Prisoner of the Daleks

by Trevor Baxendale

  The Doctor stood up, slowly, to his full height. As tall as Bowman was, the Doctor could still look him in the eye. And he did this now, unflinchingly, his gaze cool and level. 'You can beat me up if you want to,' the Doctor told him. 'Here and now. Go on. Give it your best shot. If it helps, your two pals here can hold my arms. How about it, fellas? No?'

  Scrum shook his head and even Cuttin' Edge looked away.

  'Stop wasting my time,' Bowman said.

  'I never waste time. So, come on. Here I am!' The Doctor held his arms out wide. 'Use your fists, do me some damage. Get rid of that anger and frustration. Don't hold back, Bowman, I'm not armed. I'm just a skinny guy in a suit. What's the problem? Here, I'll make it easier for you, shall I?' The Doctor put on his glasses. 'There! Now, come on, Bowman! Hit me hard! Sort me out!'

  By now the Doctor was practically shouting in Bowman's face. The captain of the Wayfarer stared back, unmoving, but the muscles in his jaw and face were quivering with barely suppressed anger.

  Then Koral stepped between them. 'That is enough. Everyone mourns for Auros. We should be fighting Daleks, not each other.'

  There was a long, deadly pause.

  Then the Doctor slowly folded his glasses and put them away. 'Thank you.'

  Bowman was still seething, but, somehow, Koral had been able to prevent him losing his temper completely. He scowled at the Doctor. 'What were the Daleks doing on Hurala? What are they up to? We've stumbled across something big here, and I think you know what's going on.'

  All eyes turned to look at the Doctor. 'I don't know,' he told them. 'Really, I don't. I shouldn't even be here. I'm in the wrong time and place altogether. In fact, I'm in the wrong time and place in more ways than you can imagine.'

  'You always talk like that,' muttered Cuttin' Edge. 'Don't make no sense.'

  'I just want to know what the Daleks were doing at the Lodestar station on Hurala,' repeated Bowman wearily. 'That's all.'

  Scrum cleared his throat. 'Actually, captain, I think I may know a way we can find out.'

  It was still cold in the cargo chamber, and the Dalek was still frozen.

  But not as frozen as it was.

  Now there was a steady trickle of water running down the segmented shoulders, dripping from the gun and sucker, pooling on the floor beneath the base. The head dome was almost completely clear of frost.

  'What's happening?' asked Bowman.

  'It's thawing out,' said the Doctor. His eyes were wide and anxious.

  'Who asked you?' demanded Bowman. He turned to Scrum. 'I thought it was dead.'

  'Perhaps it still is,' Scrum replied, circling the Dalek slowly, examining the casing. 'Perhaps this is some kind of automatic response by the armour.'

  'But?'

  'Yeah,' said Cuttin' Edge, 'I can sense a big "but" there, too.'

  'But... I was thinking,' said Scrum, 'that the armour is actually a life-support system. Perhaps when the cryo-charge hit it didn't kill the creature inside but it froze it as well. Exactly what a cryo-charge is supposed to do, after all.'

  'Wait,' said the Doctor. He stepped forward, right up to the Dalek. And then he hesitated, almost as if he was trying to convince himself of what he should do next. He took an old stethoscope out of his jacket pocket, clipped it into his ears, and placed the other end against the Dalek casing very, very softly.

  Everyone was silent. All that could be heard was the steady background rumble of the ship's engines and the occasional drip of melting ice.

  The Doctor had closed his eyes, concentrating. He moved the stethoscope to another area of the casing and listened again. Then, finally, he tried it against the black grille between the bronze neck rings.

  Then the Doctor's eyes snapped open, the pupils dilating. He straightened up and backed away from the Dalek very quickly. 'It's alive,' he whispered. 'Inside. It's still alive.'

  'I knew it,' breathed Scrum. A strange light came into his eyes as he watched the machine creature. More water trickled down through the frosted globes on its base unit.

  'It's thawing itself out. The casing is doing it automatically.'

  'This is bad news, man,' said Cuttin' Edge.

  'The worst,' confirmed the Doctor. 'It's not strong enough to control the machinery yet, but it will be...'

  Bowman said, 'Not really interested in your opinion, Doctor. All I know is we've caught ourselves a live Dalek here. I don't know anyone who's ever done that before.'

  'It's better than that,' said Scrum excitedly. 'It's thawing out very slowly. We've got it totally under our control. If we disable the weaponry and self-destruct system we can render this thing completely harmless.'

  The Doctor frowned at him. 'No Dalek is ever completely harmless.'

  'So what are you suggesting, Scrum?' Bowman asked.

  'I suggest we open this thing up,' Scrum replied. 'And ask it a few questions.'

  EIGHT

  The Wayfarer suddenly became a hive of activity. Scrum and Cuttin' Edge set about securing the Dalek, wheeling in equipment and tools into the cargo hold with an air of professional urgency.

  The Doctor caught up with Bowman in the corridor, heading for his cabin. 'You can't be serious about this.'

  'I'm deadly serious,' replied Bowman over his shoulder. 'This is a golden opportunity to gain first-hand intelligence from an actual Dalek. No one's ever done that before.'

  'Bowman, it's a golden opportunity to get us all killed,' the Doctor argued. 'Why don't you just take the thing back to Earth Command? Let them handle it.'

  'No way. Earth Command is too far from here. We're in deep space, Doctor. Out here, no one can hear you whinge.'

  'Bowman, I mean it—'

  'Me too. We're on our own, Doctor. Just us and a Dalek. I've waited a long time for this.'

  The Doctor let out an exasperated gasp. 'You're messing with things you just don't understand!'

  Bowman rounded on him. 'No,' he growled. 'I understand the Daleks only too well, Doctor. I've fought them all my adult life. Fought them. I saw good soldiers and friends gunned down by those things, vaporised, like they never even existed. We all listened to the leaders of Auros being shot out of space in cold blood...'

  'Believe me, no one knows the terrible things the Daleks can do better than me but—'

  'Really?' Bowman paused in the doorway to his cabin. He looked doubtfully at the Doctor. 'That thing killed Stella. And you know how those Dalek guns work, don't you? On full power, they can blast a human being into atoms in a split second. But they never do that. Every Dalek dials down the power on its gun-stick to the specific level that will kill a human being. Then they lower the power setting just a tiny bit further, so that the beam burns away the central nervous system from the outside in, meaning that every human being dies in agony. So it takes a full two to three seconds for a Dalek to exterminate one of us – and that's deliberate.'

  'I know,' said the Doctor. 'I know all that. But it still doesn't mean that what you're about to do is right. You can't just use it as an excuse to take your revenge for Stella's death.'

  'But revenge is what I want,' said Bowman simply.

  Cuttin' Edge had used the cargo loader to suspend the Dalek upside down from the ceiling. Its base unit was clamped into the lifter's giant metal slide grips. It hung in the middle of the chamber, its dome section level with Scrum's head.

  'Perfect,' said Scrum, giving the thumbs up. 'See if you can secure the arm now.'

  Cuttin' Edge was standing at the remote-control unit for the cargo loader. A few deft adjustments and a powerful metal clamp moved down from the lifting apparatus to grab hold of the Dalek's sucker arm. Cuttin' Edge increased the torque until the clamp began, very slowly, to dent the metallic tube which made up the arm. It was utterly immobilised.

  The door to the cargo hold slid open and the Doctor moped in, hands in pockets. He looked up at the Dalek and tilted his head, frowning. 'Why upside down?'

  'The loader's gravity field cancels out the Dalek's elevation unit
s,' explained Scrum. He was moving around the Dalek, examining the neck and shoulder sections carefully. 'I've rigged a high-frequency radio-wave jamming field too, which should counteract the motive unit.'

  The Doctor nodded, impressed. 'Yeah, that might work. I've done that a couple of times myself. It'll interfere with the guidance systems at least, and maybe the motive unit. But it won't last for ever. You'll get ten seconds, tops, before it finds a way to cancel the jamming field.'

  'That's all we'll need.'

  'You know this is wrong, don't you?' the Doctor asked. He picked up a couple of tools from a nearby table, checked them over, tossed them back down. 'Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong in so many ways.'

  Cuttin' Edge looked scornful. 'We know what we're doin'.'

  'And one of the many ways in which it is wrong,' continued the Doctor, 'is the way in which it is insanely, obviously and ludicrously dangerous.'

  'Hey, we're Dalek hunters, dude. We do this for a livin'. Scrum's got everything covered.'

  Scrum cleared his throat. 'Actually, I was rather hoping you would help, Doctor.'

  'Not a chance.'

  'You may not agree with what we're trying to do, but you must want to make sure the Dalek is truly defenceless.'

  'No Dalek is ever truly defenceless.' The Doctor sighed. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. Sucked in his cheeks. Blew out a long breath between his teeth and scratched the back of his neck. 'Oh, all right. But not because I approve of what you're doing. I just don't fancy my central nervous system being fried from the outside in – or watching yours being fried, for that matter.'

  'We've immobilised the Dalek and secured the arm. It's effectively blind but—'

  'Watch that sucker,' warned the Doctor, pulling Scrum away from the Dalek's reach. 'I've seen those things crush bricks like that.' He closed his fingers into a sudden fist.

  'Uh, thanks. Well, as I said – the Dalek is effectively blind...'

  'Vision impaired,' muttered the Doctor. 'That's how they like to put it. But don't forget it's got sensor systems all over its body.'

  'It's the gun I'm worried about.'

  'Yeah, you really want that out of action.' The Doctor slipped his glasses on and examined the weapon housing. 'Best thing is to remove it completely.'

  'Is that possible?'

  'While it's still thawing out we can try.'

  The Doctor pulled a small set of steps over so that he could see the gun platform more easily. He took out his sonic screwdriver. 'There are four galvanised trintillium bolts securing the armour plate here around the ball-and-socket joint. See? We've got to get those out before we can see what's what.'

  Scrum's eyes widened. 'Can you do that?'

  'Let's give it a go,' answered the Doctor, clicking open the screwdriver.

  Bowman kept an old bottle of Draconian branka in his cabin. He unscrewed the lid and sloshed some into a plastic cup. He stared at it for a second and then swallowed it down in one. The fire spread through his throat and stomach and he closed his eyes to appreciate the flavour. Then he grimaced.

  'Yuck. Never did like that stuff.'

  'Yet you still drink it?' Koral stepped into the pool of light that came from the captain's desk lamp.

  'Sometimes.' Bowman placed the cup on the desk.

  'Why?'

  'It's tradition. Times like these, you need courage.'

  'It gives you courage?'

  'No. It just makes you think you have it. Drink enough and you think you've got all the courage in the world.'

  'And what if you drink too much?'

  'Then it doesn't really matter what you think.'

  Koral sat on the edge of the desk. 'And what about the Doctor? What do you think of him?'

  'Isn't it obvious? He's a jumped up little nerd who thinks he knows a bit about the Daleks.'

  'Perhaps he does.'

  Bowman regarded her carefully. 'You reckon?'

  'He's not like you. But he does know a lot about the Daleks.'

  'How can you tell?'

  'Because of the fear in his eyes.'

  'Huh.' Bowman reached for the plastic cup and the bottle again.

  Koral put a hand on his arm, stopping him from pouring another drink. 'The more you know about the Daleks,' she said, 'the more you learn to fear them.'

  Very carefully, the Doctor lifted the Dalek gun-stick out of its housing. The big black sphere at its base, which provided the weapon with an incredible field of fire, was attached to the interior of the rotating shoulder platform by a number of wires and flexible tubes.

  'Hold that steady,' he told Scrum. Scrum took the gun-stick in his hands and watched the Doctor peer inside the open socket.

  'You have to cut the right connections in the right order,' said the Doctor, aiming his sonic screwdriver inside and making a number of careful incisions. His voice was barely a whisper. 'It's a bit like defusing a bomb.'

  'You've defused bombs before, then, have you?' asked Cuttin' Edge, looking over his shoulder.

  'Yeah, loads.' The Doctor concentrated on the task at hand for a few more seconds and then said, 'Here we go! Molto bene! Out we come!'

  He pulled the last wires out and the gun came free. Scrum carried it over to a workbench – it was heavier than it looked – and set it down carefully.

  'You're right to be cautious,' the Doctor told him, wandering over. He was wiping his hands on a rag. 'There's a compressed power reservoir in the ball joint. There's still plenty of shooting to be done with that thing.' He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the base of the gun-stick and a shrill whine filled the air. Smoke started to drift out of the gun.

  'There.' The Doctor flicked off the screwdriver. 'I've fused the control linkages. No more killing.'

  'It was that easy?' queried Cuttin' Edge, looking from the gun-stick to the sonic screwdriver. 'An' that thing looks so dinky.'

  'It's not dinky,' retorted the Doctor sharply. He held the screwdriver up, examining it. 'It's not at all dinky!'

  'Whatever, it still made short work of that Dalek gun.'

  The Doctor's face hardened and he took off his glasses. 'Only because it's disconnected from the Dalek itself. A sonic screwdriver wouldn't touch it otherwise.'

  At that moment, Bowman strode in with Koral in tow. He took one look at the upside-down Dalek, and then glanced at the Doctor. 'What's he doing here?'

  'He's been helping us,' said Scrum.

  Bowman looked sceptical and the Doctor quickly shook his head. 'Oh no. No, not really. Not helping as such...'

  'Yes, he has,' insisted Scrum, nodding at the gun-stick lying on the workbench. 'Couldn't have done that without him.'

  'I'm not helping,' said the Doctor firmly. 'I just don't want any of you hurt.' He glanced at Bowman. 'Well, most of you.'

  Bowman and Koral exchanged a look but said nothing. Eventually Bowman turned his back on the Doctor and addressed Scrum. 'Where are we up to?'

  'We're ready. The casing is secured and disarmed. We can transmit a jamming field to interfere with any attempt by the creature inside to activate a self-destruct mechanism.'

  'All we gotta do now is open the damn thing up,' said Cuttin' Edge.

  Bowman walked slowly around the Dalek. It was completely inert. No movement from the single remaining appendage, no glimmer of light in the luminosity dischargers on its head. 'You're sure it's still alive in there?'

  'Only one way to find out,' said Scrum.

  'OK,' nodded Bowman. 'Let's get on with it. I've got a few questions I'd like answers to.'

  'It won't work,' said the Doctor. He was leaning against the doorway, arms folded. 'Interrogating a Dalek is pointless. It won't give you any information. There's nothing you can do to it that will make it tell you anything.'

  Bowman looked at him, raising an eyebrow. 'You ever tried?'

  A pause. 'No.'

  Bowman turned back to Scrum. 'Open it up.'

  Cuttin' Edge powered up his laser and stepped forward.

  'Wait!' cried the Doctor. 'Ju
st one more thing. Don't forget that machine is also a life-support system. Open it up and you'll kill the creature inside.'

  Bowman shrugged. 'Like I'm worried.'

  'It's murder.'

  All eyes turned on the Doctor, and he knew exactly what they were all thinking. Bowman said it out aloud: 'What about Stella? What do you call that?'

  'You some kinda Dalek sympathiser now?' asked Cuttin' Edge bitterly.

  'No. It's just...' The Doctor took a deep breath. 'It's just not right. I won't be a part of it.'

  Bowman's lip curled as if his every worst opinion of the Doctor had been confirmed. He turned back to the others. 'Let's get on with it.'

  Cuttin' Edge moved in with the laser, but Koral stepped forward and blocked his way. Puzzled, he switched off the laser, and the Doctor felt a surge of hope.

  But Koral simply said, 'I wish to do this. For Stella.'

  'It's OK,' said Bowman. 'Let her.'

  Metallic claws sprang out of Koral's fingertips. They glinted, razor-sharp in the electric light. She stepped up to the Dalek and, turning her hand flat like the blade of a knife, pointed her fingertips at the centre of the shoulder section. It was here that the two halves of the weapons platform met, and, below this now that the Dalek was suspended upside down, the sections of the neck. There was an almost invisible join, less than a hair's breadth. Koral's red eyes narrowed as she concentrated and then, with explosive force, jabbed her fingers into the Dalek. The claws penetrated the metal with a flash of angry sparks.

  There was no response. The Doctor was both appalled and fascinated. He realised that the claws must be diamond-hard and incredibly sharp, but even so – that kind of effort required immense mental focus and physical power.

  Koral inserted her claws in the gap she had made and then suddenly, apparently with little effort, began to pull the two sections apart. At first the metal protested with a hideous grinding noise, but then, with a loud hiss of escaping gas, hydraulic motors opened the Dalek from within. Segments of armour split away, shifting on concealed hinges and slides.

  Now the creature inside was visible. Something pale and wet moved like a slug among the exposed machinery, recoiling from the light.