by John Peel
‘There are Daleks all around us!’ he exclaimed.
‘Then close the hatch!’ the Doctor snapped. He indicated a small panel by the open door. Sara dashed over, and hit the circular control. The hatch slid closed, cutting off both sight and sound of the Daleks.
The power was humming fiercely through the ship now, and the Doctor called out: ‘Brace yourselves!’ There were no couches for them to use, since the Daleks had no need for them. Instead, both Sara and Steven grabbed hold of panels to steady themselves. The Doctor nodded, and manipulated the final controls.
On the planet’s surface, the Daleks ground to a halt, then retreated. Their ship shuddered, lifted slowly at first, then shot upwards at a tremendous pace, until it was a faint light in the sky.
The patrol leader looked back down, at its second in command. ‘Contact the planet Kembel,’ it ordered. ‘We must report this to the Dalek Supreme!’
The control room on Kembel was its usual orderly, efficiently running place when Mavic Chen stepped into it. Seeing the Black Dalek by the tracking devices, Chen moved over towards that section, without hurrying. The Daleks ignored his presence until he stood by the Black Dalek.
‘I have returned from Earth,’ Chen began, ‘as I consider...’
‘Mavic Chen,’ the Dalek interrupted, ‘you have failed in your task.’
‘Failed?’ Chen looked shocked. ‘Is this my greeting?’ He spread his hands. ‘I agree that my mission was to return to Earth and recover the Taranium. This I have not done...’
‘Failure,’ the Black Dalek grated, ‘will not be tolerated.’
‘ But ,’ Chen continued, smoothly, ‘I did notify you of the whereabouts of the fugitives.’ He indicated the lit star maps beyond them. ‘The planet Mira. There, the vital core can be taken from them without suspicion. Their presence on the Earth was a constant danger – at any time they might have contacted forces unsympathetic to our plans. I had to get them off the Earth as soon as I could.’
The Black Dalek did not believe this for a second. He knew of Chen’s glib tongue, and the snares and lies it could create. ‘You make your incompetence sound like an achievement!’
This was too much for the Guardian, hitting him in his weakest point – his ego. Instead of controlling himself, he growled back: ‘ Incompetence ? Incompetence now, is it? You seem to have forgotten that the original blunder was not of my doing. I journeyed to and from the Earth to correct a failing that your security force should have dealt with. The core was stolen from here! My actions have brought about a situation which will allow you to recover the Taranium core with ease. If that is a failure – then I have failed.’ He glared at the Black Dalek, daring it to repeat its accusation.
Instead, it turned towards another Dalek that had been edging forward, trying to get attention. ‘Report!’
The communications Dalek said: ‘The fugitives have stolen our pursuit ship.’
What perfect timing! Mavic Chen thought, and a smile of superiority and contempt crossed his features as he looked contemptuously at the Black Dalek. The message had underscored his speech as if it had been timed.
Ignoring Chen for the moment, the Black Dalek asked the communications Dalek: ‘Have they left the planet Mira?’
‘Yes. Their course is being computed.’
‘What of our force?’
‘They are stranded on the planet. They are under constant attack from the invisible inhabitants of Mira.’
The Black Dalek considered. ‘Leave them,’ it finally ordered. ‘They have failed the Daleks. I will supervise the recovery of the Taranium myself.’
‘I obey.’ The messenger returned to its duties.
Chen moved forward again, smiling with amusement. ‘And you had the audacity to accuse me, Mavic Chen, of incompetence!’ he crowed. ‘A Dalek pursuit ship... stolen! Really! ’
The human was beginning to annoy the Black Dalek. ‘It is not an emergency,’ it responded.
‘No,’ Chen agreed. ‘More like a catastrophe!’
Such arrogance from a human! The Black Dalek chose its words carefully. ‘They may believe that they have successfully escaped from as. But we are in control at all times.’ Turning its back on Chen, the Supreme Dalek moved away down the room. Puzzled, Chen stared after it. Obviously, then, the Daleks still had a trick or two up their metallic sleeves!
The Dalek pursuit ship was fairly large, and well laid out. Beyond the control room, the travellers had discovered a well-equipped laboratory, a store room and several rooms that were clearly where the Daleks rested between duties. Emptying out three of the cases in the store room had yielded them something to sit on at least. The Doctor had laid a course for Earth into the computers, which were busily running the ship.
The Doctor had seated himself in the laboratory, and fished the Taranium core from his pocket. Using the instrumentation he had found, he began to examine the core minutely, and measure it carefully. Steven and Sara, not too interested in this, were carrying on a somewhat strained conversation.
‘So,’ Sara asked him, ‘what do you think we should do then, Steven?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied hotly. ‘I’ve been trying to figure it out. It seems crazy to try to get back to Kembel; the Daleks are sure to be waiting for us there. But that’s where the TARDIS is.’
‘Your machine that travels through space and time?’ she replied, mocking him. What a story he had told her – that he was from her past, and the Doctor from some strange world that he never spoke of, and that they roamed the dimensions in a strange ship called a TARDIS. ‘I find it hard to believe that such a craft exists.’
‘I don’t much care what you think,’ Steven retorted. ‘We just have to get it back again before the Daleks discover what it is.’
‘But you said that you’ve met the Daleks before. Don’t they recognize this TARDIS, then?’
‘They might not,’ Steven answered. ‘You see, we don’t always know exactly when we land when we land. Maybe this is earlier in time than when I first met them and they had a time machine too. In that case, maybe they don’t know about the TARDIS yet.’
‘That’s a lot of maybes,’ Sara answered. ‘Still, it’s all irrelevant to me. My duty is clear – to work on the destruction of the Dalek invasion forces.’ She looked at him very carefully. ‘And I won’t let anything stand in my way.’
Steven felt chilled. ‘You don’t have to paint a picture.’ He knew she would kill both him and the Doctor if she felt that they were endangering her mission. Or – would she? Certainly, when they had first met her, she would have slaughtered them without hesitation. But now... now she knew them better, and he had half an idea that she admired the Doctor. Maybe she even liked him? Could she be so coldly efficient now and kill them?
He moved away, and walked into the laboratory. The Doctor glanced up and smiled.
‘Ah, Steven, good.’ He passed over a pad and stylus. ‘Take this down, will you?’
Still looking back at Sara, Steven took the pad, not really paying attention. She was standing in the control room, staring out at the stars. What was going through her head? Was she certain she would do anything to further her cause? Or was she beginning to admit that she had human feelings, that she could actually get to be fond of people? She was a very good-looking woman, and Steven couldn’t help but wonder if she could ever unbend enough to become romantic. He became suddenly aware that the Doctor had said something, and was looking expectantly up at him. Hastily. Steven stammered, ‘We’re still on course, Doctor.’
‘Yes, yes, no doubt we are,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Now, stop day-dreaming and pay attention. Take this down.’ He returned to his examination of the core. ‘Energy ratio point 003. Carbon scan – 2795. Variable rate at...’ He broke off, aware that Steven hadn’t written a word, but was looking back at Sara again. He snorted to himself. What was it about youth that made young humans so disposed to moon over members of the opposite sex? ‘I’ll do it if you’re going to day-dream.’
‘ We ?’ the Doctor growled. ‘My dear boy,! am attempting to make a copy of the core. It has to be good enough to fool the Daleks. They’re not going to stop hunting us until they have recovered the core – or what they think is the core.’
Catching on, Steven grinned. ‘And we’re... you’re ...’ he corrected hastily as the Doctor glared at him. ‘You’re going to see that they get a useless copy.’
‘It’s worth a try,’ the Doctor said, modestly. ‘It might just buy us breathing space.’
The vibrations under the floor suddenly began to change their tempo. Puzzled, they looked at each other, then moved hack to the control room. It was obvious that something was changing, because the stars were altering their positions out of the ports.
Sara looked up from the panel. ‘We’re moving off a direct course,’ she reported.
Annoyed, the Doctor moved forward, brushing her aside. ‘I do wish you wouldn’t touch things!’ he snapped.
‘I didn’t !’ Sara retorted.
One glance at the panel confirmed that. ‘Yes, I believe you, my dear.’ The Doctor studied the board. Parts of it were now dead when he tried to reset it. Another whole panel had lit up, and was showing impulses playing all over it. Gesturing to the panel, he said: ‘I’m afraid the ship is under Dalek influence.’
‘They’re piloting us by remote control?’ asked Steven.
‘Yes, my boy – and we’re now on a course for the planet Kembel...’
Chapter 15
Out Of Time
Steven regarded the panel controlling their destiny for a moment. Than he walked into the laboratory and picked up a length of piping. Returning to the control room, he brought the piping down on the remote control unit. It exploded, showering glassite and components about the room. With evident satisfaction, Steven smiled at the smoking ruins.
Finally, Sara spoke. ‘Isn’t that rather an abrupt way of dealing with the problem?’
Steven had had quite enough of her. ‘Look, my technology may be a couple of hundred years behind yours and the Doctor’s, but there are still some things I can handle.’
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘I would say in rather a – ah – terminal fashion,’ he chuckled. ‘Let’s see if we can take control of our destiny again, shall we?’ He crossed to the main controls, and started to experiment. To his immense satisfaction, they reponded instantly. ‘Well, it seems as though drastic measures do sometimes pay off, eh, my boy?’
‘Yes.’ Steven looked down at the smoking, sparking ruin of the panel. ‘I wonder what the Daleks will do next?’
‘The control beam has been broken,’ the monitor Dalek reported.
‘Understood,’ the Black Dalek replied. It spun about to another of the many control boards in the room. ‘Activate the magnetized beam.’
The Daleks at this unit had anticipated the command, and had the systems powered. On the instructions, they began to focus their instruments. ‘Pursuit ship held on magnetized beam,’ one finally reported.
‘Speed constant,’ the second added. ‘Fourteen degrees deviation.’
‘Estimated time of arrival,’ said the third, ‘four units.’
Mavic Chen looked towards the Black Dalek. ‘I sincerely hope that there will be no further bungling...’
The Black Dalek’s eye-stick spun to focus on him, obviously annoyed at this remark. ‘The fugitives will be exterminated upon arrival.’
‘ After we have the Taranium core in our possession,’ Chen added.
The Black Dalek regarded him coldly. It seemed as though the human was having difficulty recalling his place in all of this. If it was not that he was still useful to the Daleks, he would be dead by now. The Black Dalek relished the thought of what he would do when Chen was no longer valuable...
Having solved their problems with the Dalek control, the travellers had all returned to the laboratory. Together, they had helped the Doctor to construct his imitation core. Finally, wiping the sweat from his brow with a large bandanna, the Doctor held up his forgery. ‘There you are,’ he said, pleased with himself. ‘What do you think of it?’
Sara took it from the Doctor, and began to examine it from all angles. Steven peered over her shoulder and grinned. ‘Very good, Doctor,’ he approved. ‘It looks exactly the same.’
‘Yes,’ Sara admitted, doubtfully. ‘But as soon as you touch it, you can tell it’s not Taranium. There’s no charge in it, no glow, no life. If you touch the other core, there’s a sort of shock...’
The Doctor nodded, and took back the fake core. ‘I know, my dear. The way I have built this, it will take only an influx of energy to bring it to life.’
‘How will you activate it?’ Steven asked.
The Doctor looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Ah, that’s the part of the plan I’m still working on. It will need a tremendous input of energy.’
Steven grinned, certain he had the answer to the problem. ‘We could use the gravity force from the ship’s power banks,’ he suggested. He was sure they could easily rig a drain, and have the core powered up in moments. The Doctor and Sara evidently didn’t share his confidence in his solution, for they exchanged grave looks. ‘Well,’ Steven asked, defensively, ‘what’s wrong with that?’
The Doctor patted him condescendingly on the shoulder. ‘Too primitive, my boy, too primitive – and far too dangerous.’
Sara added: ‘Gravity force as a source of energy was abandoned centuries ago.’
Feeling hot in the face, Steven snapped back: ‘ We were still using it.’ His own century had refined the flow of gravitic energy to power starships, to light cities and to defy the bounds of gravity; it was the energy system that Steven knew best, and he didn’t want to admit that controlling it was at all dangerous. His pride wouldn’t allow him.
‘Oh yes?’ Sara said, sweetly. ‘And the Romans used treadmills. I don’t think that would do the job, either.’ She and the Doctor ignored him, and began sketching out a circuit diagram that Sara felt they could adapt from the ship’s energies to do the task.
Sulkily, Steven turned away from them, and kicked at a scrap of machinery on the floor. ‘I still think gravity force would do the trick,’ he muttered to himself. He hated to admit it, but he was feeling very useless at the moment. When he had first joined the Doctor, he had been the one from the most advanced society – after the Doctor himself, naturally – and he had been able to act like an older brother to Vicki. She had been from a time a few hundred years before his – almost prehistoric, as far as he was concerned. Now he knew how Vicki most have felt at times. Sara was a few centuries ahead of him in technology, and he didn’t understand half of the concepts she and the Doctor were tossing back and forth.
The ship lurched again, and the stars began to shift once more. Sara glanced up from the table in alarm. ‘We’re changing course again!’ She and the Doctor left the fake core on the laboratory table and dashed back to the control room. The Doctor began examining the instruments there, and shook his head m annoyance.
‘Dear, dear, dear,’ he murmured. ‘We’re caught in a very highly concentrated magnetic beam of some kind.’ He didn’t have to say where it was originating.
Sara looked at him with concern etched into her pretty face. ‘This course will take as right back to the Daleks!’
Alone in the laboratory, Steven glared at Sara and the Doctor. They were huddling down again, talking together, and he was left out. Moodily, he kicked the circuit on the floor again. ‘Primitive!’ he grunted. Then he saw the core, and an idea lit up his eyes. He glanced at the Doctor and Sara, who were fussing over the controls now. They would be busy for the few minutes that it would take...
He went to the wall panel, and traced the feed lines for the gravitic energy the Daleks were using for
the ship’s artificial gravity field. Once he was certain he had the right lines, he clipped in two extension wires, and a transformer to step down the power. The other end of this he connected to the fake core. ‘Let’s see how primitive I am now!’ he muttered to himself in satisfaction. By the time that the other two had finished fiddling with the controls, he’d have the core all powered up to show them what he could do. He threw the final connections to his apparatus.
A tremendous shock passed right through him, as the gravitic power suddenly altered its flow. He screamed, a distorted, echoing cry of pain, as blackness closed in about him. The wiring melted, the transformer shorted and exploded.
In the control room, the floor seemed to lurch, due to the drained gravity field. After a nauseous second, the field stabilized again, and Sara and the Doctor heard Steven’s cry. They dashed into the laboratory, and saw Steven. He was standing, looking vaguely shocked.
‘My dear boy,’ the Doctor asked in alarm, ‘what’s happened?’
Seeing the melted connections and the still smouldering transformer, Sara knew. ‘The fool! He’s charged the core with gravitic lines of power! And we warned him!’
Steven’s lack of response bothered the Doctor far more at the moment. He waved a hand in front of his young friend’s eyes, without eliciting any response at all. ‘He’s still alive,’ he said. ‘But...’ He reached to try to take Steven’s pulse. His fingers met resistance a few inches away from Steven’s wrist. Puzzled, he tried again for the other arm. Again, he felt a strange effect when he came within a couple of inches of Steven, and could move his hand no closer. He began to test the air all about the young man, and discovered that this field of force about him extended between an inch and two inches all over Steven’s body. Obviously, though, air was getting through to him, since the Doctor could see the rise and fall of his companion’s chest.
‘Doctor!’ Sara interrupted his examination, grabbing his arm and pointing to the fake core. ‘It worked! It’s just like the real Taranium!’
Indeed it was: the imitation glowed with the same eerie light as the real core that was in the Doctor’s pocket. The same strange energy forces flowed across it – or, at least, appeared to flow across it. The Doctor smiled, tightly. ‘That’s wonderful,’ he admitted. ‘Steven’s theory has proved successful. But – Steven himself...’