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'AM!xitsa, the Doctor, God – that's half the original negotiating team.'

'Exactly,' said kiKhali. 'And what happens when they get together? The first unsolved machinacide in six centuries.'

'Yes, but what does it all mean?'

'I don't know,' said kiKhali, 'but I do know that if the High Council of Gallifrey ever finds out about this we can kiss the treaty goodbye.'

'God must know that, surely?'

'The way I see it,' said kiKhali, 'is that there are three possibilities. One: it's all a gigantic coincidence, unlikely but possible. Two: God is using the murder as an excuse to uncover XR(N)IG's nefarious past by letting the Doctor and his friends do all the dirty work. There's a lot of speculation that the Doctor is effectively the High Council's only deniable intelligence asset, hence the special provision in the treaty.'

'Now that's obscure.'

'Trust me, agRaven,' said kiKhali. 'The smarter you get the murkier everything becomes, and God's the smartest person I know.'

'What's the third possibility?'

'That God has tossed the Doctor into this whole situation in the hope that he'll get himself killed.'

10

Unsmiling in the Darkness

We all make our choices on life's highway

My mama, she always told me that

But I'd sure feel much better doing it my way

If someone would just let me see the map.

'What My Mama Told Me' by Jesse Palmer

From the LP: Rode From Nashville (1976)

Bernice dreamt that she was sharing a couple of bottles of Dom Perignon 2597 with Kadiatu, a Dalek, a Cyberman and a Sontaran officer named Grinx. So far the evening had gone reasonably well if you excused Grinx's unfortunate habit of belching after every glass. At least, no one had tried to exterminate anyone else.

'It's a question of moral choice,' said the Dalek. 'How can somebody be evil if they have no free choice over their actions?'

The Cyberman nodded sagely. 'Tinhead here is right,' it said. 'If a person is programmed to exterminate then they are effectively incapable of exercising a moral choice not to exterminate.'

'QED,' said Grinx and belched.

'It's you humans,' said the Dalek, 'that are capable of true evil because you have a choice in the matter.'

'And let's face it,' said the Cyberman, 'your track record is pretty shitty.'

'What about me then?' asked Kadiatu. 'It's all right for you guys, you all belong to cultures where ruthless and efficient termination of an enemy is acceptable behaviour, glorified even.'

'Oh yeah,' said the Dalek. 'Humans are famous for glorifying their peacemakers, well known philanthropists like Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Tshaka Zulu. These are the humans that get all the glory, the guys that get all the column inches.'

'There are others,' said Bernice. 'Gandhi . . .'

'Shot,' said the Dalek.

'Martin Luther King?'

'Also shot,' said the Cyberman.

'Nelson Mandela,' said Bernice. 'He wasn't shot.'

'Oh no,' said Grinx, 'they just locked him up for twenty-seven years.'

'I thought he was the one that got nailed to a cross,' said the Cyberman.

'That was Jesus Christ,' said Kadiatu.

'Whose side are you on?' Bernice asked her.

Kadiatu shrugged. 'I don't know,' she said. 'I thought that was what we were talking about.'

'At least we don't go around,' said the Dalek, 'saying, "We come in peace, shoot to kill".'

'Yes you do,' said Bernice. 'You do that sort of thing all the time.'

'Yes, yes, yes,' said the Dalek. 'But we know we're lying.'

Bernice poured another round of Dom Perignon. She became distracted by trying to work out how, exactly, the Dalek was drinking. The champagne just seemed to vanish whenever she wasn't looking. 'What about Davros?'

'Davros, Davros,' moaned the Dalek. 'Get into an argument with a human and they always bring up Davros. Look, do you think we like the misshapen little monomaniac? We've tried to do away with him more times than the Doctor has. He's our crukking creator – you want an argument about moral culpability, talk to him.' The Dalek lurched away from the table. 'I'm doing a bar run,