‘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.’

The Dalek regarded her. Its body swivelled to face away from the vestibule, though its eye never wavered from her. ‘Humans are inefficient and inferior. You will follow me or die.’ The eye swung about to face the direction in which the Dalek was moving. Susan limped along behind it, knowing she’d be cut down instantly if she attempted anything else.

Where were these Daleks from? All of the Daleks on Earth had been destroyed – so how were these alive? Susan could only hope that shed learn the answers by pretending to cooperate with them, but a cold fear knotted her stomach.

What could the Daleks possibly want with her?

Tomlin sat in the shadow of a shattered wall, breathing heavily, and shivering because he was soaked to the skin. But at least he was no longer being pursued. The enemy soldiers had simply stopped following him after a while. He’d continued to flee, but then become aware of something odd. The sounds of battle had died away.

His professional interest had finally overcome his fear, and he had slowly made his way back to the battle zone. He found dozens of bodies of his men, and some of London’s troops, but of the main bulk of London’s army there was no sign. It didn’t make any sense to him at first, so he’d followed the line of retreat of London’s men, and stumbled eventually across the truth.

In the distance from where he sat, he could make out flares of light and screams of tenon There was only one possible explanation for this – the Dalek guns were being used. And not to back him up. This was a separate thrust, and, as he sat in the ruins, he finally began to work it all out.

He hadn’t been honoured to lead the initial attack on the enemy – he’d been sacrificed as a decoy. Craddock and Barlow must have led the real attack, once his troops had drawn the bulk of London’s men.

Haldoran had betrayed him.

Tomlin sat alone in the cold, wet darkness, lost in his thoughts. All of his life he had gladly served the House of Haldoran with unswerving loyalty, And this was his reward? To be sacrificed as a pawn in Haldoran’s unlimited ambitions? Was that his only value – as cannon fodder, and not as a friend and a confidant?