Chapter 20

Ethical Dilemmas

The Village Green.

Dunwich.

Tuesday, 8th October.

12:15.

The village hall in Dunwich was a long, wooden building, with a raised stage at the far end where the amateur dramatic society would present plays, musicals, and pantomimes at Christmas. Presently, it had a long, trestle table where Charles and Milly Willers, Hubert and Dora Leebody, and Gordon, Angela and Ferrelyn Zellaby were sitting, along with Torchwood representatives, Alice Dimaggio and John Smith. Sitting next to John, who was wearing his usual brown suit and long coat, was Zoriel, still wearing his helmet, with Rose sitting next to him, wearing her black dress uniform, and holding his hand for moral support.

Rose had been right about their children being good for Zoriel. Eyulf was of a similar age, and although they seemed to have little in common besides that, when he started talking about the telepathic link with his brother and sister, Zoriel started to open up about how he missed having his siblings in his head. Rose could hardly bear it when Jason asked him why he would want to make people do things they didn't want to, and Zoriel told them that it was either that or being lynched by an angry mob.

"That's a catch twenty two", Eyulf had spotted. "If you didn't have the ability to do that, you wouldn't need to use an ability like that. And because you have the ability, people are scared of it and so you have to use it to stay alive. That sucks!"

"I love being able to talk to my family in my head," Juleshka had told Zoriel. "But I wouldn't want be able to manipulate people. Too much temptation to misuse it."

Rose remembered John looking at her with such a look of fatherly pride on his face, and feeling his resolve to help this young alien put things right.

People were filtering into the hall and finding a seat. The police in Trayne had used the station minibus to ferry in people from Trayne, Oppley, Stouch and Hickham who had been on the buses involved in the incident. The staff of The Grange entered and sat at the back of the hall, still feeling as though there was some hostility towards UNIT. Dora Leebody waved for her niece Polly to join them on the stage, but she shook her head, wanting to stay with her friends and colleagues.

A dark skinned man and red haired woman walked in and looked around.

'Rose,' John said with a big grin and nodded at the doors.

Rose looked and her mouth fell open. 'Oh my God, it's Donna.'

They both waved, and Donna saw them. She pointed at her face with her index fingers and mouthed ['it's me!']

['We know!'] they mouthed back.

Donna gave them a double thumbs up. ['Brilliant!']

She dragged Shaun through the hall and took a seat as near to the front as she could. A few elderly people entered next, Doctor Willers ticked their names on a sheet which Alice had provided. Alfred Wait, Jane Crankhart. Francine Welt from the village shop. When David and Erica Pawle from Dacre Farm entered, with their children Jim, David & Elsa, Willers ticked off the last of the names on the list and nodded to Alice.

Alice stood up, and the hum of conversation faded away. 'Hello everyone. My name is Alice Dimaggio, and I'd like to thank you all for coming today. I think most of you know John Smith, the Scientific Advisor at Torchwood, and his wife Rose, Blue Watch Supervisor. My role is as Lead Clinical Psychologist and Counsellor. John will give you an update on how the investigation is progressing, however, our laboratories have come up with some information of which you need to be aware. I think it would be best if this information came from someone you all know and trust, so I'll hand over to Doctor Willers and Reverend Leebody.'

Alice sat down and Milly Willers squeezed her husband's hand in support as he stood. Hubert stood as well and nodded to him.

'Right. Where to start . . ? Some of you already know what I am about to say, and please don't think badly of these people. They were sworn to secrecy, and it will become obvious why when you hear what I have to say,' Willers said.

'Oh get on with Charlie,' a woman called Tilly Foresham called out. She was wearing corduroy trousers, check shirt and Barber jacket. A ripple of quiet laughter went around the hall.

'Very well. There's no easy way to say this. All women of childbearing age who were affected by The Narcolepsy, have been found to have human chorionic gonadotrophin hormone present in their blood. This hormone is the one that is detected when you use a pregnancy test kit,' Charles told them, waiting for the implications to sink in. 'Yes. If you fall into that age category, then you are pregnant.'

There were gasps and cries from around the hall, along with exclamations of "no", "impossible" and "but I haven't had sex", along with questions such as "how" and "who".

Hubert Leebody held up his hands. 'Please . . . Please, we will try to answer all of your questions. We know this is a terrible shock. Charles, Gordon and myself told our wives, and Gordon's daughter first so that they could assimilate the information and try to come to terms with it. So, they know exactly how you are feeling at the moment, and they can support you as you come to terms with what you have just learned.'

'I am sorry I have had to give you this information,' Willers said. 'But if we all pull together, I think we can get through this. I'll now hand over to Doctor Smith to bring everyone up to speed with what is known about The Narcolepsy, and possible courses of action.'

'Hello,' John said hesitantly. He still didn't like public speaking. 'I am SO sorry about what has happened to you, and I will do everything I can to help you. I'm going to tell you what I know, what I've found out, and the options available to you. First of all though, I'd like you to meet Zoriel.' John held his arm out to indicate the young boy in a crash helmet sitting next to his wife.

'Why am I here?' Zoriel asked Rose.

'Don't you remember? John wanted them to see that you are a person, rather than an unseen "something" lying in their wombs,' Rose reminded him.

'Oh. Right,' Zoriel said.

'Like the soldiers in the Cabinet Office. They couldn't shoot you because you were there,' Rose added.

'What soldiers?'

John faltered in his narrative as he listened to Zoriel. Something was wrong. His brain was losing its ability to retain information.

'Er, yes. Zoriel. He's twelve years old, and he's an alien,' John continued. There were more mutterings around the hall. 'Yes, an alien. Those of you who watch the Torchwood documentary will know that they exist. We even have alien members of staff. I'll come to why Zoriel is here later. Oh, and don't pay any attention to the helmet for now. It's technical.'

John was starting to relax into the briefing. 'On Wednesday the 23rd of September, an alien force, using a sophisticated cloaking device, landed in the ruins of St Accius' Abbey. At seventeen minutes past ten that night, by means unknown, this alien force put every living animal within a mile radius into a coma. For 35 hours and 10 minutes, our field agents at Torchwood stood vigil and sent in remote surveillance devices to keep an eye on you and try to find those responsible.'

John scratched the back of his head. 'The aliens must have been using personal cloaking devices, because we saw nothing. We now know what they were doing under the cover of those cloaking devices and the affected area around the village. Now, we've been to a sort of "space Interpol" to try and find out who did this, and if they'd done it before . . . and they have!'

Once again, there were mutterings, and John heard "where", "when", "who are they".

'I don't know who those are that committed the deed, YET. But trust me, I will. I do know however, what has been implanted inside you,' John said, and moved to stand behind Zoriel. He put his hands on Zoriel's shoulders.

'Twelve years ago, a community on a planet light years from here, fell into a coma for around 36 hours. The women of that community became pregnant, and gave birth to sixty two children. They nurtured those children as if they were their own. Now, it may be that they accepted the children as their own, or . . . they may have had no choice.'

This time there were gasps from the audience. 'Zoriel here is one of those sixty two children.'

This time, stunned silence. 'Now you can pay attention to the helmet,' he told them. 'It is blocking certain brain waves which would make you all do what he wanted you to do.'

He saw people starting to panic. 'You are perfectly safe. With the helmet on, he is just an ordinary twelve year old boy. He spent last night at our house with our children, and for the first time in his life, he had people talk to him who weren't afraid of him or wanted to kill him.'

Gordon Zellaby was a well read man, and an author of many books on ethics and social issues. And he'd also read Lord of the Flies. 'Doctor Smith?' he said to get John's attention. John turned to him. 'What happened to Zoriel's world?'

John was annoyed by this interruption because he wanted more time to explain. 'First of all, I want to say that it wasn't his fault.'

But Zellaby was not to be distracted. 'What happened Doctor Smith?'

'When anyone frightened the children, or did something they didn't like, they would have a knee jerk reaction and make people stop doing what it was that frightened them or that they didn't like,' John explained. 'This in turn frightened the people. And we know what happens when a crowd of people get frightened . . .'

'They become a mob,' Zellaby said.

'Exactly,' John ageed. 'And then things got nasty. The children defended themselves the only way they knew how.'

'They turned the mob on itself?' Zellaby asked, already knowing the answer.

John nodded. 'Yes. They imposed their own order on society, although it was quite reasonable in a way. Live by the laws and rules you have made and leave us alone.'

'Or else,' Zellaby added.

'Yes. Or else. With supreme leaders, who have supreme rule of law, the power hungry underlings crawl out from under the stones and enforce that law,' John said.

Zellby had also read George Orwell. 'And you have a world of complete domination and oppression.'

The people in the hall had been listening to the exchange, and suddenly erupted into arguments and discussions. Some were standing, to talk with people behind either them or across the hall.

'We have to stop them while we still can,' someone said.

'But if they are brought up in a loving family . . .' another reasoned.

'And when they have a tantrum. What then . . ?' Erica Pawle asked, looking down at her youngest child who was going through the "terrible twos".

'Well I didn't ask to be pregnant. I'm having an abortion . . !'

'Me too. I'm not going to be a "womb for hire" to some passing alien . . .'

John tried to get back control of the meeting. 'Wait . . . Let me finish. I can change the structure of their brains . . .'

His words were drowned out by all the voices in the room. He looked at Rose who had a worried expression on her face. He turned back to face the crowd, his coat swirling around him.

'THAT-IS-ENOUGH!' he said without shouting, but everyone heard him. His eyes were dark with the oncoming storm. The room fell silent. He knew what it was like to be forced into parenthood. To have a tissue sample taken at gunpoint, and have a daughter grown from that sample.

'So you want to have abortions? Even when I can fix their brains so that they won't be able to coerce people to do their bidding? You want to kill innocent victims of a quirk of their biology?'

Margaret Haxby's lone voice broke the silence from the back of the hall. 'But we didn't ask for this.'

John knew her views on what had been done to her and what she was going to do about it. 'Neither did they. They had no choice in this. Just as every single one of us here had no choice in being born . . . Look, I know you didn't have a choice, and that's wrong. They should have asked. And I know there are some women in this world who would have shown compassion for a race who could not carry their own babies, and were so desperate that they would resort to stealing a womb. But you have a choice now. Please, show the universe out there how amazing you can be.'

John stopped talking. He didn't think there was anything else he could say. He just hoped he had said enough. He turned back to the table, and Alice nodded her approval. He'd taken a frightened, angry mob, and turned them into a thinking, feeling group of individuals.

'Ever thought of going into politics?' Zellaby asked him with a smile as he patted him on the back.

'Tried it once,' John told him, thinking of his presidency on Gallifrey. 'Not really my thing.'

'Hmm. Pity.'

'John!' Rose called out urgently. 'Something's wrong with Zoriel.'

John rushed around the table to where Zoriel had slumped to the floor. Rose was kneeling beside him, using her first aid training and putting him into the recovery position. Doctor Willers and Alice hurried over also the give their professional support. He was having convulsions.

Willers took control and started to examine his patient. 'Is he a known epileptic?'

John shook his head. 'No. This seizure is being caused by the suppression of his psionic abilities. Rose, have you noticed how he was having trouble remembering things?'

'Yeah. He didn't even know why he was here, and we'd explained it all to him last night,' Rose said.

'Aren't the basal nuclei involved in processing and storing memories?' Alice asked.

John nodded. 'The anterior nuclei of the thalamus and the hypothalamus. His basal nuclei are linked to the area of his brain which gives him his psychic abilities. The helmet has been starving his brain of signals from his siblings. I should have realised. It's like cutting off the blood supply to a limb, it withers and eventually dies.'

'Surely that's not true,' Willers said.

'Look at the evidence in front of you,' John said urgently. 'His is a hive mind, a shared consciousness. Out on its own, it can't survive.' He knelt down close to Zoriel's face. 'I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen.'

'John. He's dyin',' Rose said. 'You've got to do somethin'.'

John looked at her and she saw THAT expression. 'I have to take the helmet off.'

'But if you do that . . . As he is now, he's terrified. His brain will lash out,' Rose reminded him.

'And if I leave it on, his brain dies . . . Look, if I put the helmet on myself, I won't be affected. I can hurry to the TARDIS and get him sedated in the Medi-bay.' He waited for Rose's approval, because she would be affected by the backlash.

Rose looked at the shuddering, jerking child in front of her, and thought of EJ. Her motherly instinct kicked in. 'Do it!'

John took his sonic screwdriver from inside his jacket and unlocked the chinstrap on the helmet. 'Ready? One, two, THREE!'

He yanked off the helmet and Zoriel gasped, as he put the helmet on his own head. He didn't need the chin strap as he wasn't going to take it off anytime soon. He held Zoriel's head in his hands, two fingers on each temple and reached out to him.

['Zoriel . . . Zoriel, it's okay. It's okay. You're safe now. I'm here, you're safe,'] John thought to him.

Around them there was chaos in the hall. People were screaming, holding their heads and falling to their knees as Zoriel's fear and anguish filled their heads to bursting.

It hurt.

['Zoriel, it's all right. You can stop being afraid. Can you hear your brothers and sisters calling to you from across the stars?']

['Brothers? Sisters?] Zoriel thought, coming out of his seizure.

['Yes. You're not alone any more. I am SO sorry I blocked them from your thoughts. I should have tried to make the filter more selective. I didn't realise. I'm sorry,'] John told him.

['Zoriel? Where are you?'] a young girl thought in his and John's head.

['I'm here Maltar. With John Smith,'] Zoriel called back.

['The man who kidnapped you? You must make him bring you back. And then he must be punished,'] Maltar said.

['No. He was trying to help us,'] Zoriel explained.

['By taking you away and nearly killing you. How is that helping us? He's like all the others. He says he is trying to help us so that he can destroy us. He is afraid of us.']

['That's not true Zoriel,'] John called out. ['Don't listen to her. That's HER fear and distrust talking. Don't go back down that dark path.']

['But she's right. That helmet you put on my head was slowly killing me.]

['That was an accident. We are so close now. I can fix you so you don't have to wear the helmet ever again. All you have to do is trust me.']

['See how they try to gain your trust so you will let your guard down,'] Maltar sneered. ['Come back to us Zoriel and together we will be stronger.']

['Yes, you are right. We are safer together,'] Zoriel said. He looked at John with golden eyes. ['Take me to the TARDIS and take me home.']

'Not going to happen lad. I'm protected . . . Remember?'

Suddenly, the helmet was snatched off John's head. "Aw heck. Maybe I should have fastened the chin strap after all," he thought.

He looked up and saw Rose with tears in her eyes, slowly shaking her head as she held the helmet.

'You will take me to your ship and take me home,' Zoriel told him, and John stood up.

Helping Zoriel to his feet, he turned and started to walk down the length of the village hall towards the doors. Everyone was frozen in place, unable to move their limbs. Their heads turned as they watched the pair walk towards the doors.

'I won't let you take my husband from me,' Rose called out after them.

Zoriel turned and gave her a sad smile. 'I'm sorry Rose. For what it's worth, I really liked you. You showed me kindness.'

'ZORIEL,' she screamed as he turned away from her. 'Don't do this. I won't let you! Do you hear me?'