Part 11 (1/2)

'I hope you're not thinking of detaining me,' Quinn said softly.

'Thinking? I'm doing it.' Bragen gestured to his guard.

'I could hardly let you run around after doing this, could I?'

Shaking the guard's restraining hand off his arm, Quinn glared at Bragen. 'You fool!'

'I'd be a bigger fool to let you go.'

Quinn backed away from them. 'I'm warning you for the last time, Bragen. You'd better keep your ridiculous police away from me'

Bragen gave a short nod. The guard pulled a squat pistol from his belt and pointed it at the Deputy Governor. 'Do they still look ridiculous to you, Quinn?' he asked dangerously.

The fight went out of Quinn. 'You win this round, Bragen,' he agreed. 'But we'll see how this looks in front of the Governor in the morning.' The guard jerked the pistol and Quinn preceded him out of the door.

Bragen turned to the Doctor. 'The Governor will want an enquiry. May I ask what you were doing in here, Examiner?'

'I was going to radio the Earth,' the Doctor told him honestly. 'To get them to order Hensell to destroy the Daleks.'

'Lesterson's discoveries?' He raised an eyebrow. 'I see.

Well, I'll include that in my report to the Governor.'

The Doctor was under no illusion that it would be a report to flatter anyone but Bragen. 'You believe the cables were cut by these rebels of yours,' he said, 'but there may be another reason. Perhaps someone wants to make certain that I don't interfere with Lesterson's experiments.'

Bragen nodded slowly. 'You're right, that is a possibility that had not occurred to me. Do you believe that Lesterson is up to this?' He gestured at the mess.

'I think that Lesterson is so narrow-minded that he could well endanger us all,' the Doctor told him earnestly.

'This damage may well be the least of it if he gets those Daleks going again. Believe me I know!'

Bragen gave him a faint smile. 'Then we should all be glad that he doesn't have permission to continue, shouldn't we?'

'We should,' the Doctor agreed, 'if I were certain that he was willing to wait.'

Lesterson was busily rerouting the circuits in the generator system. He'd reached the limits of the portable one and was now forced to tap into the main city circuits. The power drain he was contemplating would normally have shown up on the instruments in the central station. He'd been craftily using his computer net to shut off some of the unnecessary power drains. It was four in the morning, so he could divert the power without risk of being discovered.

Of course, this wouldn't be a state that would last very long. It was important to get results before someone discovered his tampering. But he was utterly convinced that he would soon have the results that he desired.

While he did this, Resno was busy setting up a camera to record the rest of the experiment. Lesterson wanted it all on video as a back-up. If the machine lost power again, he wanted to be able to prove he had made it move.

'Right,' Lesterson finally announced, 'I've redirected the power. We can go up another fifth now.' He glanced at his male a.s.sistant. 'You'll have to dodge between your meters and the camera, Resno.'

'Right.' Resno wanted to ask: And what about Janley? And what about Janley?

Can't she do some of the work? But he knew that Lesterson hated having his orders questioned. 'Ready.' But he knew that Lesterson hated having his orders questioned. 'Ready.'

The scientist nodded. 'Connecting now.' He gripped the bar and eased it upward again. The panel showed the flow of the diverted power as it surged into the Dalek machine. In the background, he was vaguely aware of a resonant humming from the generator.

From his station, Resno reported, 'All connections are responding.'

'It's working!' Janley said.

As they watched, the eye-stick and sucker-stick both moved slowly back to their horizontal positions.

'Excellent!' Lesterson crowed happily. 'Film it, man, film it!' As Resno moved over to the camera tripod, Lesterson turned to Janley. 'Note all of the input and output readings. I have to know precisely how much power that machine is absorbing, and what degree of movement conforms to the power drain.'

As the three humans worked, the Dalek's eye slowly swivelled around to point directly at Resno. As the lab a.s.sistant stared into the camera viewfinder, he was shocked to see the eye staring back at him. Resno straightened up slowly.

The body of the Dalek moved soundlessly to align with the eye. The unidentified third appendage rose to point towards Resno.

'It seems interested in you, Resno,' Lesterson commented. He became aware that Resno was staring back at the Dalek almost in shock. 'Whatever's the matter with you, man?'

'I tell you, it's intelligent,' Resno said, panic in his voice. 'It's watching me, Lesterson! Weighing me up! I can sense it!'

Lesterson snorted. 'Don't be a fool, man. You're starting to sound like that stupid Examiner's superst.i.tious female a.s.sistant.'

'Well, maybe she was right!' Resno said. He was backing slowly away from the camera. 'I don't like it, I tell you. We don't have any idea what these things are capable of!'

Lesterson held him gently from behind. 'We'll never find out what they can do unless you take a film of every reaction. will we? Now, please get on with your job.'

Resno reluctantly nodded. He bent back to the camera.

Lesterson moved back towards his post at the generator and computer, ready to begin the next phase of tests.

There was a sudden electrical clattering sound, like an intense discharge of electricity. Resno gave a scream, collapsing over the camera. Parts of it had begun to melt from some intense reaction. Lesterson and Janley both spun around in time to see the Dalek's third appendage react slightly as the noise cut off.

Resno fell the rest of the way to the floor and lay very, very still.

The Dalek started to move again. This time it was swinging around towards Lesterson and Janley. With an incoherent cry of horror, Lesterson fell on the power lines.

He literally tore his connectors apart, heedless of the sparking. As the power cut off, the Dalek's appendages went limp once more.

As Lesterson dived back to his controls to kill the power drain, Janley went carefully over to where Resno had fallen. Her eyes burned, but not with sympathy for the drowned man, or anger at the Dalek. She was filled with much darker emotions.

This experiment was becoming much more interesting than she had ever expected.

Finis.h.i.+ng the shut-down, Lesterson rose to come over.

Janley quickly waved him back. 'It's all right,' she said, 'he isn't dead.'