Part 8 (2/2)

'They're dead,' Lesterson insisted.

The Doctor caught Ben's eye before he could blurt out what they had been searching for. He gave a slight shake of his head and a mournful no no note on his recorder. Knowing Lesterson's pa.s.sion for this thing, news of a living being inside it would only spark further foolish attempts to research it. 'Dormant, not dead,' he said, gesturing at the two Dalek machines. 'I want them broken up or melted down. Up or down - I don't care which. Just do it!' note on his recorder. Knowing Lesterson's pa.s.sion for this thing, news of a living being inside it would only spark further foolish attempts to research it. 'Dormant, not dead,' he said, gesturing at the two Dalek machines. 'I want them broken up or melted down. Up or down - I don't care which. Just do it!'

Lesterson reared back, furious. 'I refuse to allow it!'

'You're very pig-headed!' Polly snapped, unable to control herself any longer. 'You must listen.'

'Polly,' Ben said, plucking at her arm and trying to get her to quieten down. But it was to no avail. Only Polly got started, she was harder to stop than a battles.h.i.+p.

'No, Ben.' She nodded at the Doctor. 'He may well be right. Those... things give me the creeps.'

'The creeps!' Lesterson scoffed. 'How terribly scientific.

Keep out of this.' He turned his back on her, treating her like a stupid child intruding on the talk of adults. He rammed his finger almost into the Doctor's face. 'I'm warning you all of you keep away from my laboratory.

Keep your hands off my experiments.'

Bragen tried once again to regain charge of things.

'Gentlemen,' he said winningly, 'please! Shall we just '

'I'm the Examiner,' the Doctor yelled at Lesterson, completely ignoring the security man. 'I demand that those Daleks be destroyed!'

'You're exceeding your authority,' Lesterson snapped back.

'Perhaps we should let the Governor decide that,' the Doctor replied, and rounded on Bragen. 'I want to see the Governor immediately.'

'That won't do you any good,' Lesterson said.

'I'm afraid he'll be asleep,' Bragen explained, glancing at the clock on the laboratory wall. It was, after all, the middle of the night.

'Then we'll wake him up,' the Doctor said. 'I'm going to wake you all up. You don't know the danger of the Daleks and I do!' Spinning on his heels, he marched straight for the door. Like a procession, Ben and Polly fell in behind him Bragen directed a glance at Lesterson and Resno and then followed. The silent security guard was the last to leave.

Resno closed the door and turned back to his boss.

'Could he stop the experiments?' he asked.

'I don't know!' Lesterson snapped. He was polis.h.i.+ng his gla.s.ses again, a sign of great agitation. 'Anyway, that's none of your concern.' He thought feverishly. If that idiot did convince Hensell, there might be trouble. Hensell hadn't actually given his approval for what Lesterson had done so far, and he was angling for a solid reason to reprimand him publicly. This could be all the excuse he'd need. Lesterson glared at Resno, as if it were somehow all his fault. 'Go and get Janley and come back yourself. We haven't got much time left.' Resno nodded and opened his mouth. 'Hurry up, Resno!' Couldn't he see that this was an emergency?

'Quickly, man, quickly!' The urgency in Lesterson's voice finally seemed to sink in. Resno set off at a trot down the corridor. Lesterson locked the door behind him. Then he crossed to the capsule.

The compartment containing the two... Daleks? Why on Earth did this idiotic Examiner call them that? Giving these machines names, like they were pets or something!

They were robots, that was all - alien robots, granted, but they could represent an incredible breakthrough for him.

Reaching into the right-hand side of the hatch, Lesterson triggered a small panel that the Doctor hadn't spotted. The right-hand wall slid quietly open to reveal another chamber. Inside it rested the missing Dalek. As the Doctor and Polly had guessed, Lesterson had already begun his work on it. He'd opened the lid of it to discover a computer inside of incredible complexity and built to some alien system of logic. It hadn't taken him more than a few moments to realize that all it needed to bring the machine on line was power. He'd begun to connect cables to recharge the Dalek when he'd been forced to hide the machine away and pretend he'd never been inside the capsule.

Lesterson was utterly convinced he was doing the right thing. Scientific progress could never be served by listening to the rantings of Luddite fools like the Examiner, or the silly superst.i.tious fears of the girl who a.s.sisted him. Small steps, carefully taken, were what was required. And he was being forced to take the next step before he'd had time to fully evaluate his previous stages.

'He won't stop me experimenting,' Lesterson promised the machine. 'There must be a way to bring you back to life. And I'm going to find it.'

He had very little idea that he had in fact already partially succeeded in his quest. The Dalek machine was still completely inoperative. But inside the still-hidden compartments of the craft, the single living Dalek creature was very active indeed.

10.

Plenty of Nuts Bragen ushered the Doctor politely but firmly back into the room he had been a.s.signed. Ben and Polly stuck with him, determined to have a council of war as soon as Bragen vanished. The security head was doing his best to be charming. It wasn't his fault that he wasn't very good at it.

'Of course you do have the right of any access,' he told the Doctor, who promptly whipped out the Examiner's badge and waved it in front of Bragen's eyes.

'I don't need you to tell me that,' he said peevishly. 'It's right here in black and white.'

'But Lesterson watches over his ideas like a mother hen, you know,' Bragen continued, fighting to keep his temper.

This little man really irritated him.

'So you're advising me to be discreet? Is that it?' The Doctor glared up at Bragen. 'If you knew there was a bomb under this floor set to go off in five minutes, would you ask my permission to rip up the floor boards to get at it? I doubt it.' His eyes narrowed as he realized there was something different about the room since he'd sneaked out earlier. They fastened on a bowl on the bedside table. It contained bananas, nuts, apples, cherries and a small bunch of grapes. 'Ah! Fruit!' He dashed across to the bowl and picked up a banana. After polis.h.i.+ng it on the shabby edge of his coat, he then replaced it and repeated the actions with an apple.

Bragen seemed at a loss, watching the Doctor buffing the fruit. 'It's up to you, of course,' he said, 'but I would counsel a low-key approach in your investigations. Of course, if you were to tell me why you're here and what it is you are examining, then I could offer my help.'

The Doctor didn't even bother to look up from the bowl as he started work on the cherries. 'Yes, I'm sure you'd love to help'

'Well, it's not a very good time at the moment,' Bragen snapped. 'What with all of these disturbances.'

'Disturbances?' Polly asked. People like Bragen had a whole dictionary of euphemisms - such as nuclear device nuclear device when they meant when they meant atomic bomb atomic bomb. Or disturbances disturbances when they meant things like when they meant things like murders murders.

The security head waved his hand dismissively. 'Oh, little acts of sabotage. Secret newspapers. Rebel cliques.

Nothing important, you understand, but it does keep the Governor busy. I expect he'll tell you about it himself if he thinks that it's important enough.'

c.o.c.king his head to one side, the Doctor gave Bragen a thoughtful stare that seeemd to unnerve the man. Hensell had already alluded to rebels, and here was Bragen the man responsible for stopping such activities carefully drawing attention to them. There seemed to be some kind of power play going on, as well as some not-too-subtle attempts to guide his investigations. Not for the first time, the Doctor wished he knew who had called the dead Examiner here, and why.

Bragen took the Doctor's scrutiny for silent criticism.

'The Governor's going off on a tour of the perimeter in the morning,' he explained. 'He has to check up on the progress in the mines and extraction centres, as well as with the s.h.i.+pments back on Earth. I'm sure you understand that he's a very busy man. But I'll check if he can see you before he goes, shall I?'

The Doctor was busily shaking an apple up and down in the air. 'Oh, please do,' he said. Bragen gave him a rather wintry smiled and then left the room.

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