'Ben,' the Doctor said, evasively, 'you've got a good, practical eye. From what you've seen of this colony, how much would you say it cost to build it?'

'Crikey, you want me to be a regular Arthur Negus!' Ben moaned. But there was a faint smile on his lips. 'Hard to say, isn't it? Billions, at the very least. And they'd need a good merchant marine of s.p.a.ce just to bring in supplies.'

'Exactly.' The Doctor nodded happily. 'The sort of thing you'd expect a government to fund, right?' Then he stopped abruptly and tapped the side of his nose. It was a gesture that they'd seen the old Doctor perform many times. 'So where are the flags?'

'The what?' Ben asked, bewildered once again.

'The flags,' the Doctor repeated, gesturing at the spartan walls. 'Surely you remember from the South Pole all the s.p.a.ceships, all the men, all the equipment had little flags and stickers plastered to them. So, if this place is run by some country or other, why haven't we seen any evidence of it?'

Polly shook her head. 'Now that you mention it, there hasn't been anything like that. But if this place isn't American, or British, or whatever, who does fund it?'

The Doctor smiled. 'Don't dawdle,' he said, and set off at a brisk pace again. Polly set off after him, with a final shrug of her shoulders at Ben.

Lesterson was in heaven. He and Janley were in the laboratory, the disarmed Dalek in front of them. Janley held a small computer note-pad at the ready, jotting down observations as fast as Lesterson could make them. The Dalek stood watching and waiting. It shifted back and forth very slightly, as if impatient, eager to be doing other, more interesting, things.

He couldn't blame it. The tests he'd been running were child's play to this magnificent robot. But, scientific method was called for here, and he had to stick to it. Even if both he and the Dalek wanted to run faster and further ahead.

'Test fourteen,' Lesterson announced, as Janley tapped the keys of the pad. He couldn't keep the excitement from his voice.

'I am ready,' the Dalek answered. Its voice showed no emotion at all. Naturally not what use would a machine have for emotions?

'When sodium acts on ethyl alcohol, what is the derivative?' Lesterson glanced at the stopwatch he clutched in his hand. The question wasn't as simple as it sounded. The Dalek had a remarkable grasp of chemistry, but it had been necessary for Lesterson to feed it information on the human notations involved. The Dalek not only had to work out the answer to the question, but had to translate it into whatever frame of logic it had been programmed with, solve it, and then translate it back into English.

'Sodium ethoxide,' the Dalek responded. 'C-two-H-five-O-Na.'

'Incredible,' Lesterson sighed, happily. 'Five seconds!'

Janley, ever the more practical, glanced down at her notes. 'It's right, too.'

'Of course it's right!' Lesterson leaned across and patted the dome of the Dalek. 'Can you imagine what kind of positronic brain this robot has, Janley? Imagine the vast store of facts it must carry.' He smiled down at the machine. 'Sulphuric acid?'

'H-two-S-O-four,' the Dalek grated promptly.

'You see?' Lesterson said.

There was a sudden knock on the door, and the Doctor popped his head around it. 'May I come in?'

The scientist's good humour evaporated instantly.

'What do you want?' he snarled.

'Just to see how you're getting on,' the Doctor said, cheerfully. He dashed across the room and stared at the Dalek. The eye-stick stared right back at him. Whipping a handkerchief from his pocket, the Doctor brushed at an imaginary speck on the Dalek's lens. The Dalek quickly moved back several feet.

'If you imagine ' Lesterson began. He was a thin, wiry man, but his blood pressure was starting to rise. For the second time with the Doctor, he was almost tempted towards the use of his fists, a feeling he hadn't indulged since he was seven.

'Please!' the Doctor tried to look shocked. 'I'm not here to make trouble. I'm interested, that's all.'

Lesterson wasn't about to take that remark at face value.

'You've done nothing but meddle and interfere ever since you arrived on Vulcan!'

The Doctor gently took his arm and smiled innocently into his eyes. 'Ah, but I did give you permission to open the capsule, didn't I? Why don't you just carry on, and I'll sit here and watch.'

Peering at the strange man through his gla.s.ses, Lesterson appeared uncertain. 'And you won't try and stop me?'

'Stop you? Good heavens, no!' The Doctor gave Lesterson his most winning smile. 'I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I'm a reasonable man. I've been thinking it over. Perhaps I was a bit hasty, let my emotions carry me away on the spur of the moment.' He winked conspiratorially. 'You know?'

'Well...' Lesterson didn't want to appear to be a stumbling block in the way of peace. 'If you really want to call a truce?'

'A truce?' The Doctor almost jumped up and down with joy. 'My dear fellow, I hope we'll become friends.' He shook the amazed Lesterson's hand vigorously.

'Yes,' the scientist agreed. 'Er, possibly.' He managed to reclaim his hand before the Doctor shook it loose at the shoulder. 'Very well, you may stay.'

'Oh, thank you, thank you!' The Doctor reached for Lesterson's hand again, but the scientist promptly s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of harm's way. As if lost, the Doctor glanced around. He appeared to notice Ben and Polly for the first time. 'Amuse yourselves for a while, will you?' he asked. 'I'm likely to be rather busy here.' With his back towards Lesterson and Janley, they couldn't see him when he winked at Ben and Polly and waved an imaginary tiny flag.

Polly caught on immediately. 'Right,' she said briskly. 'I rather fancy a stroll around the colony.' She offered Ben her arm. 'Shall we?'

'Let's shall,' he agreed, matching her grin. He carefully closed the door as they left.

The Doctor sidled over to Lesterson. 'So, what are you doing now?' he asked, peering over his shoulder.

'Running tests to evaluate the Dalek's mental abilities,'

Lesterson said. As the comm unit chimed, Janley moved to answer it. Lesterson grabbed her pad as she pa.s.sed, and then held it for the Doctor to look over. 'It's showing a remarkable grasp of chemistry.'

'That's not all it can grasp,' the Doctor replied. 'Not by a long chalk.'

Janley cleared her throat, and both men looked at her.

The Dalek's eye-stick never wavered from the Doctor.

'Something's come up,' she said apologetically. 'Is it all right for me to slip out for a few minutes?'

'But the tests,' Lesterson said, looking down at the pad.

'That's all right,' the Doctor said quickly, s.n.a.t.c.hing the pad. 'I believe I can work this.' He smiled at Lesterson again. 'I'd like to think I can offer a little help.'

'Well, in that case...' Lesterson shrugged.

The Doctor tapped on the pad quickly. If Janley left, it would leave only Lesterson in his way...

As soon as she was un.o.bserved, Janley slid a small bundle from under the nearest bench. Hunched over it, she hurried from the room.

'May I start?' the Doctor asked, c.o.c.king his head to one side. He crossed to the Dalek and rapped on its dome to centre its attention. 'If Z is M, then what is UUB?'

'H-two-O,' the Dalek replied, almost instantly. 'Water.'

'Isn't that brilliant?' Lesterson exclaimed.

The Doctor gave him an odd look. 'I'm doing this for your benefit, not mine. I already know how clever they are.' He slipped a hand into his pocket and started to edge his way towards the laboratory's power unit.

Lesterson gave him a disappointed glance. 'I thought you had changed your mind about the Daleks.'

'Never!' the Doctor told him fiercely. 'I know what they are. But at least you've had the good sense to remove the gun-stick.' He gestured at the hole in the Dalek's casing.

Lesterson lowered his head slightly, as if from guilt.

'Yes,' he said softly.

It was the opening the Doctor had hoped for. Instantly, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the small device he'd made earlier from his pocket and slapped it on to the power unit. Then he adjusted the small dial that had once worked the radio and clicked the on switch.

Instantly, the laboratory was filled with a high-pitched whine. Lesterson moved to cover his ears, and even the Doctor grimaced at the bone-shaking squeal. The Dalek began to spin where it stood, faster and faster. Its arm and eye rotated wildly.

Though the Dalek was disconnected from the power unit now, it was still capable of picking up power transmissions. The Doctor knew this from his past encounters with the creatures. He had simply built a small standing-wave generator to constantly change the electrical field generated by the power unit, giving the Dalek what effectively amounted to electronic seizures. With luck, they would be powerful enough to burn out the core memory of its computers and kill the Dalek embryo that lived within the casing.

'What are you doing?' Lesterson screamed. He flung himself at the Doctor, exerting astonishing strength.

'Trying to save your life!' the Doctor yelled back.

Lesterson sent the Doctor sprawling and s.n.a.t.c.hed the device from the power unit. Snapping off the switch, Lesterson threw the device on to the floor and ground it under his heel. Then, white-faced with fury, he rounded on the Doctor. 'Get out!' he screamed. 'Get out!'

The Doctor began to move, still defiant, for the door. As he pa.s.sed the Dalek, it ceased spinning. The eye-stick zeroed in on the Doctor again.

'I have sustained no damage,' it said slowly. It wasn't clear if it was addressing the Doctor or Lesterson.

The Doctor glared back at it. 'Perhaps I'll have better luck next time,' he said softly. Then, turning his back deliberately on the Dalek, he marched for the door.

Shaken as he was by this explosion of events, Lesterson didn't miss what happened next. The Dalek spun to cover the Doctor's back, the empty socket of the gun barrel centred on its target. There was a series of clicks as the Dalek attempted to fire the missing gun.

Lesterson staggered back against the bench for support.

The robot did have emotions! It was reacting in anger and fury! If it had possessed the means, it would have killed the Doctor. Wiping his sweating forehead, Lesterson stared at the Dalek. For the first time, he began to wonder if there was something in the mad ramblings of this stange Examiner.

16.

Keep Her in a Safe Place Janley glanced quickly around to make certain she wasn't being observed as she quietly entered Hensell's office. Her plans had gone too far now to be jeopardized by accidentally being seen here, of all places. But the corridor was deserted. With relief, she quickly closed the door behind her with her free hand. Then she shifted her burden into both arms as she hurried across the acres of carpeting to the Governor's desk and the man awaiting her there.

Turning from the view he had been studying from the window, Bragen looked at Janley with deep satisfaction glowing in his hawklike eyes. 'You were able to get away, then?' he asked.

Janley nodded, depositing her bundle on the mirrored surface of the Governor's desk. 'Yes. Lesterson's occupied with his experiments. The Examiner is with him.' She glanced around the room. 'Where's Hensell?'

Bragen smiled thinly. 'He's called a meeting of the production managers. The all-important monthly statistics beckon. He'll be occupied there for hours yet.' He moved to the far side of the desk and eased himself into the chair there. 'He left me in charge.'

And he was clearly enjoying the feeling of power. He wore the mantle well. That was what had drawn her to him immediately. Janley knew the power she had over men: her looks and poise had been drawing admirers to her like flies to honey since she was in her teens. She liked the power she had over men, but craved real power. When she had arrived on Vulcan, she had carefully studied all the heads she had turned, sizing up her best chances of achieving her goal. Quinn had made a gentle play for her, but she had dismissed him almost immediately. Even though he was the Deputy Governor, he was more interested in genuinely serving than in controlling. That wasn't what she was after.

It wasn't until she had met Bragen that she had seen mirrored in his eyes the l.u.s.t for power that she felt so strongly. And he had a sharp mind, one that crafted delicate plans to achieve his goal.

The first stages had played out, and Quinn was now in jail, awaiting a trial. Junky had as little doubt about the verdict as Bragen. And now Bragen held Quinn's post.

'We could take over the colony now,' she suggested. She licked her lips in antic.i.p.ation of the event.

'No,' Bragen said flatly. 'No, it has to be absolutely right. Do you think I want to take over a colony full of rebels, Janley?'

'I don't understand,' she confessed. 'Why put me in with the rebels, then, and get me to help them?'

He smiled coldly. 'It's perfectly simple. With your skills and appeal, you've been able to build up the rebels. Not too much, just enough to stir them up so that they can create the right amount of trouble to get rid of Hensell. And then,' he said, swinging his feet up on to the polished desk, 'then we crush them. Without your leadership their backbone will crumble and it will be a simple matter for my men to crush them publicly. The colony will be grateful, the corporation will he grateful, and I'll be the new Governor.'

Janley smiled. It sounded perfect. 'And we will rule the planet,' she said softly.

'Precisely.' Bragen returned her smile. 'So you just carry on encouraging our ignorant friends.' He nodded at the wrapped bundle. 'Is that the thing you told me about? Can you persuade the rebels that this will help them?'

'I'm sure of it.' Janley unwrapped the device, revealing the gun-stick that Lesterson had carefully removed from the activated Dalek. 'Valmar thinks that he can work in a switch that will turn this Dalek weapon on and off.'

Bragen laughed. 'It's amazing what people will fall for,'

he sneered. Valmar was the driving force behind the rebels a brilliant, creative engineer. He had made only one mistake falling in love with Janley. He believed her implicitly. Lying convincingly was one of Janley's greatest talents.

'It really works,' Janley replied. She tapped the sleek barrel of the gun. 'It killed Lesterson's a.s.sistant Resno.'

Bragen swung his legs from the desk and stood up. He eyed the gun with new respect. 'Did it, indeed?'

'Yes. But if we attach a switch, we'll be able to control its power.'

'Excellent. A real weapon will make the rebels more of a threat, and cement your position with them' He considered for a moment. 'And does Lesterson know how powerful this device is'?'

'No. Lesterson believes that Resno's simply shaken up, that he's taking a few days off under Thane's care, and is resting.'

Bragen nodded. As ever, Janley had planned well. 'And the body?'

'Valmar disposed of it in one of the mercury pools. It won't be found unless we wish it.' Janley gave a tight-lipped smile. 'Lesterson was the indirect cause of Resno's death. It's a good hold to have over him if he makes trouble.' She rewrapped the gun. 'I'll give this to Valmar, then?'

'Yes.' Bragen dismissed the matter, his mind clearly on other things.

'When do we move?' Janley asked. Power was so close to being in her grasp, she was getting greedy for action.