Doctor Who: The Dalek Generation

by Nicholas Briggs

  ‘It is the decision of this court …’ started the Litigator.

  ‘Oh … what are you up to now?’ interrupted the Doctor.

  ‘That these children should remain on Sunlight 349 in the custody of Lillian Belle,’ said the Litigator.

  Lillian held on to the children protectively.

  ‘Oh, neat,’ said the Doctor quietly. ‘But what about their sister, Jenibeth?’

  There was a pause. The Litigator seemed to consider. For a moment, the Doctor thought he had gained some ground, that he had outwitted the Litigator. But he soon realised he was wrong.

  ‘If the girl has been taken into protective custody by the Daleks—’ it began.

  ‘Protective custody!’ the Doctor said mockingly. ‘You have got to be kidding.’

  ‘Then we will make all efforts to retrieve her and set her free,’ said the Litigator.

  Someone in the crowd shouted out ‘Here, here!’, provoking other cries of support for the Dalek Litigator. Slowly, applause started to break out. An applause that grew and grew until it roared with cheers.

  The Doctor faced the Dalek Litigator. Its blank, ice-cold blue stare met him, unflinchingly. The Doctor felt sure that if it could have given a self-satisfied smile, it would have done. It had completely outmanoeuvred him. Only one question remained.

  As the applause slowly died down, the Doctor seated himself on the bench nearby, folded his arms, kicked out his feet and said, ‘So, what are you going to do with me?’

  The crowd became hushed again.

  ‘You won’t hurt him, will you?’ Sabel suddenly blurted out.

  There was no reply, until …

  A tiny, whining noise from above. The Doctor heard it first and looked up. Something blue and square was descending towards him. As it got lower in the sky, he could see he was staring at the bottom of the TARDIS, with the blue glow of Dalek thrusters at each corner. Four Daleks, their suckers firmly attached to the old police box shell, were carrying the TARDIS.

  As they landed, the Daleks released their suction grip and the TARDIS thudded to the pavement.

  ‘You’re going to let me go?’ asked the Doctor, in total disbelief. ‘You’re really letting me go?’

  The Litigator withdrew its suction arm, then indicated the TARDIS with it.

  ‘What are you up to?’ asked the Doctor, gripped with suspicion.

  All right, he thought, he would test this offer. He walked boldly to the TARDIS doors, put his hand in his pocket to find his key. He found it, but his hand also brushed against something else. Something smooth, small and cube-shaped. It was the message cube he had received from himself. It was still in his pocket, and it had re-formed.

  Only pausing for a moment to think about this, the Doctor produced the TARDIS key and unlocked the doors. They swung open, creaking reassuringly. From inside, he could see the warm, orange-ish glow of the control room, the familiar sounds of his beloved ship drifting to his ears.

  He looked around at the Dalek Litigator and the other Daleks. None of them was making a move to stop him.

  ‘All right, then,’ he said, still not sure what might happen next. ‘Bye.’

  He entered the TARDIS, then quickly stepped back out. ‘Since you’re so touchy-feely and full of compassion for the children,’ he said to the Dalek, his words dripping with sarcasm, ‘Any objections to me saying goodbye to them?’ He flicked a look at the crowd, then looked back at the Litigator. ‘Since your faithful generation of Dalek citizens are watching?’

  ‘Proceed,’ said the Litigator in a low, flat tone.

  The Doctor immediately marched up to the children. They looked up at him. Children who did not know what to think or feel now. The clever coercion of the Dalek Litigator had traumatised them even more, and the Doctor was certain of one thing. He would not make them feel worse. They had suffered enough. He would not plead for their understanding or try to change their minds. He would do just one thing. Something that he realised now was probably the most important thing of all.

  He knelt down and took Ollus’s hand. The little boy tried to pull it away.

  ‘It’s OK,’ the Doctor said closely, in such a warm voice that Ollus relented for a moment. With the slightest sleight of hand, the Doctor had given the small white cube to Ollus. The little boy’s eyebrows raised questioningly. The Doctor slowly shook his head and winked.

  ‘If you ever think you need me,’ whispered the Doctor, ‘just hold this box and think of me. That’s all.’

  ‘Enough,’ said the Litigator. ‘You are upsetting the child.’

  There were some boos from the crowd. But Sabel, Ollus and Lillian did not join in. They looked at the Doctor, their faces showing they were confused. The Doctor simply smiled at them, rising to his feet, noticing that Ollus was slipping the cube into his pocket. With his other hand, the boy was holding his little spaceship.

  ‘Aha,’ the Doctor murmured to himself. He could feel ideas falling into place. He now knew what to do next.

  The Doctor spun round, giving a big wave to everyone. He walked straight up to the Dalek Litigator and pointed directly into its blue eye lens.

  ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’ said the Doctor. He dashed to the TARDIS and went inside, closing the door straight away. Then the door opened again. The Doctor poked his head out.

  ‘But what if I’m cleverer?’

  The door banged shut and, seconds later, the TARDIS dematerialised.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Call the Doctor

  Nearly nine decades after the departure of the Doctor from Sunlight 349 …

  Ollus sat down in his favourite chair and looked out of the window of his comfy little room. The sun was shining as warmly as ever. He smiled as he saw his beloved little spaceship toy on the windowsill. It reminded him of his mother and father, though he barely remembered what they looked like now. Most of his memories had been kindly donated to him by his elder sister, Sabel, who lived in one of the other comfy rooms in the City Zone 004 Care Home for the Elderly.

  He hadn’t seen Sabel for a few days now. She’d had a cold and the nurses had told him it was best for her to be left alone to recover. He was missing her, but he understood that it was for the best.

  Just then, there was a gentle knock at the door. Gill, his care attendant entered, smiling.

  ‘Morning, Mr Blakely,’ she said, in a sing-song sort of way. ‘Did you enjoy your breakfast this morning?’

  ‘Oh, I expect so,’ Ollus said, smiling back at her. He spotted a tray with an empty plate, bowl and cup on it. Oh yes, he thought. He had enjoyed it. He remembered that now.

  ‘And what shall we do today?’ asked Gill. ‘A little walk?’

  ‘Oh yes, that would be nice,’ he said, gaining the faint impression that this was what he did most days. ‘How is Sabel?’

  ‘Still a bit poorly, but the doctors say shell be better in a day or two,’ said Gill, mopping up some spilt juice then picking up the tray and heading for the door.

  ‘The doctors,’ said Ollus, suddenly deep in thought.

  He heard Gill stop at the door. She came padding back over to him.

  ‘What is it, Mr Blakely?’ she asked him.

  ‘I knew a doctor once, you know,’ he said. Suddenly, he could picture the Doctor, in his tweed jacket and bow tie, smiling at him, handing him something. He could feel the smooth sides of a small cube in his hand, almost as if he were actually touching it now.

  ‘A doctor? Really?’ asked Gill, perching on the side of Ollus’s bed, next to his chair. ‘Which doctor was this?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure,’ said Ollus, wrinkling up his old face as he tried to concentrate. ‘So difficult to remember things these days, I’m afraid.’ He squeezed his hand tight in his cardigan pocket as he tried to remember. Then he suddenly realised he actually had the small cube in his hand … now. Of course, yes. He remembered. He always kept this in his pocket. He brought it out and showed it to Gill.

  Gill looked at the c
ube, fascinated.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ollus. ‘The Doctor gave it to me. I remember that. He gave it to me … And he said …’

  Ollus trailed off. He shut his eyes and started to feel a little uneasy. Was this a bad memory? Then, in his mind, through a warm haze, he saw the Doctor’s face, smiling and winking. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad memory after all. Was it his? Or was it something Sabel had told him? He couldn’t tell. Then he remembered the Doctor’s words.

  ‘He said, “If you ever think you need me, just hold this box and think of me.” Yes, I remember that now. Nice, isn’t it?’ said Ollus, holding the little white cube up to the light. ‘Nice thing to say. I think …’

  And then he felt very tired. His arm started to waver.

  ‘Oh, now then,’ he heard Gill say, as his eyes started to close. ‘You’re tiring yourself out with all this remembering.’

  He felt her hands help him to lie back as the chair reclined.

  She probably put the cube back in my pocket, he thought as he drifted into sleep.

  Probably.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Return to Gethria

  Taking meticulous care not to cross his own timeline, the Doctor set the coordinates for the TARDIS to return to Gethria. He would arrive just moments after he had left that lonely little funeral near the great Cradle of the Gods monument.

  His mind was now afire with a burning purpose. The Dalek Litigator may have outwitted him, but now he had an idea he knew how to defeat the entire Dalek plan.

  The TARDIS engines thudded to a halt and the Doctor dashed down the steps of the control room and out onto the planet’s surface. He had landed in exactly the same position as before. In the distance ahead of him, he could see the still, silent monument, now deserted, the mourners having left just a few minutes earlier.

  He quickened his pace, breaking out into a slight sweat in the hot noon sun. As he neared the monument, he could see the gravestone, and there, embedded in it, along with other strange little items, was Ollus’s precious spaceship toy. Just as it was when the Doctor had seen it for the very first time – a little old and worn, but definitely the same toy.

  Reaching out to it, he stopped for a moment, feeling sad all of a sudden. This must have been Ollus’s funeral. So who sent the message in the cube? Was it Ollus, when he knew he was close to the end of his life?

  Blinking back the beginning of a tear, the Doctor firmly gripped the model spaceship in the stone. He pulled. It would not budge. This was going to need a bit of sonic technology to dislodge it.

  Just as he was producing his sonic screwdriver to vibrate the little toy free, he was aware of a noise, over by the monument. A soft, shifting of sand.

  He looked over, and there he saw an old woman standing by the great stone structure, dwarfed by its imposing scale. He looked hard at her. She was looking right back at him.

  Slowly, she began to approach. As she got closer, he began to recognise her features. It was the old woman he had seen here before, when he had first observed the funeral in progress. She had stopped and looked at him, and then left.

  Now she was back.

  Then it suddenly struck him, as something in her eyes triggered another memory … This was one of the Blakely children.

  ‘Is it …?’ he started to ask as she arrived in front of him, smiling a somewhat haunted smile.

  ‘Sabel,’ she said in a brittle, old voice. ‘Hello, Doctor.’

  ‘Sabel?’ said the Doctor. ‘I came straight here. Straight from saying goodbye to you and Ollus.’

  He looked down at the gravestone.

  ‘It’s been a lifetime for us,’ said Sabel. ‘More than a lifetime.’

  The Doctor nodded. Time travel did this kind of thing to him all the time. That was the nature of it. A twisty-turning thing that would tangle your hearts in barbs if you let it. He sniffed a thought-clearing sniff and reached out to touch Sabel’s hand.

  She withdrew it.

  ‘Still not forgiven me, eh?’ he said, nodding.

  ‘I sent the message in the cube,’ she said coldly. ‘Ollus was too ill. He wanted to see you again, but …’

  ‘I was too late …’ said the Doctor, deeply saddened.

  ‘Like you were too late to save our parents. Too late to save … Jenibeth,’ said Sabel.

  The Doctor felt those barbs in his hearts. He narrowed his gaze at Sabel. That was a cruel thing for her to say, but perhaps understandable. She had very possibly spent her life resenting the madman in a box who promised everything but delivered nothing.

  He nodded. ‘Understood,’ he said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to.’

  He pointed his sonic screwdriver at the spaceship embedded in the stone. Activating it, he watched as it buzzed and the cement around the hull of the toy vibrated and crumbled.

  ‘I know I can never make things better for you,’ said the Doctor. ‘But I can at least stop the Daleks.’

  ‘Stop the Daleks?’ there was an eagerness in her voice. Perhaps she would understand after all.

  ‘Yes, this toy of Ollus’s,’ said the Doctor. ‘I think this is what contains the activation codes for the Cradle of the Gods. I think Alyst and Terrin Blakely, your parents, couldn’t resist making a record of their codes. Diligent physicists, you see. Catalogue and record everything. That’s why this place came alive before, when Ollus was holding it.’

  Then he stopped. It didn’t quite make sense.

  Thinking aloud, he said, ‘Then why isn’t it working now? Perhaps it’s to do with proximity, and we were right inside that thing. Or … Hmm.’ He would attempt to explain this to himself later, he decided. He switched off the sonic screwdriver.

  ‘What are you going to do with it now?’ asked Sabel.

  ‘Destroy it,’ he said. ‘Smash it to pieces.’

  Aware that Sabel was watching him intently, he put his hand on the little spaceship and started to pull it free of the gravestone.

  Suddenly, Sabel’s hand shot out and grabbed his. The shock he felt was not just caused by the suddenness, but by the sheer strength of her grip and …

  The cold.

  The icy cold touch of Sabel’s hand. Colder than any living hand he had ever touched. Straining and failing to pull free of her iron grip, the Doctor looked Sabel straight in the eyes. She looked back at him with an emptiness that reminded him of the blankness of a Dalek’s stare.

  And then it happened …

  A blue glow started to emerge through Sabel’s forehead. A strange, unnerving, buzzing, cracking sound was rising. Her eyes remained fixed on him as a Dalek eyestalk burst through her bloodless skin, staring at him with its penetrating blue light.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A Billion Skaros

  ‘Oh, Sabel,’ the Doctor breathed. ‘They got you, didn’t they? The Daleks got you.’

  In this moment of horror, the Doctor involuntarily relaxed his grip on the toy. With precise, mechanical reflexes, Sabel thrust the Doctor’s hand aside and caught the little spaceship before it hit the ground.

  The Doctor immediately made to grab the spaceship back but, with remarkable agility, she sidestepped him, then held up her other hand. The bloodless skin peeled back and the silver metal of a Dalek gun protruded unpleasantly from the flat of her palm.

  ‘Do not move!’ she intoned, harshly her old voice rasping, almost exactly like a Dalek’s.

  ‘They gave you Dalek nanogenes, didn’t they?’ murmured the Doctor, lamenting. ‘Oh, Sabel …’

  Suddenly, the air was filled with a thunderous burst of energy. A low, vibrating hum filled the Doctor’s ears. He looked up. There, just to one side of the monument, a Dalek saucer was landing, having swooped down low at breathtaking speed.

  The Doctor waited, accepting the inevitable, as the saucer’s hatchway opened and the ramp slid down. Immediately, a squad of six Daleks moved rapidly down the ramp onto the sand, followed by one fur
ther Dalek, accompanied by two human figures. An old woman and an old man.

  As the Dalek got closer and closer, the Doctor once again saw the quickly fading, blurring image on its grating. This was the Dalek Litigator again, returning to the scene of the crime. But more importantly for the Doctor, he suddenly knew that he could recognise the two elderly people being forced to keep pace with the Dalek.

  Old and worn though their features were, they were unmistakably Ollus and …

  Sabel?

  He looked to the ‘other’ Sabel and back again to the new arrival. He found that this new Sabel was looking at the other, Dalek-converted woman. The Doctor realised that these women’s faces were quite different. But there was a family resemblance.

  ‘It’s … Jenibeth,’ said the newly arrived Sabel, a single tear furrowing down the lines of her noble old face.

  Jenibeth? The Doctor realised that the Dalek-converted woman who had been threatening him was not Sabel at all, but her sister. The girl who had been taken prisoner by the Daleks decades ago.

  ‘Jenibeth? It really … is you?’ said Ollus, his tiny old voice cracking with emotion and disbelief.

  ‘The Daleks sent the message in the cube to you,’ the Litigator stated, moving close to the Doctor.

  ‘You?’ the Doctor was dumbfounded.

  ‘It contained a time-space tracer signal,’ continued the Litigator, ‘which proved most useful.’

  ‘Then it was you, the Daleks,’ started the Doctor, the terrible realisation dawning on him. ‘You were the ones manipulating me. You’ve been following my every move.’ He winced in annoyance at himself. ‘Why am I even surprised?’ He hit himself squarely on the forehead with the heel of his palm.

  ‘They faked my funeral,’ said Ollus. ‘How impolite of them.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to see you’re still alive, Ollus,’ said the Doctor. ‘And you, Sabel.’

  ‘Only just,’ the old man smiled. ‘I’m afraid things get a bit confusing the older you get.’