Part 23 (1/2)

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...