I'm not talking about the killing, I'm talking about the thrill of giving everything over to the fight, using your body only as it's meant to be used. Right up against the edge.

We are weapons, Doctor, and all we do is invent more and more complex ways of killing each other. But when you get down to it, when you get right down to it. It's what we do best. That moment, when your hold on life is flickering out to nothing, when you've got seconds, just seconds left and everything's suddenly brighter and more wonderful than ever.

That's the only time you'll ever really live.

[OK so this sudden opening up is unexpected. And it's made me realise he's probably going to be a bit obsessed with suicide-by-barge for a while, it's not everyday you get to experience death.]

I've been there, the broken and bloody body of my enemy below me, moments away from that finalizing blow. And it's never given me quite so much of a thrill as the power of creation.

[And he really starts to understand the thrill he's after. It seems that he's an addict of sorts, not so much uncontrollably insane. At least, that's how he's interpreting it. He's not about to force himself onto his mind.

At least it's something.] And I've died more than once.

[He twists his lip, unconvinced.] Creation. Explain.

I've seen the birth of stars and watched them burn brilliantly into the darkness for the first time. The formation of planets from little more than interstellar drifting dust nudged in the right direction. The gratification of standing back and watching a machine that I've cobbled together from little more than scraps of discarded human technology stand of its own free will.

Have you ever created something you haven't immediately destroyed, by chance? [And are you going to lie to me or tell me a truth you've convinced yourself but not reality of?]

I don't destroy. Everything created already has the tools of its own destruction. I just nudge people in the right direction.

Why are you here? If it's all about the stars and the machines. Where's humanity in all that? Did you get lonely out there in the chaos?

I'm not human, so not very much. I've never understood humanity. They're a puzzling race half the time bent on their own demise, squabbling over ineffectual reasons and driving one another to the brink of destruction over the most petty of differences which somehow entitle them in their perception to superiority. But I believe in leaving things better than how I began them. The difference between me and my other selves is they were representatives of mankind. I chose people, one at a time.

So, what is your difficulty with humanity?

But you don't include people in your little speech. Are we a chore to you? Wouldn't you rather leave us to our own devices? Why meddle?

[ignoring the question, yet again.]

No no no. I answer yours when you answer mine.

... The lies they tell themselves.

Your turn.

I tried to leave them to their own devices but circumstances pressed me into a position of action. Were it not for the fondness of a couple of humans for my granddaughter I would be dead right now. They saved me after I kidnapped them with every intention of abandoning them randomly in time because they had the audacity to claim that I was a charade and were going to report our hidden location to the authorities. The... initial impression was a mixed one, and it remains so.

Kidnapping. Not very wardenly of you.

Why are you here? Why join this redemption charade. It's all about changing people. Fixing them. Doesn't sound like leaving people to their own devices to me.

First what lie. What lie is it that you despise most that humans tell themselves.

The lie that says they're better than, this. [He indicates his room/the barge] The lies, the rules, the moral code, there's no such thing. This whole barge is operating on a lie. Oh sure, you can Stockholm-people into thinking they've changed. But the moment they're back in their own worlds it'll all fall apart. The moment they have to choose between their lives, their needs and that of the man next door... well. [He shrugs]

Ah, so you feel the primitive, feral instinct of man is their truth.

I'm here to save lives, no matter what the means. More lives than are lost. Because just one of those lives might have the capacity to improve the universe at large. I'm no stranger to violent thought, and that's how I know it will go nowhere in the end. Just misery and corruption and the only form of companionship attainable is vying for attention through that hostility.

Lies.

People die everyday.You'd be better off spending your time finding a cure for cancer, or distributing diarrhoea salts. You want to save lives, then go, save them. You want to lord your way of thinking over mine, then please, stick around.

Let's just say my culture has an unusual opinion on death. You certainly seem to have decided you know my way of thinking.

Are you telling me you haven't made your own judgements on mine?

Things are usually a bit more complicated than "right" and "wrong" or "insane" and "sensible".

I didn't say final judgements, I said judgements. You're not just asking these questions to satisfy some purely intellectual sense of curiosity.

There's always an agenda.

Is there? What's yours? To indulge yourself? To spread chaos? To taste destruction or devour the power you can acquire from inspired fear? I've concluded very little about what you are and more about what you're not.

... good. [Cue mad laughter.]

I'll see you in Zero. [Growly Scottish voice back.]