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‘Set a thief to catch a thief?’ Estro asked, amused. ‘Most droll.’

‘You have thirty seconds to explain your actions to my satisfaction,’ Haldoran snarled.

How crude the man was. ‘I need only five seconds.’ He gestured at the Dalek crates. ‘There is your answer.’

Haldoran glanced at the crates. ‘You’re getting those guns from this DA‐17 thing?’ he asked. ‘That’s where the power’s going?’

‘Yes,’ Estro lied. ‘Dalek guns from a Dalek Artefact. How else do you think I managed to obtain them?’ Since there was no way for him to know the answer to that question, there was no way he could possibly know that this was a complete fabrication.

Musing, the Lord stepped around the table and looked at the guns. ‘You’re using the power you’re stealing to obtain those guns?’

‘Exactly,’ Estro agreed. ‘The power I’m borrowing is being used to an end you desire,’ He spread his hands. ‘And, once the Artefact is completely opened, there may well be even more weapons inside it. So far, we’ve only penetrated the first level. Who knows how many more there might be?’

Haldoran considered the point, an old, deep‐seated fear gnawing at him. ‘But the Peace Officers say it’s dangerous to meddle with the Dalek Artefacts,’ he protested.

‘Dangerous!’ Estro scoffed. ‘The only danger is to them. You’ve got your hands on the weapons you need to make you master of this entire planet! Of course they’ll claim it’s dangerous! They want this power for themselves. It’s why they’ve excluded you from their investigations for this long. They’ve been secretly searching for precisely what I have found. If they had these weapons in their hands, do you think they’d be braying “peace”? No, they’d be seizing control with them, just as you’re doing! Only we’ve beaten them to it.’

‘More weapons…’ Haldoran mused, rubbing his chin. Decisively, he nodded. ‘You’re right, Estro. The work must continue. We must have whatever is down there.’

‘And so you shall,’ Estro lied.

‘But why didn’t you tell his Lordship?’ Portney demanded, realising his little scheme to depose Estro had gone awry.

If he was worth the sport, Estro would have killed him. But where was the joy in murdering a worm?

‘Because I wasn’t certain it would work,’ Estro said gently. ‘I’m pleased to report that it is working, and the next batch of Dalek guns will be ready by morning. Besides…’ he smiled at Haldoran, ‘I need to keep some secrets in order to remain valuable. If I’d told you initially that the guns were coming from a Dalek Artefact, you might well have protested, knowing no better. Or you might have tried to cut me out of the loop, thinking you didn’t need me.’

‘What makes you so sure that I won’t do that now?’ Haldoran asked, grinning.

The fool. He was wasting his time posturing. ‘Because you’ve… spoken to Murdock. I’m sure he didn’t tell you very much before he died. And nobody else involved will tell you any more. You won’t get anything further out of DA‐17 without my help, and you must know that.’

Haldoran, of course, did. He’d simply been hoping that his threat would worry his adviser. He nodded curtly. ‘So – I get my weapons. But I’m curious – just what do you get out of all of this?’

It had taken him long enough to ask the obvious. ‘Power,’ Estro replied, knowing this lie would be believable. ‘I have the weapons, but not the men to use them. We need one another. What I want when all of this is over is my own Domain – under your rule, of course. As your right‐hand man, I’m sure little would be beyond my grasp.’

Haldoran smiled, obviously relieved. The story was logical, and it appealed to the man’s own baser instincts. ‘I can see you and I are very alike,’ he said.

Estro smiled, tightly. After all, he’d be gone long before Haldoran would discover the truth. ‘It would appear so,’ he agreed blithely. ‘Now, if you’re happy, can we continue with the war?’

‘By all means,’ Haldoran agreed, rubbing his hands together. ‘Especially since I’m winning it…’

The Doctor stared at Donna, and she was pleased to see him confused for once. ‘This… marriage of yours,’ he murmured. ‘Would that have anything to do with the private areas of your life I wasn’t supposed to poke into?’ he inquired.

‘Yes,’ Donna admitted, feeling herself flush even now.

David looked at him. ‘You didn’t know about it?’ he asked. ‘It’s common knowledge,’ Then, realising who he was saying this in front of, he blushed as well. ‘I mean…’ he said, stumbling to a halt.

‘I’ve only been on this planet a day,’ the Doctor complained. ‘I really haven’t had the time to collect all the local gossip.’

With a great sigh, Donna steeled herself. ‘Well, since you’re bound to get it out of him anyway…’ she said. It still hurt terribly to think about it. ‘I was seventeen, and innocent enough to still believe in love. My father needed peace with Haldoran, so he arranged for me to marry him.’ She shuddered at the memories this resurrected. ‘The man’s a monster,’ she said simply ‘Pure ego, with nothing to control it. Anything he wants, he gets. Anything. What I wanted was irrelevant. At first… well, like I said. I was naive, and I believed in love. Oh, I knew he didn’t love me, and I didn’t know him. But I thought we’d come to love one another, and everything would be fine. Yeah. Right.

‘Lust is what consumes him. He enjoyed the thought that he was using me, corrupting me. If I protested, I was punished.’ She could still sometimes feel the pain, even after all this time. ‘I still have the scars across my shoulders.’

David looked very uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t know any of this,’ he protested.

‘Of course you didn’t,’ Donna agreed coldly. ‘Nobody was interested in hearing my side of the story. Not even my father. He was the worst of them all, believing the lies and the deceits, without ever asking me what really happened.’

‘If this is too painful…’ the Doctor said gently.

‘No,’ Donna insisted. ‘Oh, it’s painful all right. But what scares the hell out of me is that I’m going back to it. You have to understand my fears, Doctor, because I want you to kill me if we can’t escape.’

He glanced at her sharply. ‘Retreat into death isn’t the answer.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ she snarled. ‘You’ve never been through what I have. Haldoran is a monster, and he enjoys his power. Especially his power over others.’ Donna calmed her emotions as much as she could. ‘Haldoran forced me to do things, horrible things. Then, when he discovered that I was barren, he threw me away like a piece of trash.’

‘The fault wasn’t yours,’ the Doctor said gently, wiping at the tears she wasn’t even aware were on her cheeks.

‘Yes, it was!’ she yelled. ‘You don’t understand!’

‘No,’ he agreed amicably. ‘I don’t.’

‘A society attempting to rebuild itself, Doctor, values children above everything else,’ said David, wearily. ‘Being barren isn’t a crime, but it’s a terrible stigma. Susan and I have suffered it, too – we couldn’t have children, either, We adopted three, which mitigated things a little, but we’re still on the edge of being ostracised from polite society. As if they fear that infertility is contagious.’ He looked down at the ground. ‘It’s only these last few years, now they all think Susan’s too old…’

Donna interrupted him, her angry words tumbling out. ‘Haldoran didn’t want me as his wife if I couldn’t bear children. How could a monarch hope to rule with no heir? I was useless to him.’ She didn’t even try and stop the tears now. ‘So, he had me removed. And the bastard took my own cousin in my place. She was in his bed before my side of it even got cold. And Brittany’s a proper baby factory. She’s had half a dozen brats already. Haldoran publicly divorced me, humiliated me, lied about me…’