And then there was Dalek X.
The armour casing was gunmetal black where the other Daleks were bronze. But the globes which studded the base unit and the thick armour slats on the weapons platform were all gold. He glided imperiously onto the landing level and swept straight past the Command Dalek without even acknowledging it.
The Command Dalek slid hurriedly in behind the Inquisitor General.
'REPORT!' barked Dalek X.
The Command Dalek edged closer as they moved towards the prison interior, flanked by the assault and elite guards. 'CORE SEPARATION IS PROCEEDING AS ORDERED – BUT THE SCHEDULE HAS BEEN DELAYED BY THE ARRIVAL AND APPREHENSION OF THE DOC–TOR!'
'HOW LONG UNTIL THE ARKHEON THRESHOLD IS BREACHED?'
'RESEARCH TEAM ESTIMATES TWO SOLAR DAYS UNTIL THE THRESHOLD IS EXPOSED. PARTICLE ACCELERATION BOMBARDMENT WILL FOLLOW IMMEDIATELY!'
They had reached the interior hallway. Dalek X swept around and allowed his cold blue gaze to fall on the Command Dalek for the first time. 'THE DELAY IS UNACCEPTABLE,' it grated. 'SUMMON THE DALEKS RESPONSIBLE FOR MAGNETIC CORE SEPARATION.'
'I OBEY!'
Led by Dalek X, the group moved into the prison control centre. The guard Daleks took up positions behind and either side of their master. Very soon, three Dalek mine overseers arrived. Their normal bronze casings were covered in grime and dust and lava splashes from the cave systems that surrounded the planet's molten core.
Dalek X's dome lights flashed menacingly. 'EXPLAIN THE DELAY IN MAGNETIC CORE SEPARATION!'
One of the Daleks moved forwards, twitching nervously. 'DISRUPTION DUE TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE DOC–TOR HAS DIVERTED RESOURCES FROM THE MINE WORKINGS. THE HUMAN SLAVES ARE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO ABSORB THE INCREASED WORKLOAD.'
'THIS DELAY IS UNACCEPTABLE,' repeated Dalek X implacably. 'YOU HAVE FAILED THE DALEKS! FAILURE CANNOT BE TOLERATED! EXTERMINATE!'
The two elite guard Daleks on either side of him instantly opened fire, unleashing twin bursts of neutronic energy at the mine Dalek. The creature inside was fried alive, its harsh, dying shriek nearly drowned by the piercing screech of the beams. A moment later, all that was left of the Dalek was a blackened shell, the oily smoke belching from the neck grille accompanied by a quiet sizzling noise.
'RECYCLE THE CASING,' ordered Dalek X, addressing the remaining mine Daleks. 'CONTINUE WITH THE SEPARATION SCHEDULE. FORCE THE HUMANS TO WORK HARDER AND FASTER. SELECT THE WEAKEST HUMAN EVERY HOUR AND EXTERMINATE IT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER SLAVES. THEY WILL REDOUBLE THEIR EFFORTS. CONTINUE!'
'WE OBEY!' shouted the Daleks. They turned and hurried away.
The Doctor was listening at the door of the cell with his stethoscope. He moved the diaphragm carefully around the metal frame and then raised his eyebrows.
'Lots of activity outside,' he murmured. 'Something's really stirred them up.'
'I told you,' said Bowman. 'It's Dalek X.'
The Doctor straightened up and folded away the stethoscope.
'We've got to get out of here.'
'Why didn't I think of that?' wondered Bowman drily. He was sitting along one of the benches watching the Doctor run his hands through his hair in agitation.
'We can't all be geniuses,' replied the Doctor, but he wasn't smiling. He started to go through his pockets.
'This is the top Dalek detention and interrogation facility. No one gets out of here alive.'
'You're being negative again.'
'I tell you it's impossible,' growled Bowman, losing patience.
'I like impossible!'
Cuttin' Edge stumbled again, crashing to his knees and almost pulling Koral over with him.
She staggered, grabbed him quickly by the arm and hauled him to his feet.
'Another slip like that will cost us all our lives!' she hissed in his ear.
He shook her hand away. 'You think I don't know that?' He looked down at his legs, where the tough material of his fatigues was stained with blood. He couldn't feel the pain, not properly. His legs were still riddled with nerves and it took all his concentration not to let them shake. Bending down and picking up rocks was becoming more and more problematic.
'Please, don't argue,' said Jenifa. She looked past Koral at Cuttin' Edge. 'It just attracts attention.'
'Not pickin' up rocks is gonna attract attention,' said Cuttin' Edge bitterly.
'Let's change places, then,' Jenifa suggested. She pulled a strand of sweat-soaked hair back behind her ear; her fingers were sore and bleeding from the work but she never complained. Behind her, Kuli watched silently, eyes wide and fearful.
Cuttin' Edge felt ashamed.
'I'll go to the head of the line,' explained Jenifa quickly. 'You stand at the back. Then you won't have to bend down so much.'
'I ain't no invalid,' said Cuttin' Edge.
'The Daleks might not agree,' Koral said.
'Look out,' Jenifa whispered suddenly. 'They're back.'
Two overseer Daleks had swept back into the cavern. They floated over the bubbling streams of lava, eyestalks roving over the human slaves.
'ATTENTION! THE WORK RATE IS UNACCEPTABLE! YOU WILL INCREASE YOUR EFFORTS IMMEDIATELY! IMMEDIATELY!'
'We can't work any harder,' argued one old woman bravely. She stood up straight, right in front of one of the Daleks. Her grey hair stood out on her scalp like wires, but there was a burning defiance in her eyes. 'You're just being ridiculous.'
'DO NOT ARGUE WITH THE DALEKS!' screamed the overseer. Its sucker arm extended and grabbed her by the face.
Unable to breathe, she was forced quickly to her knees. The suction cup released its grip and the old woman sagged to the ground, heaving. Those in her work unit gathered around, helping her back up as quickly as they could. Everyone knew that any untoward sign of weakness could result in death for them all.
'FROM THIS POINT ON WE WILL IDENTIFY THE WEAKEST WORK UNIT EVERY HOUR,' the Dalek continued, addressing the entire cavern. Its harsh, metallic voice echoed around the stalagmites. 'THAT WORK UNIT WILL BE EXTERMINATED.'
'NO FURTHER WARNING WILL BE GIVEN!' the second Dalek added.
There was a murmur of fear throughout the crowd – but no one wanted to argue too loudly.
'They're in one bad mood,' observed Cuttin' Edge quietly. 'I mean, worse than usual. Wonder what got into them?'
'Fear,' said Koral.
The Daleks swept through the lines of slaves, domes rotating. 'THE FIRST WORK UNIT TO BE EXTERMINATED WILL BE CHOSEN NOW.'
The slaves milled around in a quiet panic, all trying to look stronger, taller, fitter than their neighbours. Cuttin' Edge gritted his teeth as his legs started to shake. The sweat was pouring down his face and chest, his shirt stuck to his skin, and he knew he must look awful. Everyone else around him seemed to be healthier and more upright. Even the old woman who'd been suckered looked livelier than him.
The Daleks cornered a work unit on the edge of the cavern. From where they stood, Cuttin' Edge and Koral could not see the prisoners. Were they old? Weak? Injured? It was impossible to tell. All they heard was the savage metallic cry, 'EXTERMINATE!' and then a brilliant blue flash as the neutronic beams struck home.
Then silence.
'CONTINUE WORKING!' ordered the Daleks.
The remaining slaves set to their tasks with desperate energy, each work unit competing with the next as if it was some macabre contest.
Cuttin' Edge picked up rocks and passed them quickly down the chain. Kuli tossed them into the skip, giving a tiny little grunt of exertion every time. The whole process was repeated, again, again, faster, faster. Cuttin' Edge was shaking now, his legs on fire. Tears burned his eyes. Whoever they were – the ones that the Daleks had murdered – they couldn't have been any weaker than him. He felt ill with fear and guilt. How long would it be before they came for him?
In the prison control centre, the Command Dalek was studying a bank of monitors. Circular screens projected images of the mines, the core, the research laboratories, and the prison levels. One larg
e monitor was showing the interior of the Doctor's cell on level nine zero one. The Doctor and Bowman were sitting opposite each other, talking.
Dalek X glided over and stared intently at the image. 'WHICH ONE IS THE DOC–TOR?'
The Command Dalek indicated. The thin figure on the screen made the creature that lurked inside the bronze casing squirm. But Dalek X seemed completely unfazed. He studied the Time Lord with fierce intent, the blue light in his eye growing stronger by the second. And then, bizarrely, the Doctor looked up, straight at the camera lens. His wide, alien eyes stared out of the screen at the observers.
'HE KNOWS THAT WE ARE OBSERVING HIM!' said the Command Dalek.
'IT IS UNIMPORTANT. THE DOC–TOR HAS A HIGHER THAN AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE RATING FOR A HUMANOID. CERTAIN REACTIONS ARE EXPECTED.'
The Command Dalek touched a control and a succession of images flicked rapidly across the screen – different men: old, young, tall, short. The faces flicked past at bewildering speed. 'THIS PERSON DOES NOT MATCH ANY PREVIOUS IDENTIFIABLE VERSIONS OF THE DOC–TOR IN OUR DATABANKS.'
'HE CONTINUALLY CHANGES HIS PHYSICAL APPEARANCE IN A FUTILE EFFORT TO AVOID DETECTION,' explained Dalek X. His eyestalk never left the Doctor on the screen. 'HE HAS INTERFERED WITH DALEK PLANS ON MANY OCCASIONS. BUT HE WILL INTERFERE NO LONGER.'
'HE IS RESOURCEFUL AND CUNNING,' warned the Command Dalek.
'HE RELIES ON FORTUITY. HIS ARROGANCE WILL PROVE TO BE HIS DOWNFALL.' Dalek X turned away. 'BRING HIM TO THE INTERROGATION CHAMBER!'
The Doctor and Bowman had emptied their pockets to see what they could muster between them. It was the Doctor's idea; Bowman complied simply because he was too tired to argue.
On the floor in the centre of the cell was a little pile of junk: the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, his psychic paper, glasses, the TARDIS key, a pencil, a handful of strange coins, some string and a couple of rubber bands. He studied the assorted odds and ends as he chewed the earpiece on his stethoscope.
'No blaster,' observed Bowman.
'Guns are not the only weapons,' replied the Doctor tartly. 'It's all a matter of resources – and using our brains. Or rather my brain.'
'You going to take out the guard with a pencil?'
The Doctor picked through the junk. The sonic screwdriver was useless; all Dalek doors were deadlock sealed. The screwdriver wouldn't even scratch them. He picked up the TARDIS key and looked at it sadly. Then he closed his fist tightly around it. 'Come on, Doctor, think!'
Bowman sat back with a sigh.
'There must be more,' insisted the Doctor. 'Come on, anything. Are you sure you've checked all your pockets? No one travels that light.'
'I do.'
'You're just not trying. You've given up!'
Bowman raised an eyebrow. 'I think I gave up a long, long time ago.'
Something in his voice made the Doctor stop. He watched Bowman carefully for a second or two before saying, 'You mean when you first went on the run? I don't think Cuttin' Edge would believe that. He thinks the world of you.'
'Cuttin' Edge is just a kid.' Bowman rubbed a big hand across his eyes. 'No, I gave up long before all that.'
He reached into a side pocket and withdrew a small card. He threw it down in front of the Doctor. It was an old photograph, slightly creased and dog-eared – and the same picture that the Doctor had already seen as a hologram in Bowman's cabin aboard the Wayfarer. A very young, smooth-faced Jon Bowman with his proud parents.
'There,' growled Bowman. 'That's everything I have. There's nothing else.'
The Doctor picked up the photo and studied it. Bowman was smiling out from the past, caught in an unguarded moment when he knew nothing of the future. The Doctor wondered if that smile would have been so bright if he could have seen what lay ahead: older, tougher, disowned and disheartened, sitting on the floor of a Dalek prison cell.
'Ever since we came here,' said Bowman thickly, 'ever since I met you... I've had a feeling that this was it. The end of the line. I looked at Stella when she was lying in the sickbay and I knew – I just knew – what was coming.' He took the photo back and stared at the picture. 'The end of the line.'
'Not yet,' the Doctor said. 'You mustn't ever give up. There's always a chance.'
He grunted, unconvinced.
'Are your parents still alive?'
Bowman shrugged, 'Maybe. I haven't seen them in a long, long time. I doubt they even think of me any more. Why would they? I'm just a bad memory. When I went on the run, the army would have called on them, told them.' Bowman's words faded as his lips grew tight. He stared at the image in the photo, at the smiling eyes of his parents. He knew they weren't smiling at him.
'It's not too late...' began the Doctor.
The door to the cell suddenly whirred open, revealing two Daleks.
'End of the line, Doctor,' said Bowman.
TWENTY
They were taken out of the cell and marched down a series of featureless metal corridors. The Doctor could see that Bowman was getting very anxious now. His skin was a horrible grey colour, his lips compressed into a thin white line. His eyes were sunk deep into his head, full of visions of what lay ahead.
The Doctor's own hearts were hammering in his chest, the blood pounding away in his head. He was trying to think, trying to come up with a last-minute escape plan or brilliant idea, but his mind felt paralysed.
They passed a number of doorways and laboratories, with wide windows allowing views of Daleks at work: the Doctor saw one room with a native Arkheon mutant strapped to the wall, its skin glowing brightly under the harsh electric light. A Dalek opened fire at the mutant, which blackened and died like an autumn leaf. Another Dalek was calculating exactly what firepower was required to exterminate the creature.
Sickened, the Doctor looked away.
They arrived at a junction. Bowman was led to one door, while the Doctor was pushed towards another.
'Looks like this is it,' said Bowman. 'Time to give them a piece of my mind.'
The Doctor gamely tried to smile at Bowman's joke, but all he felt was a profound, helpless sadness. He swallowed with difficulty and then looked at Bowman. 'I'm sorry,' he said.
Bowman touched his forehead with a finger in ironic salute as the door began to close. 'Good luck.'
'Never give up!' the Doctor shouted after him. 'Never!'
Then the door slammed shut.
'MOVE!' ordered the Dalek next to him.
The Doctor drew a breath, and followed the Dalek into a darkened room. He was marched over to a metal wall and forced to stand upright against it. It felt uncomfortably like being made ready for the firing squad. His ankles and wrists were secured with tight steel bands so that he was utterly immobilised. The Daleks then withdrew and the door clanged shut behind them. The Doctor was left in complete darkness.
It was cold. He had no idea how big the room was or what else was in there with him. He couldn't see a thing. All he could hear was the heavy, metallic throb of Dalek machinery and behind that some kind of hard, electric vibration. The air tasted of static.
Something cold and metal embraced his head. The Doctor gasped as his skull was clamped into position and a hundred fine needles pricked his scalp. This is it, he thought, his hearts racing. The beginning of the end.
Eventually, a light appeared in the darkness – a blue disc. The eye of a Dalek. He sensed rather than saw the familiar shape as it circled, its single blue eye always on him.
Eventually a harsh, grating voice said, 'DOC–TOR...'
The lights on the Dalek's head flashed slowly, in time with each syllable. The Doctor swallowed. This Dalek was in no hurry. He licked his lips and, as brightly as he could manage, replied, 'That's me.' His voice sounded more brittle than he would have liked.
'I AM DALEK X.'
'Can't say I'm pleased to meet you, sorry.'
'YOU ARE ATTACHED TO A DALEK MIND-PROBE MACHINE. IT HAS BEEN CALIBRATED TO YOUR SPECIFIC BRAINWAVE FREQUENCY.'
'You won't get anything out
of me,' the Doctor blurted.
'THAT IS NOT THE INTENTION,' replied Dalek X. 'YET.'
The Doctor couldn't turn his head because of the mind probe. It felt like a vice clamped around his skull. A couple of extra turns on the screw would crack the bone. 'So...' he said at last, 'what do you want? If it's my secret recipe for bread and butter pudding you can forget it. I'm taking that little beauty to my grave.'
'I INTEND TO MEASURE YOUR CAPACITY FOR PHYSICAL PAIN,' said Dalek X.
'Oh. Why?'
'BECAUSE I WISH TO.'
The Dalek's sucker touched a control on the mind-probe machine and turned it minutely. There was a fierce, galvanistic crackle of power, and the Doctor's body arched like a bow, straining against its bonds. A howl of anguish echoed through the darkness, torn from his lips with sudden, shocking ease.
How long it was before the control was released the Doctor could not tell. Time passed in an abstract sense amid a kaleidoscope of pain. It could have been seconds, minutes or even hours. It left him drained, limp, his hair stuck to his head with perspiration and his throat raw from screaming.
'EXPECT NO MERCY,' Dalek X informed him.
'I'm not stupid,' the Doctor croaked, feeling very stupid indeed. Partly because his head felt so foggy with pain but also because he couldn't for the life of him work out how it had all come to this: helpless, friendless and homeless, chained to a wall and tortured by the Devil in Dalek form. That's how Bowman had described him, and it was difficult to argue.
'DALEKS DO NOT SHOW MERCY,' said Dalek X.
'Yes,' the Doctor replied. 'I know.'
'MERCY IS WEAKNESS.'
'Really? Why don't you just give it a try? Go on, I won't tell anyone.' The Doctor tensed, ready for the next onslaught. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the Dalek's suction arm hovering over the probe control. Any second now and he would be plunged back into the abyss of pain. 'On second thoughts, maybe I'm wasting my breath. And I've reconsidered the bread and butter pudding thing. You can have it if you want.'
Prisoner of the Daleks Page 14