Doctor Who_ The Turing Test Part 2

I hesitated. 'I heard someone scream, and footsteps running towards the house.' The Doctor had been running the other way, out of the compound.

It was a simple misdirection, I told myself. I was not lying. Misdirection is a standard practice when encoding information. It is not reprehensible.

'What's happening?' I asked.

'I dunno.' The young man was already turning away, uninterested in my news. Lights were coming on in the huts, doorways opening. 'Blackout!' roared a voice. The doors started to shut again, leaving me standing, s.h.i.+vering, under a moonless sky. There was a cold soldering iron in my hand.

'Get that door shut!'

I heard the heavy tread of army boots approaching, and realised that the open door in question was mine, that to the workshop behind me. I quickly retreated, mumbling apologies.

Inside, the decode tape was still playing. I listened to the sounds, and wondered why the Doctor had been so afraid.

Chapter Three.

Betrayal is a curious thing.

It begins with a sense of uncertainty: did I believe in him too much? Did I believe for the wrong reasons? Above all, did I think before I believed? For friends.h.i.+ps, like problems in mathematics, proceed from a series of a.s.sumptions or, to use the mathematical term, axioms. These axioms are, in the most general sense, the basis of all our theorems about life, and therefore fundamental to the way that we see and judge others.

To take a mathematical example for a moment: when we say that two plus two equals four, we are making certain a.s.sumptions about integers, and their ability to represent concrete objects, which are not necessarily a logical part of any mathematical system. I could derive a complete system of mathematics in which two plus two equals five, or six, or 6, or zero. In fact, in my paper, 'Computable Numbers', I have helped to show that no mathematical system can have a 'certain' foundation of this sort.

Now, you might argue that it's only common sense that two plus two equals four, but that's because you are thinking only about the real world of concrete objects. There is another world within that world, a world of absolute logic, and it doesn't make any 'common' sense at all.

Let us take a more human example and quite a current one, if you have heard about the horrible revelations of the trials at Nuremberg. A n.a.z.i, it appears, would take it as an axiom that Jews are subhuman, cattle to be destroyed. This, to him, would be 'just common sense', a certain foundation of his philosophical world, as obvious as your two plus two equals four. The n.a.z.i's conversations would imply his philosophy without any anti-Semitic prejudice ever having to be openly stated. It is likely that someone whose views were quite different myself for instance could talk for some time to such a man, and find him quite charming, without realising that this particular axiom underlay his life. I would then suffer an unimaginable shock if he should suddenly say that all Jews should be sent to the slaughterhouse.

In a similar way my own axioms are different from those of the majority of Englishmen. My h.o.m.os.e.xuality is enough to ensure this fact and Don Bayley amongst others has made it very clear that he holds an entirely different view about that behaviour from my own. I will not alter my belief that my condition is an unalterable and natural, if variant, behaviour: but this axiom is in direct conflict with that held with equal certainty by others.

So, when we make friends.h.i.+ps as mine with Don Bayley or with the hypothetical n.a.z.i these axioms are tested. As if following the steps in a theorem backwards to the source, friends test their views of life, reaching closer and closer to the axiomatic core as the friends.h.i.+p becomes more intimate. Ultimately the fundamental axioms their 'core beliefs' will be exposed, like rocks in the low tide, and then both parties will know all the dry harshness, the jagged edges that make them the people they are. After that, like the graphs of two equations, they will either converge or diverge, or perhaps run in parallel for all eternity, knowing everything about each other, but separate.

I have experienced all these types of friends.h.i.+p, at one time or another. But, uniquely, with the Doctor, our relations.h.i.+p was at all times on that dry, final beach. We could only talk in axioms yet his were such that I could never know them. I could only make close guesses, subject to all kinds of error. His culture whatever it was was subtly different from anything human. It was impossible for my thinking to converge entirely with his, though there were times when, for a teasing moment, we seemed to be reasoning in parallel. That conversation in the truck on the way to Bletchley Park had been the first of these.

But take the Doctor away take away his immediate person, his responses and suddenly nothing he had done made sense. On the morning after he ran away from Bletchley Park, everything became subject to suspicion and error. I knew the Doctor was not the enemy we were fighting, yet because I was confused by the shape of his mind, by the strangeness of his reactions, I was not sure of his goodness.

None of which is any excuse for what I did, which was to knock on the door of Hugh Alexander's office at ten o'clock on the morning after the Doctor ran away, and tell him everything I knew.

I haven't said much about Hugh Alexander until now. People may imagine a man of military bearing, given that he was in charge of the code-breaking establishment. In fact he was a chess grandmaster and a don, a bright-eyed, intelligent man with a smart jacket and a tidy desk, but nowhere ruthless except on the chessboard.

He seemed at first to be very understanding about my faux pas faux pas. 'It's not like you, Alan. But don't worry. You were stupid, but he's probably just a madman. I'm sure a spy wouldn't draw attention to himself like that.' He gave me a serious look. 'You were lucky he wasn't shot. Some of those Army lads have seen active service, you know.'

I nodded. In the rather stuffy warmth of Alexander's office, with the sun streaming in through the window and his headmasterly face across the desk from me, it all seemed so impossible: the Doctor, the talk about the code, the scream in the night. Soon I would be back at Hanslope taking walks with Timothy and trying to make Mr Churchill's speech vanish into dits and dahs.

'I'll be uh more careful in future, Hugh,' I said.

He nodded, stood up, shook my hand. 'Thanks for your confidence, Alan. We must play chess again sometime.'

'When we have the time.'

We both laughed: time was such a short commodity, then. As I left, Alexander said casually, 'Let me know if you hear from him again.'

I felt my stomach contract, for I knew I was being co-opted. But what could I do?

I suppose you could argue that the real betrayal happened when I did hear from the Doctor again.

My dear Turing Once again a misunderstanding appears to have come between us, and this time the fault is all mine. I don't know what affected me so much last night. I know more about this situation than you, but even so I should not have allowed my empathy to control me. I sometimes fear I'm losing all control of my feelings. I realise that it must have been very embarra.s.sing and difficult for you.Perhaps you would care to meet at The Griffin at eleven o'clock on the 20th? I will try to explain myself; or at least to explain something.

'The Griffin' had to mean the statue where we had first met: there was no public house, that I knew, of that name. The capital letters were a small attempt at concealment, as was the fact that the letter had been sent via my mother when he could have sent it directly. I think it was these minor dishonesties though they were no more than cautions, really that led me to take the letter straight to Alexander.

What followed was inevitable. After consulting with his superiors, Alexander told me to meet the Doctor, at the statue, as arranged. I knew what would happen, of course, but I had little choice having gone this far other than to do as he said.

I didn't have my bicycle on this occasion: an official car carried me to the High Street and I walked the rest of the way. It was raining, a hard rain, large grey drops making pond-sized puddles on the dark stone of the quad. The griffin dripped from its nose, its outstretched wing, its feet. The rain had soaked through my shoes and the collar of my coat, and I have ever afterwards a.s.sociated that damp, cold feeling and the smell of wet December earth with the soul-deep sickness of betrayal.

The Doctor was late, almost ten minutes late. When he turned up he sported a summer-gaudy umbrella in primrose yellow and white, with a maple-wood handle in the shape of a duck's head. He offered this up for my examination, without so much as a word of greeting.

'It's very fine,' I said.

I wanted to say, 'Run!'

Because, once more in his presence, I could not believe there was anything bad about him.

Steady, I told myself. Alexander is a fair man, and will treat him as innocent until proven guilty. But the nagging doubt persisted. I knew what could happen to spies. What if a mistake was made?

'Is something wrong?'

The Doctor's voice interrupted my musings.

'Nothing's er ' I said. 'I just wondered '

'When the men in the white coats are going to come for me? I've often wondered that myself' His tone was light: but there was enough underlying seriousness to make me suspect he guessed the truth. He didn't need to turn that mesmeric stare on me: he had already shown his powers of deduction, and my guilt must have been written all over my rain-slicked face.

'I didn't '

I think it was the beginning of an excuse: but he interrupted me. 'Don't worry, I've been arrested more times than I can remember. Far more. You're not the guilty one, I can hardly blame you after the way I behaved at Bletchley. And despite my objections to the theory, I do know what 'secret' means in practice.'

Taken aback, I don't think I managed a reply at all. Whatever he said, I knew that I was to blame. Blame doesn't depend upon the degree of choice you had; nor does it depend on whether your victim suffers a severe consequence. Blame just is: it is the act of wrongdoing. And I had done wrong.

So, when the burly Military Police (who did not wear white coats or indeed any uniform at all) stepped forward, it was I who ran, cowering like a criminal, whilst the Doctor merely said, 'Good morning, gentlemen. Wet day for it.'

His insouciance gave me some relief: but it didn't last, as I watched the men bundle my friend roughly to the wet ground, handcuff him and drag him on his knees to the waiting car.

Shocked to the heart, I went straight to Alexander. He must have seen my frantic state, because he poured me a stiff brandy straightaway. He didn't talk about the Doctor: instead we discussed the new German code, and my progress in breaking it, which was still none, except in the negative sense that certain approaches could now be ignored as being of no use. I wasn't concentrating, however (the drink didn't help), and finally Alexander said, 'Look, Alan, we need to know everything you can tell us about this Doctor fellow. We can't establish any background on him at all. He claims he doesn't even remember where he was born. What have you spoken about?'

I stuttered something about privacy.

'Don't be b.l.o.o.d.y ridiculous, Alan! You know the situation. I don't want you arrested as well.'

I stared at him. 'I i is that possible?'

You will think I am stupid, but it simply hadn't occurred to me.

'More than possible. Even Tiltman wants you in the clink. And you've always been so discreet up until now compared with some of the chatterboxes here. I can't understand it.'

'I haven't broken any promises,' I said, though that wasn't true, since I had broken my promise to the Doctor (and I am breaking all my promises by making this tape, but that is another matter).

'That's got nothing to do with it! Alan, this isn't a chess problem. It's the look of a thing that matters as much as the truth. You've been consorting with a possible spy, you've brought him on to the premises, and '

'I'm certain he's not a spy. And he may have something useful to contribute.'

As soon as these last words were said, I regretted saying them. But it was too late: Alexander could hardly fail to notice the implication.

'What grounds have you got for thinking that?' he snapped.

'Checkmate,' I said weakly, trying to make a joke of it.

He did laugh, but his eyes didn't stray from mine.

'He seemed to know a great deal about what we do here,' I said. 'I didn't give anything away, but he was giving me advice nonetheless. I even found some of it useful!' I stood up, moved to the window, uncomfortable under Alexander's continuing stare.

'What precisely did he say?'

And so I had to tell him, of course. He made notes. I can remember now the sound of the pen scratching on paper.

I began to feel irritated. 'It doesn't matter!' I exclaimed. 'What matters is breaking this code.'

'I agree,' said Alexander. 'And curiously enough, your friend the Doctor says exactly the same thing.'

I whirled around, suddenly full of excitement and a childlike happiness. 'He's all right, then?'

'So far,' said Alexander. 'It all depends what Tiltman decides to do. He may call in the Intelligence boys.'

I asked where the Doctor was, but he wouldn't say any more.

I don't remember what I did that afternoon. I remember soldiers laughing and swearing, some army girls making a Christmas wreath from holly. One scratched her hands, and of course she had to t.i.tter at the wounds. At another time I stood on the road just inside the gate and thought about going for a walk but I was afraid that the sentries might have been instructed not to let me pa.s.s, and I didn't want to test the a.s.sumption. It was raining again, and all the trees were dripping. I imagined the Doctor in a dungeon-like cell, dank and unsanitary, though I knew it would more probably be of brick, and relatively well appointed. I thought about axioms, and theorems, and differences and betrayals. I thought about the beauty of the Doctor's form and the confusion of his mind and of the confusion in my own. I realised, not for the first time but with more clarity than ever before, that in matters of human relations there are sometimes no reasonable solutions, no single pair of co-ordinates mapping out the answer to the problem, and that you simply have to guess and be done with it.

It was after dark when I was called to Alexander's office again.

The intelligence officer, Mr White, was there, and also Brigadier Tiltman, the officer in charge of operations at both Bletchley and Hanslope. He was in dress uniform, as if straight from a mess party, but his expression and bearing were severe.

Alexander and Tiltman remained seated: White stood, shook my hand. His face showed a peculiar animation, the blue eyes weaving their gaze around the room almost l.u.s.tfully. He was like a hawk in possession of its prey, tearing at the flesh. I found it distasteful.

'Turing, I want to ask you three questions,' he said.

I nodded.

'One, do you believe the Doctor to be mad?'

I answered straightaway. 'Not in the ordinary sense.'

'Two, do you think this code can be broken by any of your methods?'

I hesitated on this one, then shook my head. 'I don't think so.'

White nodded. 'Three, do you think that the Doctor is right in his intuition that this code is uniquely important?'

I realised then that White, like myself, thought he had found something unique in the Doctor, and that he, too, could not quite let go of the mystery. But I wasn't sure I wanted to share it: this man seemed too dark in mood. I feared the consequences for the Doctor of their working together.

Whilst I was lost in thought over this, Tiltman and White had a muttered conversation over Alexander's desk.

White turned back to me. 'I think I can tell you this. The Doctor's been talking about an invasion.'

'But that's impossible! The Germans are retreating '

'On paper, yes, they can't win. But no one fights wars on paper. Take the buzz bombs: we didn't expect those. There isn't a contingency plan. They come cras.h.i.+ng out of the blue sky and kill us, and we can't stop them. We can't know what else the Germans may have developed or be trying to develop.'

'But that doesn't make sense. An invasion would require more than '

'I would like to take you to France,' interrupted White. 'Yourself, and the Doctor. I have the necessary authority.' He glanced at Tiltman, who simply shrugged.

Alexander, however, stood up, wide-eyed. 'Mr White! You can't do that! I don't think you can understand the importance of Mr Turing's contribution to the war effort!'

White ignored him. 'The mission won't be completely safe, Mr Turing. I know it's six months after the Liberation, but Paris is still an uncomfortable place. And it's possible that we may need to go nearer to the source of the code than that, perhaps even to the front line.'

I was cautious. Little of what White said made any sense to me, and I suspected his true reasons for the proposed mission might have nothing to do with what he was telling me.

'Why do you need me to go anywhere?' I asked. 'I can do any code breaking operation from here. In fact I can't very well do it anywhere else: the equipment and the engineers are all here. It's far too bulky '

'The Doctor wants to go,' said White. 'And he wants you to be with him. And I feel ' Again that wild look, his blue gaze rending the air as if it were flesh. 'I believe it to be necessary.'

After a moment's thought about White and the Doctor, about darkness, about betrayal and friends.h.i.+p and parallel lines I believed it to be necessary too.

Before dawn the next day, I was on my way to Paris.