"Bloody coward," said the man to his left.
"A good man," said the other, sitting to his right.
- from Adventures for Young Spacers, pub. 2625 (Old Earth Enterprises Ltd)
So how many people have lied so far?
That, of course, is a rhetorical question designed to make you consider who is telling the truth and who is not.
(And this is not to say that anyone has deliberately attempted to mislead any of our heroes.)
You should consider exactly what a lie is (though don't feel obliged - one could argue that this entire passage is irrelevant, so feel free to skip to the last paragraph or two; there is a plot point there). Perhaps you would tell me that it is when one is not telling the truth. Thus leading us neatly into the far more difficult question of what the truth is.
Objectivity, subjectivity, philosophy and religion. If we started to discuss that question I think one of us would be dead before a satisfactory conclusion could be reached , and I can assure you that I would not be the aged corpse.
So let us instead take an example. Let us demonstrate an instructive point and gain a little more insight into one of the players. The Doctor, our illustrious hero, (though he has, so far, merely been reacting to events as opposed to instigating them; naturally this will change) is one in whom we should certainly not have our faith shaken. Yet he has told his old friend and his new friend that he is not a soldier. He did not tell them that he used to be. This is the lie of omission.
Some time, long ago, he called himself a scientist.
Time, as the Doctor has said, is very flexible. But we won't be going back that far. No, a few weeks only should be quite sufficient. Listen carefully, and you'll hear the time-streams rushing by:
Rose was almost certain that it was a fluke she had managed to find the Doctor so quickly. And until that moment she hadn't even been aware that the TARDIS had a laboratory.
"You really are a doctor then?" she asked, hovering at the doorway.
The Doctor looked up from the lab bench, put the circuit board to one side. "It's mostly honorary."
"So what's with all this stuff?" And there was an awful lot of stuff, pouring out of the cupboards and across the floor. A wonder he could find anything amidst the clutter. He'd probably claim it was some sort of highly advanced system of organisation that her little ape mind couldn't possibly comprehend.
"Just because I haven't got a bit of paper telling me I've passed some exam or other doesn't mean I can't show a healthy interest in the sciences," he told her, folding his arms. Defensive.
She bit her lip, then decided to press on. "Is that what you are? What you were…back home? You were a scientist?"
"That's what I trained as, yeah. Where d'you think the anti-plastic came from?"
Rose shrugged. "Don't know. Didn't even think about it. Doesn't sound very science-y though. I mean, anti-plastic?"
"Hey! It does it exactly what it say on the label. I suppose you'd have been more impressed if I'd given you its convoluted unintelligible chemical name?"
"I did get through GCSE science, you know."
"Didn't actually. Don't think that would have helped you much anyway."
"Thanks a lot." She picked up a test-tube.
"Careful," said the Doctor, plucking it carefully from her fingers. "Some of this stuff is really dangerous."
"So you just leaving it lying around?"
"Well, yeah, there weren't any daft apes wandering around my ship until a few weeks ago."
She took a closer look at one of the cupboards, glass door and full of organic-looking specimens."Bit odd really. I mean, it looks like Frankenstein's laboratory."
"That just means it has personality. I suppose you'd prefer if it was all white and shining and stripped of its soul?"
She nodded at the lab-bench. "Test-tubes? Petri dishes? This is the sort of stuff I used at school."
"Never underestimate a good education."
"Not very tech though, is it?"
"I like it like this! It's tactile, it's real! Bet you'd just love those stuffy old labs back on…"
"Back on?"
"Never mind. Doesn't matter."
"Doctor?"
"Just leave it, yeah?"
A long moment. A long drawn out moment that gave her plenty of time to leave. "Is that all you were, Doctor, a scientist?"
"S'all I wanted to be."
"You weren't…you were never a soldier were you?"
"What makes you say that?"
"You told me about the war, Doctor. And if it was a devastating as you say, there must have been, I don't know, some sort of conscription or something…"
He stared at her. Eyes hard. "Oh yeah?"
"And the way you walk, and that way you have of speaking to people sometimes."
"You know a lot of soldiers then?"
"Nah, I just watch a lot of telly."
He almost smiles, but then he speaks. "Yes, I fought in the war. Didn't want to. Didn't want anything to do with it."
He shut down, turned away. Rose took the hint and left, and I don't believe that they ever spoke of the matter again. But he did tell her the truth.
Soldier, scientist, explorer, magician. Oh, and wizard! One mustn't forget the times that the Doctor has played Merlin (and, indeed, he will once again). All different faces of the same man, and of a man who has many different faces. Is presenting one face whilst obscuring the others a lie? Is that a lie of omission?
So the Doctor was a soldier. And even when he wasn't he has killed. Never callously, never maliciously never carelessly, but he has killed.
And it's always easier after the first time.
Right now - relatively speaking, of course - Rose is an innocent. She has never taken another sentient's life, by action or inaction. Oh, would the universe be so kind as to let it remain so, it would surely be a better place for us all.
See her now, she's running. Following Livia as she leads the way through this labyrinth of tunnels. If they are to escape they must reach one of the caves being used as a garage. Find one of those charming vehicles with a fossil-fuel combustion engine, and, one would hope, some form of stealth technology attached.
It cannot be terribly comforting that most everyone else seems to be heading in the opposite direction.
Still let us press on. Now, dramatic tension as such is a very dated concept. Viewing the matter outside of the linear timeline - which you can't, being somewhat limited to experiencing one moment after the next and each in order. How tedious.
So I shall tell you that Rose does make it out of the cave system.
But not safely, no, not at all. See how they're stumbling? The rocks above them are beginning to shake themselves free too. And if we were to move up and out of this place and back to the surface of the planet, we should see a low-flying spaceship sending a barrage of high-energy plasma bombs into the hillside.
There will be several cave-ins, but the only one that concerns us is the one that separates Rose from Livia. Rose, after all, is our heroine. What do we care for the fate of those she interacts with? Her safety must surely be our first concern.
She is alone now. Cut off from her guide, and no idea how to escape the cave system.
But they will find her. Those great silver giants with their superior strength and technology and, one could argue, intelligence. At the very least, they manage to prevent their emotions - more or less - from interfering with their intellect. Whether that is an advantage or disadvantage I leave it to you to decide.
Rose is not the only one who is taken, but it is her path that we shall follow.