, I thought of you very often - my greatest regret was that you would grow up and never know what you really are. I feared so much that you would never know of anything you had going for you, or realize you had a place in the universe bigger than just a simple life on this Earth. But Hailey, how does that relate to the Doctor? I'm still a bit confused. And how did you find anything out about... Unless..." Abigail paused for a second, and looked over top of the cafe menu she held in her hands. "Is he...one of...?"
Hailey only nodded, understanding her mother's questioning right away. Finally, after her own moment's pause and a look at her menu to continue appearing casual and not worthy of the attention of others, she spoke. "Mum, I actually did it. I managed to meet another of the Time Lords. I don't know how in this huge universe, but we found each other. We are probably the last two." She fought back tears of sudden emotion as she went on, this time passing on bad news. "It's all gone. Gallifrey is destroyed. Millions dead and long forgotten in a time that technically form your perspective won't come to be for thousands of years yet."
"So that means that you father really is likely dead then?"
"It's basically certain. Dad is never coming back. Mum, I'm sorry. I know you must have held out hope all these years..."
"I suppose I did. But I also kind of knew he was gone and never coming home. This was never his home of course, but he made it his home. I think I understood years ago that I'd lost him forever, and I just started to accept that."
"Hailey, I'm sorry you never got to know your Dad," Abigail said after their food had arrived. She spoke in a slightly more normal volume now, and with far less concern for anyone listening. After all, this was certainly a typical thing that could have been said by people in reference to far more typical human situations. "He left when you were too little to really remember him of course, but I know that if he were still here today he'd be so proud. He would have loved to hear that you've learned so much." She lowered her voice again and leaned in closer, over the top of the table. "So I take it then you're not just traveling around Europe like I first thought and assumed."
Hailey shook her head as she took a bite of her sandwich.
"All of time and space to see and experience? Lives to change and so many great lessons to learn?"
Hailey nodded. This time though she also smiled, as she put the sandwich down onto her plate.
"Come back with me to the hospital when we're done lunch," Abigail said. "I have something I want to give you?"
~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~
Rose wandered the halls of the TARDIS the same evening, hours after the trip they'd made to take Hailey to see her mother again. She found Hailey sitting in the library in what had fast become her favorite chair in that room, intently reading from a dark blue hard cover notebook that looked unlike anything she'd ever seen her use in her studies until then. She sat down nearby in another chair and when the Hailey looked up and smiled her acknowledgment, she spoke up.
"What are you reading?"
"Oh," Hailey answered slowly. "My mother gave this to me today. It's my father's journal. He wrote in it while he was alive and living on Earth. He wrote in the Gallifrain language, and she's never been able to read it. She said she wanted me to have it and the I'd likely be able to translate it. Apparently she was able to keep the book with her in the hospital because, there was no clear reason for anyone to confiscate it."
"Can you read the language?"
"Well the TARDIS translates for me, so it's much easier to read. Same with my textbooks. I can sort of read the language now though. It's weird. Sometimes when I'm studying those old books, the translator will just shut off. Suddenly I see the words as they were really printed, like all symbols and very confusing. The first time that happened I put the book down and wondered what was up with the translation circuit. Slowly though, as it happened more often I started to recognize more and more of the words and letters. I can read it now, but I'm very slow at it. I'd rather just read English. Actually, this is even weider, but so often now in dreams whenever I talk to anyone, I seem to be speaking and hearing this new language instead of English. Learning to read it made seems to have triggered my mind's ability to speak and understand too. I never did figure out though what's up with the translator. I should ask the Doctor but it always slips my mind."
"Perhaps the TARDIS was trying to teach you the language," Rose suggested.
"The ship's alive, you know," she continued, when Hailey only looked at her with her eyebrows raised in great confusion. "He's said that to me a few times now. I'm still not sure exactly what that means, but perhaps it can think and reason and act independently at times."
The two fell silent and soon they both happily continued with what they had been doing. Hailey went on with her reading, and Rose announced that supper would be ready within an hour.
"Doctor," Hailey said upon finding him in the library, just sitting quietly with a book in his lap that he was clearly not reading. It was another late late on board the ship, and while Rose slept, they were docked motionless on the shore of some distant alien beach. She chose a chair near his and flopped down into it, sitting sideways with her legs over the arm of the chair. "Is the TARDIS really alive?"
He looked up at her, blinked at the suddenness of her question with no clear context, and laughed slightly. "Well if that wasn't random, I don't know what is."
Hailey laughed too too, and then explained. "Rose said something today about the ship being alive, but she really wasn't able to explain much about it. How can a time ship be alive?"
The Doctor sat quiet for a second, trying to figure out how to correctly explain something he'd long understood without ever trying to put into exact words and teach to someone else. "Well she isn't a living thing as you would normally think of life. The ship is telepathic and very empathic. It can communicate on some level with the mind of pretty much anyone intelligent. That's how it's able to translate language in your head. As for the empathic part of the whole system, that's a much more complex thing. It can understand a person innermost need or desire. Given an opportunity, it can scan the time lines and work out the best way to bring a needed event or thing into being. There are many other things too that it's capable of."
"Well does it have emotions? Like, say someone said it was stupid or that it was a terrible shade of blue, would it be sad? Would it even understand what the person said?"
The Doctor gave a look of intent thought for a brief moment. "Well you certainly do have a way of thinking up the interesting questions that no one's even really come up with an answer to, do you? I've never really thought much about that before. No, it wouldn't understand exactly what you said, especially if you spoke out loud. A TARDIS can't actually hear. It's understanding is based on it's being able to sense feelings, emotions and telepathic thought. I suppose if someone insulted her, she might be able to sense the strong feeling of negativity toward it, but it would probably not be all offended and sad about it."
"Can it feel sad and offended at all, or does it just have very high self esteem?" Hailey's question may well have sounded outrageous and silly, and indeed as soon as she voiced it out loud it sounded so ridiculous it was almost laughable. But she was completely serious and the Doctor understood that.
"It doesn't have self esteem at all as we would know it. It has too limited of a sense of self for that. It can't get truly offended either for that same reason."
"Well what if someone kicked it, or dumped cold water on the outside door, or something? Would it feel it, and know what happened?"
"No. It doesn't have that kind of awareness."
"Well can it get scared?"
"It has several times. All that is based only on empathic feelings and what we would best know as intuition though. No primal fear instinct, driven by self preservation, like that present in us and other typical life forms."
"So," Hailey said, catching on to an idea she could still barely imagine relating to on a personal level, "it probably doesn't actually hear us then, or see us; but it sees and hears our emotions and thoughts and learns to tell us apart that way somehow?"
"Well, that's another good question..." The doctor stopped for a moment to think,a dn he found himself confused, before he thought over again what she had said. "Actually that's a good way to explain it I suppose."
"Well what would happen if it sensed or understood something that it just didn't like? if that ever were to happen, given it's nature, whatever it sensed it would have to have a problem with for a good and true reason right? There would have to be some kind of logic to it's impression. What would it do?"
"Well that really depends on what it was that it had an impression of and about. It would probably sound alarms to get my attention. If it was very bad and really bothersome I guess it might actually run away from whatever that something was."
"Wow," said Hailey, standing up from her chair. "So you mean it can actually fly by itself? That's like something out of a science fiction movie."
"It sort of can, but not exactly."
"Well hopefully your ship doesn't just decide one day to get scared to death of something terrible and run away from us on some alien planet!"
The Doctor stood up from his own chair and walked with his student through the doors of the sitting room and back out into the hallway. He smiled and laughed. "Well see, that would be part of what I meant by not entirely able to fly itself. It could never take off with no one inside and actually in at least partial command of the controls."
"It's sure a cool machine," Hailey said. "But doesn't quite seem to fit most people's common definition of alive."
"No, you're right. It doesn't at all. But still alive though, nevertheless."