Doctor Who_ The Power of the Daleks Part 23

He still couldn't make out any flavour in it.

'Works by sound, does it?' The Examiner lived up to his t.i.tle. He was peering intently at the cell's locking mechanism.

'I'm speaking to you,' Quinn said, annoyed by this odd behaviour. 'If you'd listened to me before we wouldn't be locked up here now.'

The Doctor straightened up. 'You're quite right,' he agreed, grinning like a Ches.h.i.+re cat. 'I do apologize. But never fear, your imprisonment has not been wasted.'

'I don't follow you.'

The Doctor clapped his hands together happily. 'It has brought your enemy out into the open. Bragen.'

'I knew that,' Quinn snapped.

'Ah!' The Doctor's eyes twinkled. 'But did you also know that he is the leader of the rebels?'

'Bragen?' Quinn was rocked by this. 'The leader?'

'It explains a lot, doesn't it?' The Doctor seemed to be very cheerful. 'Quite a common sort of lock, really.'

'I should have realized!' Quinn said, annoyed with himself. 'Of course who else stood to gain as much as he?'

Sitting on the floor, the Doctor began to remove items from his many pockets, quickly building a pile of appalling junk. 'Why did you ask Earth to send an Examiner here, Quinn? Couldn't you have made the Governor aware of the problem?'

Quinn shook his head. 'I tried, but he wouldn't listen. I knew the rebels were getting stronger all the time.

Hensell's trouble is that he's too sure he can carry the will of the colony along by force of his personality.'

Finding half an apple, the Doctor brushed it off and started munching. 'If he finally understood the danger, could he do anything? The rebels are well organized...'

'Hensell's pretty popular on the whole,' Quinn replied.

'He can always call on the mine workers on the perimeter.

He used to be one of the engineers there himself once.'

'So all we have to do is convince Hensell, eh?'

Quinn shook his head. He was becoming convinced that he was locked up with a maniac. 'If you'd done your job properly,' he complained, 'you wouldn't be here and I'd be out by now.'

The Doctor looked up from sorting through his junk and stared at him blankly. 'What job?'

'I told you I sent for you,' Quinn snarled. 'Why didn't you go around raising h.e.l.l all over the place?'

'Because I'm not the real Examiner, Quinn, that's why.'

The Doctor seemed pleased at the stunned expression on Quinn's face. 'Ben, Polly and I. We're just travellers, that's all. I found the real Examiner as he landed, but he was killed. I was knocked unconscious with his papers in my hand. Bragen murdered him.'

Quinn looked up. fire in his eyes. 'Everything leads back to friend Bragen, doesn't it? Just give me a chance to get my hands on him.'

'That chance may never come,' the Doctor told him, 'unless we can contact the Governor.'

Quinn grabbed the bars of his cell and shook them.

'There's just a little matter of the cell door,' he said sarcastically. 'The jail comes under Bragen's jurisdiction.'

'We'll get out,' the Doctor replied confidently. 'You must see to Hensell. I've got to get to Lesterson.'

'Lesterson?' Quinn couldn't follow that. 'What's he got to do with it?'

The Doctor stopped sorting and looked up. 'He has brought the Daleks back to life,' he said softly. 'They are far more dangerous to us than Bragen and all the rebels. I must see him. He may just be working up to the full power of the Daleks.'

21.

The Doctor Was Right With a groan, Lesterson awoke from his nightmares. He couldn't recall much from them, except that they had been filled with death, despair and pain. And that somehow, it had all been his fault. He rolled over, and moaned again.

His head hurt. It felt like that time he'd celebrated the finding of the capsule in the swamps and he'd had too much of Kebble's homemade brew. But he hadn't been drinking this time.

His face felt flushed, and his throat was parched. He needed water, badly. With great effort, he managed to lever himself up into a sitting position on the camp bed. The room spun wildly about him for several minutes, so he sat still, gathering the vestiges of his strength. There was some great horror lurking about just out of reach in his mind, but he couldn't quite focus on it. Well, it would come to him, probably when his head stopped hurting so much.

Eventually, he felt strong enough to stagger to his feet.

The nausea and pain hammered at him again. He clutched the door-jam to avoid falling. Horrible blotches of yellow swam across his eyes. He forced himself to forget the pain for the moment. He concentrated on seeing clearly. It was a while before the world settled back to roughly normal and he could function again. He held on to the doorway and stared at the huge expanse of the laboratory that lay between him and a gla.s.s of cold, clear water.

Well, he could make it. He'd done harder things in his time. Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself through the doorway. Lurching unsteadily on his feet, he was frightened for a moment that he might fall and be unable to rise again. Then he somehow retained his balance.

Slowly, drunkenly, he made his way to the workbench.

Reaching it, he collapsed on to a stool. With a trembling hand, he managed to get the cup that was there and poured some water for himself. Draining it greedily, he then refilled the cup and drank it down more slowly.

It felt so good. He enjoyed the feeling as his throat finally stopped hurting. His head seemed to be clearing up a little, too. Maybe he had been overworking, after all.

Hadn't Janley said something like that to him? Janley...

That was it! She'd told someone he had been overworking.

All he needed was a bit of rest and he'd be fine.

He wiped the sweat from his brow. Must be running a bit of a temperature, too. Well, he knew how to deal with that. Pulling the handkerchief from his pocket, he tipped water all over it. Then he mopped his brow. The cooling water felt wonderful on his skin. More confidently, he walked back to the other room and settled back down on the bed there. He wiped at the back of his neck with the wet cloth, then applied it to his forehead. It made him feel much better.

He heard the main door to the laboratory open.

Probably Janley or Resno, come to check up on him. Well, he'd call out to them, just as soon as he got his breath back.

There was the faint scent of static electricity in the air, and then it all came rus.h.i.+ng back to him. The Daleks...

They had duped him! Used him, killed Resno and were somehow up to something in that d.a.m.ned capsule of theirs! But he'd show them: they couldn't trick him and get away with it.

He listened as the Dalek moved across to the capsule.

The door to the capsule hissed open. He risked a quick look. There was a second Dalek, framed in the doorway of the artifact.

'You sent for me,' the first Dalek said to this one.

'Yes. Take up a position at the moving pavement area.

Watch and report back.'

'I obey.' The Dalek spun around. Lesterson jerked back into hiding as it glided out of the laboratory again.

He was sweating now, but this time with shock. 'They communicate with one another with intelligence,' he muttered. 'They are conspiring with one another! Why didn't I realize? They're clever much cleverer than I thought' He fastened on a thought. 'The Doctor was right, they are evil!'

He heard further movement from the capsule and chanced another quick look. Two more Daleks had emerged from inside the artifact and joined the one in the doorway. Together the three Daleks moved across the laboratory and exited. Lesterson clutched at the edge of the bed, his fingers digging deeply.

'But... one already left,' he whispered to himself. 'There are are four! But...' He tried to shake the thought from his head. 'No! They can't be reproducing...' Much as the idea filled him with horror, he was a scientist: it was the only solution that fitted the facts. four! But...' He tried to shake the thought from his head. 'No! They can't be reproducing...' Much as the idea filled him with horror, he was a scientist: it was the only solution that fitted the facts.

They had duped him, promising him help, and all the while subverting the supplies he had given them to their own ends: making more Daleks.

He glanced around the frame of the door again. The laboratory was devoid of life. But the capsule entrance was still open, and the answers he sought had to be inside.

Lesterson gathered all of his strength and meagre supply of courage. The duplicity of the Daleks scared him.

One had already killed Resno. They had all lied to him.

What more were they capable of doing? If only he had listened to the Doctor and destroyed these monstrosities!

But no, his own arrogance and scientific greed had drawn him on. And this was the end result.

He almost ran across the laboratory and into the capsule entrance. His headache still throbbed, but he refused to acknowledge it. His body, while still weak, seemed to have recovered some of its strength. But it was difficult for him to concentrate. Now he was here, what should he do? He looked around the small entrance compartment.

Facing him, the original storage area was now empty.

The three Daleks that had once stood there were gone. So was the dust: the place now gleamed. The small room showed no sign, of activity. To his right was the small chamber where he had hidden the Dalek he had first reactivated. The doorway was now open, but instead of a tiny compartment barely large enough to hold a single Dalek it now led to a long, low tunnel. Nervously, Lesterson bent over and moved into this pa.s.sageway.

About four feet inside it, he could barely make out the edges of a huge shutter that had once closed off this end of the compartment.

He made his way down the pa.s.sageway. There were low-level lights set in the walls, barely strong enough for him to see his way. Probably the Dalek eyes could see well into the infrared, so this was undoubtedly a flood-lit pa.s.sage as far as they were concerned. The pathway dipped downwards at about a ten-degree angle for some distance before straightening out again. Lesterson estimated that he must have travelled some tifty feet already.

The capsule hadn't appeared to be that long from the outside. As he had suspected, the small portion that they had uncovered from the swamp was merely the tip of the iceberg like the conning tower of a submarine. How far down into the solid rock of Vulcan did this artifact extend?

And what had the Daleks been hiding within it?

Finally, the tunnel seemed to be coming to an end.

Brighter lights were apparent at the exit area. Cautiously, Lesterson edged his way out of the tunnel and into this light.

He was on some sort of a catwalk, he guessed. It ran about the wall of an immense chamber, easily a hundred feet across and about fifty feet high. To his right, the metal floor sloped down, offering the Daleks access to the floor below. There was foot-high lip to the catwalk, presumably to prevent Daleks going over the edge. Lesterson fell to the floor and crawled to the edge before peering down at the room below. What he saw made him shake with horror.

Directly below him was some kind of computer control station. There were lights flas.h.i.+ng, dials registering and noises issuing from the hank of machinery. One Dalek stood before it, apparently on monitor duty. Another Dalek was adjusting a set of controls several feet away from the first.

Five Daleks... and six...

How many many of them were there now? of them were there now?

At the far end of the room from these two Daleks there was large portal. From this doorway ran a long, metallic conveyor belt. It ended about ten feet from the monitoring station in some kind of platform. A ramp led from the platform to the floor. A second archway to the left of the first had what looked like some sort of crane system running from it towards the conveyor belt. Set at intervals above both the belt and the crane were spider-like machines, with varied nozzles and tool attachments. Some of these were connected to huge vats in the ceiling of the room.

The rest of the left-hand side of the room was taken up with what looked like a cross between a huge cauldron and a swimming pool. Steaming liquid bubbled within it, obscuring what it might contain. It stood about three feet from the floor, and appeared to continue into another room beyond the wall.

As Lesterson watched, mesmerized, there was a whine of machinery starting up. Several hidden motors began to operate, adding their noises to the din. There was a rattle as the crane system began to come to life.

A shadow pa.s.sed through the doorway of the conveyor belt, emerging into the light of the room. It was the lower half of a Dalek casing. One of the spider-machines descended, extruding probes and tools into this mechanism. There were several sparks and sounds as the spider-thing performed some final operation before withdrawing. A second device then shot jets of some kind of liquid over the casing. A third moved in to add the contents of further nozzles.

Glistening, the Dalek base moved towards the intersection with the crane mechanisms. Lesterson stared in shock as the top half of a Dalek casing came through the other archway, born along by the crane, until it was positioned directly above the lower half.

It was a Dalek a.s.sembly line! The Daleks weren't merely reproducing themselves they were ma.s.s-producing themselves! It was incredible that these robot-things could act like this.

The Dalek that had set the mechanism into motion now moved towards the seething pool. It paused beside it to slip its sucker-pad on to what looked like a large, metal fis.h.i.+ng net. Then it glided alongside the liquid before lowering the net out of sight into the steaming waters. After a moment, the net was raised.

Lesterson saw what it contained and wanted to be sick.

The thing was a writhing ma.s.s of tentacles, a bilious green in colour. Two of these limbs ended in bird-like claws that flexed and clicked. Some kind of slime enveloped the sickening bundle. It was pulsing slowly but regularly. Lesterson realized instantly that this, this whatever-it-was, was alive alive.

The Dalek spun around and moved to the waiting Dalek casing. Carefully, it deposited the green mess within the base. The thing writhed about a moment, as if making itself comfortable. The two sets of claws clutched at parts of the mechanism. The tentacles writhed, slotting into prepared s.p.a.ces. As Lesterson held his breath, he saw several needle-like probes emerge from the interior of the Dalek base and inject into the blob.

Feeding tubes? Computer linkages?

Whatever they were, one horrible truth was becoming quite apparent.

With a whine, the crane lowered the top half of the casing. There were several loud clicks as bolts clamped the two parts of the sh.e.l.l together.

The Daleks weren't robots, after all. They were some kind of cybernetic being. The robotic structure was merely some kind of sh.e.l.l, housing that hideous creature. Some form of s.p.a.cesuit or body armour, or both. An electronic womb for the being that was the real Dalek.

The two lights on this new casing lit up. The three limbs this machine, like the other two below, still possessed a gun-stick moved. The creature within was beginning to learn how to operate the controls.

It was learning how to be a Dalek.

The conveyor belt started up once more. A final spider-like mechanism hovered over the completed metal body, delivering a final spray. Then the casing came to the end of the belt. Under its own power, it moved on to the platform, then turned to face the two waiting Daleks below.