Authors Notes: Here's the second part of my four part 6th Doctor fiction. The primary function of this, somewhat shorter, second part is to serve as a bridge between the questions posed in the first part and the further revelations which are to come in the third part. Again - please read and review.

Daughters Of The State (Part Two)

The next morning found the Doctor sitting alone in the drawing room contemplating the events of the previous night. He was not at all proud of what he had done, In fact he was thoroughly ashamed of himself but what choice had he had? No, he'd done the right thing . Hypnotising Aristha and giving her a false memory of him complying with her wishes had been his only option. After planting the false memory, the Doctor had instructed her to sleep for six hours. She would be under no threat until noon and the Doctor needed the time to think about the next move. Aristha would awaken in around one hour from now firmly believing that she was pregnant with the Doctor's child.

While the Doctor had Aristha under hypnosis he had taken the opportunity to learn more about her and the first thing which he learned was that she had very recently been hypnotised by another person. That was pretty much what the Doctor had suspected all along. Her story of the interbreeding governing family and her wild claims about her own reproductive capability just did not ring true. The cannibalism part he was not so sure about. Perhaps that was true. Stranger things have happened. But if someone really was intent upon eating her alive then why go to all this trouble of making her think things which were impossible were true? Why give her that glimmer of hope? Why not just eat her and be done with it? He had asked her to tell him what the last instruction that she had been given was. That had not got him very far as it turned out the last instruction had simply been not to reveal what any of her previous instruction had been. Whoever was behind this had done a very thorough job indeed.

An hour later, the Doctor was still lost in thought when Aristha entered the room. Upon hearing her footsteps, the Doctor straightened up in his chair and did the best to summon up his most genuine looking false smile.

"Ah, Aristha," he began rather uncomfortably. "I trust that you slept well…" His voice trailed off in astonishment as Aristha crossed his line of vision.

"Where did you get those clothes?" he enquired a little too sharply. "You told me that there were no clothes anywhere in the palace."

The Doctor had expected Aristha to make her entrance draped in his own patchwork coat that he had loaned her the previous evening. True, she was wearing the coat but underneath it the Doctor could clearly see jeans, the top of a powder-pink coloured t-shirt and upon her feet a pair of very fashionable looking shoes. Fashionable for early 21st century Earth that is. For her part, Aristha just starred blankly back at the Time Lord.

"You gave me the coat last night before we…"

The Doctor cut her short. "Yes, well I think that little deception has gone quite far enough. Aristha - please listen very carefully to me and concentrate upon what I am saying. Nothing happened between us last night apart from me placing you under hypnosis and planting a few false memories into your mind. I also might add that I'm not the only person to have done so in recent days. I suspect that much, if not all, of the story which you related to me last night is nothing more than a collection of falsely implanted recollections of events which have never happened to you."

The Doctor appeared to be getting through. Aristha shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot as she considered what the Doctor was saying. She opened her mouth as though to say something but changed her mind and clamped it shut again. Her eyes fell to the floor and her distress was all too obvious. The Doctor felt sorry for her but he knew that he might have to cause her even more upset before she might see the full truth of the situation.

The Doctor stepped towards her. "We don't have time for this, let me show you."

He indicated to her that she should take off the coat. Aristha removed the coat and ,after she'd let it fall to the ground, the Doctor took hold of her hand and placed it against the side of her leg.

"There, can you feel the material? You're fully dressed and my guess is that you've been fully dressed in these very same clothes all the time that you've been here."

Aristha ran her fingers down right down her leg feeling the texture of the denim beneath her fingers. Slowly but surely, as she looked down she saw her bare flesh gradually become covered in the blue fabric. The Doctor nodded approvingly and pointed down towards her feet. Aristha quickly took in his meaning and knelt down to touch her bare feet. Instead of touching naked skin, her fingers found shoe laces, leather and finally the rubber soles of her shoes. She blinked in astonishment as the shoes started to appear to her. After repeating the whole process again over her upper body, and discovering the t-shirt,, Aristha had no option but to conclude that she was indeed fully dressed. Upon a sudden impulse she dug her right hand into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a crumpled looking £10 note. She gazed at it in puzzlement. The Doctor recognised it straight away.

"Earth money! British money even! Well I think that settles it doesn't it? You're no more a Daughter Of The State of… wherever this is.. than I am." The Doctor took the money from her and examined the portrait on the back of it more closely. "Ah look, Charles Darwin! So, that dates you to the very early 21st century. Someone around here has got a lot of explaining to do." The Doctor raised his voice to say the last sentence though who the words might have been addressed to was more than Aristha could guess at.

The Doctor picked his coat up off the floor and absentmindedly deposited the money into his pocket. Watching him, Aristha was struck by a sudden thought.

"Doctor, last night when you first saw me you didn't seem to notice that I was naked. You were more interested in that picture on the wall. Did you know that I was wearing clothes then?"

"No, no. At least I don't think I did," the Doctor seemed unsure. It was as though he was trying to remember something which was just a little out of reach . "I think that portrait deserves a closer look, Aristha. Come on!"

The Doctor and Aristha eventually reached the point on the second floor where they had first met and ,as they stood there examining the Galgathargo painting, Aristha's mind was spinning with questions.

"So what you're telling me is that everything which I can ever remember happening in my life never actually happened, all of my real memories and identity are being temporarily hidden from me by persons unknown, this place isn't my home planet and I'm probably not even really called Aristha"

The Doctor nodded enthusiastically. "That's right. You're getting there. Though the good news is… aha!"

While they had been chatting, the Doctor had taken the painting down from the wall and opened up the back of it revealing a bizarre array of multi-coloured wires and flashing lights.

"What we have here is not only an observation scanner but also some kind of hallucinogenic device. This little chap here is the reason why I couldn't see your clothes last night. I must've fallen under its influence when I gazed into the painting. Now, I think it's fair to assume that these toys are placed right through the palace and that they've been helping to maintain the false impressions that you've been given. I recognise this technology too."

"And…"

"And there's good news for you. This technology belongs to race of beings known as Eternals and they exist outside of the confines of time and space. I've encountered them before. Although they possess enormous mental powers, and they're morally ambiguous to say the least, they're not ruthless killers and they certainly don't eat people. You're not on their menu, of that I'm sure. This is just a game to the Eternals."

Aristha remained unconvinced. "You are sure?"

"Oh yes. Now the only major problem which we have now is that I know that everything which has happened here in this palace has been observed by the Eternals. They'll have listened to our every conversation and studied our every action. Now, that nonsense about you and I er… last night. Well, had anything happened, that would've just been added entertainment for them before the main event - whatever that might turn out to be. It's almost certainly a mind game of some kind."

Suddenly seized by a sudden realisation, the Doctor grabbed Aristha by the hand and sprinted along the corridor towards the stairs dragging the girl along in his wake. After an exhausting run through the corridors of the palace, Aristha was relieved when the Doctor finally stopped outside one of the bathrooms. Cautiously he pushed open the door and walked in. Aristha watched from the doorway as he crossed towards the shower cubicle. In one movement the Doctor had the magnetic doors parted and fully opened to reveal the empty space within.

Disconsolately he turned back to face Aristha. "I've been such an idiot. They've read my mind. They know that I'm a Time Lord. And worst of all, they've got my TARDIS."

Puecia sat back in her chair, watching the Doctor's face on her screen with great amusement. The Grand Usher stood behind her with a concerned look on his face.

"He knows too much. Surely we must remove him from the palace and give the girl another blast of false memories?"

Puecia considered the idea for a moment.

"No. What harm can he do? Besides, I'm rather enjoying the confusion which he is causing in the girl's mind. I see no problem so long as we keep him apart from the other Daughters until the start of the meal. Let's set another place at the dining table - I've just changed the menu!"

END OF PART TWO

(to be continued shortly)

Authors note: For anyone unfamiliar with the Eternals: They are a race of powerful beings who exist outside of time, and live forever in the great void of eternity. They appeared in Enlightenment - a Season 20 story written by Barbara Clegg. I do not own them.