Finally, the trees thinned, and they were standing on the top of a small cliff, where mining had sheered away the rock. Below them, illuminated by arc lights, was the entrance to DA‐17. Donna stared down at it, angry and confused. There were workers down there, and two large cables snaking across the ground and into the pit.
‘Crazy,’ she murmured. ‘Who d be mad enough to do this?’
‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor whispered back. ‘But if we put our hands up nicely, maybe the guards behind us will tell us instead of shooting us.’
Donna was taken by surprise at his announcement, and turned. She saw nothing at first, as the Doctor raised his own arms, but she heard the sound of rifles being readied and then raised her own hands.
‘Smart move,’ said a voice from the darkness. ‘Stand perfectly still while my men search you for weapons.’
Donna felt ashamed of herself. ‘I didn’t hear a thing,’ she said bitterly.
‘Don’t feel so bad,’ the Doctor commiserated, peering at their captors’ equipment. ‘They’re using infrared detectors.’
That puzzled her. ‘I didn’t know Haldoran had access to that level of technology,’ she said, surprised. ‘Or that he’d bother using it out here, instead of for his war effort.’
‘It’s Draconian technology,’ the Doctor said darkly.
‘What’s Draconian?’ she asked, wondering how he could be so certain.
‘Exactly,’ he answered. ‘The Draconians haven’t visited Earth yet. So where did it come from?’
One of the guards patted Donna down, none too gently, and with obvious enjoyment. She felt like punching him, but knew this wasn’t the time to complain about chauvinism. Her pistol and her knife were both taken. Two other men checked David and the Doctor. It took the one looking over the Doctor quite some time to empty all of his copious pockets.
‘Do I get a receipt?’ the Doctor asked cheerfully.
‘Enough wisecracks,’ the officer in charge replied – a captain, Donna supposed. ‘You’re just lucky that Estro wanted to interrogate any further intruders, or I’d have slit your bellies open and watched you die.’
‘You really should stop watching so much television,’ the Doctor murmured. ‘It’s a bad influence on you.’ There was an odd note to his voice, though. ‘Estro…’ he breathed.
‘You know the name?’ asked David.
‘Not as such, no,’ the Doctor admitted. ‘But it has a very familiar ring to it…’
‘This way,’ the captain ordered, finally approaching close enough for Donna to make him out, and confirm his rank, He held a machine gun at the ready, and was obviously tempted to use it. ‘We’ve a runabout over here, and you’re going on a short trip.’
‘Travel broadens the mind,’ the Doctor said lightly. ‘And I suspect this trip will prove to be most illuminating. We’re going to Castle Haldoran, I imagine.’
‘You imagine well,’ the guard captain replied. ‘Now move it.’ He gestured with his gun.
‘Ladies first,’ the Doctor murmured, gesturing for Donna to lead the way. Since they had absolutely no other option right now, she obeyed.
Susan strode briskly towards the four technicians, hoping that their minds were strongly enough conditioned to accept anyone with an air of authority as being authorised. ‘Progress report,’ she snapped.
Lockwood turned around, puzzled. He frowned at her. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘Foreman,’ she replied, and then wondered why she had given the name Grandfather had adopted for her on Earth in the 1960s instead of her married name. Camouflage? Or a… what did the humans call it – a Freudian slip? ‘Your master sent me to help with the pulse coding. It’s my field of speciality.’
‘Oh.’ Lockwood nodded, as if that made perfect sense to him. Perhaps it did. ‘We’re almost ready to begin encoding.’ He gestured to the machine they were working at.
Susan bent to examine it. It was about four foot square. There were two panels, inclined at a slight angle, so that it looked like a technological dog kennel. It was hooked directly into the Dalek control panel in the wall by several wires. Some kind of signal analyser and computer, she realised.
‘We’re starting to register signals from the Dalek computer behind the door,’ Lockwood explained. ‘It’s taken a great deal of power to get it operational, though.’
Susan frowned. That didn’t make much sense to her. The Daleks were very efficient in their use of electricity. Since it was literally life to them, they could do wonders with very low levels of power. She should have been able to restart the computer with a flashlight battery. ‘How much power has this taken?’ she asked.
‘A couple of gigajoules,’ Lockwood answered.
‘Gigajoules?’ Susan was horrified. ‘That can’t possibly all have been used for the computers! Shut down the power flow at once!’ She knew her cover was gone but was too outraged to care.
‘Impossible,’ Lockwood replied. ‘Our master has ordered the flow to continue.’
‘Then he’s a bigger fool than you are,’ Susan snarled. She reached across to try to deactivate the analysis. Lockwood gave a strangled cry, and grabbed for her.
‘She’s not one of us!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s a trick!’
The other three male technicians whirled around, and all reached out to hold her. Susan tried to fend them off, but their hands grabbed her. One slammed her hard against the wall, knocking the breath from her. She shook off his grip, only to be punched in the stomach. She reeled forward, gasping. Another man punched her hard across the back of the neck, and she collapsed to the floor.
The analyser made a fluttering sound, and then everyone froze. Susan gasped, trying to struggle to her hands and knees. Several lights were flashing on the device. Lockwood stared at it in surprise.
‘It can’t have finished already,’ he exclaimed. ‘It must be a misreading of some kind. Cooper, check the inputs. Davis –’
He broke off as the overhead light suddenly increased in intensity. Susan became aware that the humming she heard wasn’t inside her skull after all.
The six doors around the vestibule all suddenly hissed open.
Behind each one stood a grey form. They were familiar to her from so many nightmares: short, metallic bodies, with vertical lines of half‐globes; the central section with the gun and armsticks; the grille, mounted by the dome and eyestalk. Two lights blazed on each dome. As Susan stared in horror, one of them moved its eyestalk, followed by its gun, towards her.
‘Exterminate!’
The Daleks had been reborn.
Their stubby metal guns spat death…
8
Transformations
Susan tried to move, but her body was working far too slowly. She watched, more stunned than horrified, as Lockwood and his technicians were caught in the lethal crossfire from the Dalek guns. The men screamed, burned and fell lifeless and smoking to the metal floor.
The Dalek guns trained on her next, and she faced her own extermination.
‘You will come with us,’ one of the Daleks grated.’ Immediately!’
Relief washed over her, as she realised that she had been reprieved, for whatever reason the Daleks might have. Wincing, and still having trouble catching her breath, she managed to stagger to her feet.
‘Are you damaged?’ the Dalek inquired coldly.
‘No,’ she assured it. Daleks despised weakness, and it might change its mind about allowing her to live if it thought her below even their standard for prisoners. ‘I just need to catch my breath.’