Doctor Who and the Daughter of the Daleks.

Part Two-Hostage Situation

Linnena secured the door, then turned back to the crumpled form of Rose. She cleared a nearby surface of equipment, and then lifted Rose's inert form onto the surface. Rose was a bright girl, she mused. Too bright for her own good, it seemed. It was a shame she'd made the slip about the flu. A shame too, reflected Linnena, that she herself had not given a plausible reason for her immunity-like a vaccination, or a previous dose of flu-instead of panicking and hitting Rose. However, what was done was done, although how she would get out of this situation, she didn't know.

Thumps against the locked door turned her attention away from the Doctor's companion, and she could hear voices shouting her name. She recognised all but one of the voices: the unknown voice had to belong to the Doctor. Then the intercom crackled to life.

"Linnena, what's going on in there? Let me in at once." It was Shobar.

Linnena depressed the intercom button. "No, I have things to be getting on with." she responded coolly. Walking away from the intercom, and ignoring Shobar's repeated calling of her name, Linnena found a clean cloth, wet it under the tap, and gently placed it over the large lump rising from where she'd hit Rose with the flask.

There was a different voice over the intercom, the one she didn't recognise.

"Linnena, let Rose go, she's no threat to you." She walked to the intercom, and set it for continuous two-way communication.

"Rose had an accident, Doctor, I'm tending to her now." she said. "She'll have a headache, I'm afraid, but I know where painkillers are kept in here."

"What have you done to her?" asked the Doctor.

"I panicked, and knocked her out. She was too bright for her own good. I had to stop her before she tried to stop me."

"Linnena, you may have hurt her! Let us in so we can tend to her!" said Shobar.

Linnena went over, and blew on Rose's face. Her eyelids flickered, and she twitched.

"No, as I said, she'll just wake up with a headache. She'll be fine. Just leave us alone. We'll be okay, we don't need you."

"Linnena, I don't understand. What's going on?" pleaded Shobar. Linnena laughed.

"No, you don't do you, and I am not about to enlighten you. You bore me. I have work to do." she said, her voice going as cold and brittle as ice. She switched off the intercom.

"What is going on?" asked Shobar.

"Did you notice the way her voice changed? One moment she was quite calm, the next she was distressed, and apparently concerned for Rose, then totally cold." said the Doctor.

"Yes, but that's normal for Linnena, she's been like that from the beginning. It's a bit disconcerting, but you get used to it." Shobar said.

"That is one of the signs of Linnena's internal struggle." the Doctor said. "Mind prints are awkward things, as it's not just information contained within, but aspects of personality, emotions, and memories. It's a well-known fact among my people that the mind prints of beings with dominant personalities can try to overcome the host personalities. On some worlds, the only beings allowed to access such prints are those with special training to resist the attempted take-over by the personality on the print. Davros was a very dominant personality, and unless I'm much mistaken, Linnena has had no such training."

"Do you mean that in effect, it's like having Davros in Linnena's body?" asked Shobar. "I don't see how that's possible."

"Not quite." the Doctor said. "It's difficult to explain. It's not mind control, Davros is not alive-to my knowledge-so it's not quite the same thing, but it's more than mere suggestion. It's like the mind-print contains echoes of Davros' personality, and it is these echoes that she is finding confusing. Some of Davros' opinions and beliefs, imparted to her via the mind-print, are infiltrating her mind, and she's not sure who is her friend and who is her foe because she cannot tell where her own feelings and beliefs end, and those she inherited from the mind-print begin. After all, it doesn't help that she has no comparison of her mind without the print, because she's had it as long as she can remember."

"My God, what have we created?" Shobar asked.

"Don't take that view of her, she is merely confused. Perhaps the question you should be asking is what have you done to her, and what can you do about it. She's not bad or evil, just confused and unstable, but it is that confusion and lack of stability that is dangerous, because we cannot know how she will react in a given situation."

Rose groaned as she came to. Her head throbbed terribly, and she felt sick. As she sat up, the world spun crazily, and at the same time she recalled what had happened. She grabbed the surface she lay on to steady herself, and looked around. Linnena had moved to her side, taking her arm to steady her.

"Careful, you don't want to fall and hit your head again. Take these, they'll ease the pain." Linnena pressed two small tablets into her hand and proffered a glass of water. Rose looked at the two small tablets.

"You're not trying to poison me, are you?" she asked.

"I could have killed you while you were unconscious if I wanted to. Take them or not, the choice is yours."

Rose nodded, then stopped as the motion worsened her nausea. "You have a point. I wouldn't need these if you hadn't clobbered me one, but if they're going to help, I'll take 'em." She put the pills in her mouth and swallowed. Almost immediately the throbbing eased somewhat, and her nausea vanished. Rose felt much better.

"Crumbs, I wish you could get these in my time." she said. "Beats the pants off ibuprofen."

"There is no permanent damage, as far as I can tell, you should suffer no lasting effects. I had best reassure your friend." she said. Moving over to the intercom, she turned it back on.

"Rose has regained consciousness, and is suffering no untoward effects." she said.

"Let me hear her speak, please." the Doctor's voice replied almost immediately.

"Do you doubt my word?" asked Linnena, her voice suddenly turning cold.

"Not at all, Linnena, I would just be considerably reassured to hear her string a few words together in a coherent fashion." he hurriedly assured her.

"It's okay, Doctor, my head hurts but I'm okay." she called out.

"Thank you!" said the Doctor. Linnena turned off the intercom, and turned back to Rose.

"Are you feeling any better?" she asked, frowning in concern.

"She's turned off the intercom again!" said Shobar, toggling the button agitatedly. "We need to get in there! There's no telling what she's doing in there!"

"Getting in was never a problem." said the Doctor.

"What do you mean? We're locked out here! If you have a way of getting in, then tell us!" The Doctor ferreted about in his pocket for a moment, and brought out a silver device similar in size and shape to a pen. It had a blue light at one end.

"The electronic lock has yet to be invented that cannot be opened with a sonic screwdriver." the Doctor said.

"Then why didn't you say so? Use your electronic gizmo to open the door, and we can get in there and-"

"And risk her panicking, and killing Rose, killing herself, or using something else against us? No, barging in by force is a last resort. I will use it if I believe Rose may be killed otherwise, but I will not risk the use of it endangering Rose." The Doctor put the sonic screwdriver back in his pocket. "No, I believe the way forward is through negotiation, and I believe we have found a starting point by finding someone or something we have in common."

"And just what is that?" asked Shobar.

"Linnena and I have one thing in common. We both care about Rose." he said.

"Linnena, I'm confused." said Rose. "You've been brought up with and raised by humans, yet you see humans as the enemy?" asked Rose.

"Sometimes yes, sometimes no." Linnena said. "It varies. At the moment, I feel that the humans on the other side of that door are my enemies, but you're still an unknown quantity. I don't know whether you're a friend or not. You seemed to be concerned for my welfare, repeatedly tried to continue communicating despite my concern that it would slow the work. Rose, you make me feel-relevant."

"Of course you're relevant!" Rose exclaimed. "Everyone is relevant! Everyone is important, everything alive, human or otherwise, has feelings." She sighed at her recent memory. "Even once-against the Doctor's expectations-a Dalek."

"Tell me!" said Linnena, her voice no longer containing the "spark" Rose had begun to associate with Linnena's more feeling side. Rose's heart sank: she could not understand Linnena's sudden switching from the pleasant girl she liked to the cold woman she did not. Maybe this was what Linnena had meant about not having social skills, for when Linnena got like this, Rose disliked her intently.

"Tell me about this Dalek. Obey!" cried Linnena. Rose took a step back. It was the first time Linnena had raised her voice at her, and the combination of the orders with the raised voice made Rose somewhat scared of Linnena.

"Okay, okay!" cried Rose. "A Dalek in Utah absorbed some of my DNA, and something about it made it able to re-animate and repair itself. I tried to get away, but I got trapped. I thought it was going to kill me, but we started talking. It seemed that somehow, absorbing my DNA had given it the ability to feel emotions, including fear, and in the end, I think, compassion. It didn't kill me-even when I once challenged it when it was about to kill someone. It could have-but it didn't." Rose began to cry as her story began to reach its conclusion. "In the absence of fresh orders, it just planned to eliminate every non-Dalek in range, which is what, according to the Doctor, the Daleks generally do. But it began to question that plan. In the end, it picked up on a comment of mine and wanted just to feel the sunlight. We discussed how we felt. It just wanted freedom-but the freedom it wanted was from its existence as a mutated creature in a shell. It wanted to die. It couldn't do it, though, without an order from somewhere-and it chose me to be the one to give it that order. I didn't want to, but it said its life was not worth living, and it pleaded with me to give the order. So I did. Then it just said "Exterminate!", flew into the air, and just-vaporised." Rose sat down where she was, the tears trickling down her face. "I've had to live with myself for that, regretting it, but knowing I did what it wanted. But, Linnena, if it could have put up with life, could have continued to learn, and change, what could it be now? By the time I gave that order, it was my friend."

Linnena sat down beside Rose, and put her arm around her, and when she spoke, it was the Linnena Rose liked.

"I'm sorry if I scared you. I don't know what came over me. Thank you. It gives me an insight into something of the other side of my inheritance-the Kaled side. I don't know where, however, I can get more knowledge."

"Do you still have Internet?" asked Rose. Linnena sighed.

"Yes, but much of what's on that is incomplete eye-witness accounts that don't tell me the half of what I want to know-even the usually-classified UNIT files. The rest is speculation, and I don't want to go on that." Rose sighed.

"In that case, I only know one other person who might be able to tell you more, and he's the other side of that door."

The intercom crackled to life. "Doctor, I must speak to you." came Linnena's voice. "Please." The Doctor moved to the intercom, and depressed the button.

"Linnena, this is the Doctor. How is Rose?" he said.

"She's fine, but Doctor, I need to know more about the Daleks." she said. "Rose said you could tell me more."

"Well, you're the girl with the mind-print of the Dalek's creator. What could I tell you?" he asked, puzzled.

"I need an observer's eye view, and preferably a non-human one. You would seem to fit the bill." The Doctor released the intercom button.

"This is good." he said to the others. "We have dialogue. Perhaps what I tell her will help." He depressed the button again.

"Okay, Linnena, find a seat. I'll start at the beginning, but it's a long story." The doctor released the button, but then Shobar pressed it again.

"Linnena, this nonsense has gone on long enough. Release the girl and come out here now. We have work to be getting on with. You are being delinquent in your duties!"

"Shobar, no!" cried the Doctor. But it was too late. The damage had been done.

"You!" spat Linnena's voice from the speaker, and Shobar recoiled at the venom contained in that one word. "That's all you created me for-as a tool, for you and your fellow humans to use and abuse as you saw fit! When you're finished with me, you'll throw me away, and right now, I'm a malfunctioning tool, and you'll destroy me, and then replace me! You and the others never saw me as a person, just as at thing! What about my feelings? What about what I want? What about me?" There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like the beginning of a long-drawn, anguished cry, and then the intercom was turned off. The Doctor rounded on Shobar.

"That's done it! She's hurt and I have no way anymore of communicating with her. Why did you say that?"

"I thought maybe if I reminded her of her duty, she might see things clearly again. It's worked at other times." Shobar said. He looked rather stunned.

"Well, all it's succeeded in doing is hurting her feelings badly." said the Doctor. "I just hope she doesn't take it out on Rose."

Linnena threw herself away from the intercom, and fled to a corner, where she crawled under a bench. Once there, she wrapped her arms around her knees. She laid her head on her knees, and sobbed, heart-rending cries that Rose could not ignore.

Dropping down to all fours, Rose crawled under the bench with Linnena, putting her arm around her, much as Linnena had done to her ten minutes earlier. She sat there, hugging Linnena and trying to soothe her. After a while, Linnena's sobs ceased, and she sat quietly, looking ahead, the occasional shadow flickering across her eyes. Then, she abruptly threw off Rose's arm, and crawled out from under the bench.

"Rose, we have work to do." She said. Rose hesitated, for it was cold-Linnena again, but then crawled out. She couldn't expect Linnena to suddenly be all right again.

"Well, okay, what do you want me to do?" she asked.

"Continue replicating those protein coats. I have an idea, and it will help you humans."

Rose started up the replicator, and re-stocked it with nutrients, as Linnena had shown her earlier that morning, although it felt more like half a century ago.

"How do you live with emotions?" asked Linnena. "Fear, pain, hate?"

"We cope, we have to." Said Rose. "It's all part of being human. We offset them against hope, joy, love, and happiness. It's a part of being human."

"I would rather not have to suffer them." Linnena said. "They're too complex and it hurts too much to have love and truth betrayed." A shadow flickered briefly behind her eyes, then was gone. "Do Daleks feel any emotions?" asked Linnena. Rose blinked at the sudden shift in the conversation.

"Uhhh, I don't have a clue." confessed Rose. "Ask the Doctor. He might know." Linnena crossed the room, thumbing the intercom back on.

"Doctor, about the Daleks. Do they have any feelings at all?" Linnena's voice startled the group in the corridor. Casting Shobar a quelling glare, the Doctor answered.

"Hate, Linnena, that's about it. They were bred to be soldiers. They obey orders and hate non-Daleks. That's about it."

"This was all achieved by genetic manipulation?" she asked.

"Yes. Davros's work. He was a genius, but power-hungry and quite mad, you know." The Doctor sat back, waiting for an answer. It took about a minute for him to realise that there wasn't going to be one.

"I will work with the gene sequencer. You continue that." Linnena told Rose. "By the way, I need a sample of your blood."

Rose went cold. There was something wrong about that.

"Why?" she asked.

"I need a full human genome to experiment with. What gene does what, what will happen here and soforth." Rose slipped off her stool and backed off.

"Oh no, Linnena, I'm not sure what you have in mind, but I don't think messing with the human genome will do us much good. We prefer to let evolution do it for us in its own sweet time."

"I thought you might think like that, Rose." said Linnena. Rose saw her fiddling with something, her back to Rose, and Rose began to sidle towards the door. Maybe if she could keep Linnena talking, she could work out how to unlock that door.

"I don't think Shobar does see you as just a tool." Rose said. Linnena turned towards her, dropping one hand into her lab coat pocket.

"Really?" she asked, approaching Rose. "You really think so?"

"Well yes." Said Rose. "He's brought you up, he must-"

Too late, Rose realised Linnena had just been distracting her. While talking, she had taken her hand from her pocket, and pricked the back of one of Rose's arms with the syringe she held. A light touch, and that was it: without a word, Rose sank to the floor. She was still conscious, but unable to move or speak.

"I think he does." said Linnena, picking up Rose. "Don't worry, the paralysis only affect voluntary muscles, and that will wear off in time, in about twenty minutes, and in that time I can make certain you will hurt neither I nor yourself, and I can get the blood I need to test my gene manipulations." She turned to Rose.

"Don't worry, Rose, I'll be very thorough about this, and test that each gene manipulation I will make the virus perform will have the desired effect." She smiled down at the terrified Rose.

"Only when I'm certain it will work perfectly will I test it on you."