The Dalek Factor Read online

  Within fifteen paces I find him. I see him. I know it's him… only for a moment I tell myself it's not real. One of those walking hives playing another trick on me, or maybe I'm seeing things because I was concussed by the fall. Reality bites only when I look into his eyes.

  'Tar'ant…' I groan his name. 'I'm sorry… You shouldn't…' Now I bite my lip, not trusting my own voice as it breaks. There's no escaping the reality of this. Here is my friend Tar'ant. He's fallen into a cradle of branches that have closed over him, almost hiding him from view. No wonder the Professor and Kye couldn't see him. On each branch are a dozen or more thorns that resemble the long, slender spines of a poison fish. Dozens more have penetrated his body. One has even pierced the back of his neck, the tip emerging from between his lips. I see that the tip of each spine is hollow. A silvery drop of some liquid that can only be venom forms there like dew. The branches from which the spines emanate are a pale brown, but as I watch they turn red… blood red… as they suck away what once flowed through his veins. For a moment, I want nothing more than to stamp those killer plants - literally bloodthirsty plants - into the ground: grind them to pulp. But that won't bring Tar'ant back. I turn away.

  They say that soldiers who stop to mourn their fallen comrades die young. I have no choice but to move on.

  I suspect that Captain Vay would have headed for the cuboid fortress up there on the cliff. If I make good progress, I can probably reach it within two hours. Slipping the strap over my shoulder, I keep the firearm hanging level at my hip, its muzzle pointing forward, just in case. I see that I need to make my way down a slight incline first, before reaching the base of the cliff. There appears to be a ramp that hugs the rock face, then rises to the fortress itself. If I'm fortunate, I will make contact with my platoon there.

  Moving quickly, yet stealthily, I enter the forest. Immediately, I'm in a green world of little light. In the gloom, wraiths of mist float amid branches and rope-like vines criss-cross every available space. Mossclad tree trunks loom. Fat bodied flies hover all around.

  In front of me is what I take to be a stumpy tree as tall as a man. Moss covers it with a vivid green skin, while more vines climb up its trunk to curl round its three remaining branches… Green surfaces, soft shapes, light diffused by a steam-laden jungle atmosphere. But that configuration of lines; the hint of deadly symmetry beneath moss. I know what this is.

  I leap sideways as what I'd misread as a tree stump twists on its own axis. The movement tears away softly engulfing moss to reveal hard hemispheres that project from a metallic structure. The top rotates as well, shedding fallen leaves, snapping vines. Insects flee from where they'd settled on its body, perhaps instinctively reacting to this concentration of pure evil. What I took to be branches break free of vines. Its eye-stalk swings to focus on me. Then the whole monstrous configuration lurches forward, leaving a crater where it had embedded itself for… what? Centuries? Millennia?

  'Do not move.' The Dalek's voice is a hoarse rush of sound, like a breeze blowing through trees in a cemetery. A distillation of cruelty that contains the promise of death in every syllable. Sheer age has slowed it, has hoarsened its voice; but every molecule of its body oozes an emotional and mental toxicity. 'Do not move.'

  I do move, leaping sideward as moss covering the stubby weapon sizzles into a blackened crust; a bolt of raw energy crackles from the muzzle. Instantly, a ball of blue light sweeps past me, cutting a swathe through the forest, searing vines, undergrowth, tree trunks to dust. Felled trees collapse with a thump that shakes the ground. I glance back and see that the Dalek's shot has cut a circular tunnel clean through the forest.

  Still it tracks me as I run. I see the weapon's muzzle lock onto me. What I choose to do now determines whether I survive, or whether I end up like Golstar: a skeletonised ruin. So, what's it to be? Run? Fight? I reach a snap decision. My gun hums in my hand; the ammo cyst pulses, ejecting a gush of super-heated molecules at the Dalek. An incandescent aura forms round the metallic body. Vines and moss covering it flash away in vapour, exposing the uncompromising shape of the monster; then the blazing particles enter the fabric of the killing machine to detonate within.

  The explosion throws me backward. I roll onto my front, covering my head as shards of the hot Dalek casing land in the moist vegetation, where they hiss, blackening leaves and shrivelling vines all around me. Quickly - gratefully - I retreat from the heat and the stench belching out from the remains of the Dalek.

  Now I leave the forest, at the same time treating my surroundings with infinitely more respect. It is only when I'm clear of the jungle canopy and can see blue sky above that I tug off my helmet. Suddenly that air is a lovely thing to breathe. Especially as I came within five seconds of becoming another Dalek statistic.

  Once more, I have to re-assess my choice of destination. There may be more Daleks in the forest. Sleepers that have waited for their Thal enemy for a thousand years or more. Once more I gaze at those grey tube structures running like veins through the air above me. Is there a way to reach one of those? But even if I can find a way up there, how do I enter one? And which one? Some do snake their way in S-shaped lines to the cliff-top fortress. But will there be an exit, if I can even reach the end of one? Sweet life, this isn't going to be easy.

  TWENTY

  FOR A WHILE, ALL I CAN DO IS STAND THERE, CONSIDERING WHAT to do next. My heartbeat has slowed after the adrenaline rush. It beats with a steady, grave rhythm in my chest. High on its rock, the ugly carcass of the fortress ruin looms over a jungle that is a violent outburst of plant growth, one that swarms with venomous insects and choking vines. The entire place is a stinking stew of rampant, undisciplined nature - where death and decay relentlessly pursue life. And behind the poisonous green that swarms over bedrock, and beneath the deeply forbidding conglomeration of cubes on the hill that could be some grim structure built from a million coffins, there is some other thing. A monstrous sense of charge. It's as if what I see now is a thin mask that conceals a power that is immense and as implacable as it is faceless. I feel it. It's growing in strength; a dark heartbeat building in strength and purpose.

  Now my solitude is like a weight I am forced to carry. I've never felt so alone in my life before. A breeze slides through the bushes, drawing out a breathy hiss; a sinister sound as if the planet itself exhales. A suggestion of something long dead returning, not to life - but to some grotesque state that mimics life. My eyes are drawn up to the fortress again. Its walls and vine-covered columns no longer appear inert. Whatever dark energy pulses beneath the sweating forest is seeping into that cold structure, too. Somehow it seems watchful now. As if a cold, sinister intelligence high on the mount watches me. Recording my every move. My deep, slow heartbeat seems to speak to me of impending events. A profound change will take place soon. I feel its dark promise in my bones. A transformation. An imminent passing from this universe I know into some dark abyss of the soul - an alien place that will never willingly permit my return. At least, not as I am now. It will be a place that is malignant with pain and despair - a crucible that changes me forever. Or is that fatal intersection of time and location I foresee, my moment of dying? When I will be torn from this universe for the rest of eternity?

  My heartbeat slows. My respiration falters. My eyes are closing. An all-engulfing darkness is blooming behind my eyelids. I know I should move - but I can't. A voice whispers deep inside my brain: 'Give up. If you try, you fail. Why exert yourself in vain? Lie down here. Lie down. Sleep.'

  'LOOK OUT!'

  I open my eyes to see that butterflies have settled on my arms and legs. They are the size of a hand and are decorated with purple and gold heart shapes on their wings. My sudden movement as I dodge sideways disturbs them, and they flutter away in a rush. From above me a shape descends. I drop to a crouch and point my gun, trying to find a target.

  Only it's no hostile creature. In astonishment I watch as the Professor tumbles out of the blue sky to the ground. A second later, he cras
hes into a waist-high clump of plants.

  Running forward, I look down at the man as he lies there amid crushed stalks, his arms and legs flung out.

  He groans. 'That was no accident. That was deliberate. They dumped me here. They did this to me. They have cruel bones, Jomi.'

  I look up. Kye is crouching by the lip of a new hole in the grey tube that runs above my head.

  Kye calls out: 'Jomi, what's happening?' She's seen the smoke rising through the trees from the still red-hot fragments of Dalek casing.

  I answer her question with a different one: 'Kye! Can you get down here?'

  'I'm going to jump.'

  'Go for the plants - where they're thickest; they'll break your fall.'

  'But not by much,' the Professor adds bitterly. 'My aching back… '

  He still lies there wincing and grimacing. Then his expression alters. 'Kye!' He yells. 'Don't jump. Get back from the opening!'

  I look up in time to see what I take to be a swarm of black insects approaching the section of tube where part of the floor is missing. Kye sees too. She springs back in a split-second. Not a moment too soon, either, because that swarm of misty black abruptly condenses into a hard slab. Swiftly it flies toward the tube then clamps itself over it, neatly sealing the rupture.

  'Damn,' I hiss, 'she should have jumped.'

  'If she'd jumped into that thing as it condensed…' The Professor grimaces.

  'Kye!'

  'Don't waste your breath, Jomi. She can't hear you.' The man wipes scraps of leaf from his face. 'If I were you, I'd… What's that?' A cracking sound. 'No.'

  Plants enclose the man in a kind of spiky green halo, but I see that they appear to be shrinking as a depression forms beneath his weight. The cracking is replaced by a loud snap. Even as the Professor attempts to stand, the ground sinks beneath him, then a whole section falls away. He plunges from sight with a yell. There's the sound of a heavy object falling, striking the sides of a pit as it does so, before eventually slamming into the bottom. Heart thumping, I edge toward the edge of hole, mindful that there might be only an insubstantial crust of earth and plants beneath me.

  'Professor!'

  I see him clinging to the edge of the hole, hanging there by his hands. His feet swing beneath him, and below is only a deep, dark void into which scraps of earth and plant stems whirl away to vanish deep underground. A section of steel grid peels away from behind the man to fall into the abyss with a series of thuds followed, some time after, by a crash. It must have been another one of those falling that had led me to think that it was the Professor that had hit the bottom of the pit.

  'Give me your hand, Professor.'

  'Stay back! It's not safe.'

  I lay down my gun, then move forward on all fours, spreading my weight as much as possible. Now I see that a whole series of grids covers the pit. They are so corroded that one has given way beneath the man's weight. I never noticed the hole before because of the profusion of vegetation that swamps the entire terrain.

  'Easy does it,' the man says. 'Move a little to the left - no, your left. There's a solid-looking girder beneath you now.'

  He throws out his hand as I extend mine across the infestation of plant growth. I seize his hand, gripping it as tightly as I can.

  'It's all right,' I tell him. 'I'm not letting go.'

  'Thank you. I don't think many would have risked their own lives for a madman like me, would they now?'

  'Please… Just try and pull yourself up.'

  With a better grip, he manages to haul himself out of the pit.

  'I don't know how stable this surface is,' I tell him. 'Move over to the incline there behind me. That appears to be solid.'

  'It's not stable at all,' he pants. 'Run!'

  He scrambles to his feet. I grab the gun and sprint back for the incline. Glancing back, I see a whole section of ground where I hauled the man out is now sagging. With a soft roar it collapses inward into the hole. Moments later, I hear a massive thud as it crashes down onto the floor of the pit.

  'Close one.' He throws himself down onto the ground; there he rests on his back, catching his breath. During this interval, I take the opportunity to tell him about the death of Tar'ant (he grimaces in sympathy), then I describe my clash with the Dalek in the jungle.

  He nods at the gun. 'You fired first, I take it?'

  'Not first, but more accurately.'

  'Good shot.' Then his eyes stray back to the pit. 'Thanks again, Jomi.'

  Pulling off my helmet, I sit down beside him with a grateful sigh. 'Don't mention. It's all part of my duties.'

  'Above and beyond, I'd say. My goodness. Just look at that.' He's gazing up at the grey tubes that snake across the sky. 'Like Christmas bunting.' He shoots me a sudden grin. 'But you don't know anything about Christmas, do you? Christmas trees, streamers, decorations, Yule logs, mince pies by the truckload - and carol singers; silent night, holy night.' He hums the notes of a song.

  'Happy memories?' I ask.

  'Yes, they must be. I can picture friendly people in paper hats. They're all smiling… Makes me want to smile, too.'

  'You're remembering more?'

  He nods.

  'Your name?'

  He shakes his head.

  'Do you know why you're here on this planet?'

  'Brought.'

  'Why?

  He shrugs.

  'And you've always been here alone? No companions?'

  He holds up a finger as if remembering, then begins to speak. 'There was… was. No, it's gone.' He shakes his head in frustration. 'That happens. I see a face in my mind's eye. I know the face. I know, moreover, I can put a name to it, then…' He clicks his fingers. Thinks again for a moment. Just when I anticipate more memories are revealing themselves to him, he exclaims: 'What a remarkable world! Those buildings. Extraordinarily ancient. The aerial tube network. Clearly some rapid transit system. Defunct now, of course. Decay… retrogression… entropy… They've made pedestrians of you and me both, hmm?' Abruptly he sits up on the grass. 'Of course, there's life in this old dog yet. The fabric of the metropolis has the ability to dissolve sections of itself then reseal them - an ability that caused our spectacular fall to earth.' He jerks his head toward the tubes. 'But that can't be a random effect, can it?'

  'You mean someone intended us to drop from the tube right here?'

  'It seems so, doesn't it?' His voice quickens. 'Look up, Jomi. What do you see?'

  'Grey tubes. Blue sky.'

  'What don't you see?'

  'The sun.'

  'Absolutely. That's no more blue sky than I am. In truth we must be deep, deep underground.'

  'But the size of the place. And there was a viable Dalek here - I don't understand, Professor. Our scouts should have found all this when they ran a scan on the planetary system.'

  'Then the shielding is effective.'

  'That's what makes me so unhappy.'

  'Oh?'

  'The Daleks must value this place very, very highly to bury their fortress here, then shield it so effectively. They've channelled a lot of resources into this.'

  'They have, haven't they. Then they've let it go to ruin. Ah, what do I spy here?' The Professor climbs to his feet, dusts away scraps of leaf from his clothes, then bounds to a clump of plants. Seizing them, he begins tearing them away, flinging them behind himself in a flurry of green. 'Come here and see this, Jomi.'

  I see that he is exposing what appears to be an array of vertical control panels. All are corroded.

  'Sophisticated electronic systems,' he tells me. 'All permitted to become weed infested.' He uses a thumbnail to scrape lichen from a dial. 'What kind of ode to this ruin would Shelley have composed?' He stands there, feet apart, both hands on his hips as he surveys the landscape. 'If you could sweep all the vegetation away, you would see machinery of all sorts. Fabulous structures! A city of machines! What would that be? A technopolis? Electropolis? A citadel of machines to serve machines.'

  'Daleks?'


  'Why not? These beings you call Dalek might well be responsible. But why create all this, then surrender it to trees and insects?'

  I don my helmet. 'Those questions aren't for me to answer, Professor. No doubt my commanders will carry out a thorough investigation. My priority now is to find my platoon. And Kye.'

  'But I can't help wanting to dig a little deeper here. There are so many fascinating things. Look…' He taps a toppled block of hardware with his foot. 'That detects the fluctuation in the gravitational field of a cosmic body. So sensitive it can even determine the gravitational pull of a grain of sand floating out in space.'

  I raise an eyebrow, which the man interprets clearly enough.

  'Yes, I recognise the device and know its capabilities, but I still don't know my own name. Hmm, I guess I will be calling myself Professor for a long time, don't you? Now!' He hurries to another clump of broadleaf plants. 'What do you suppose we have here?'

  'Professor. I need to move on. I can't delay here any longer.'

  He rips handfuls of green stuff from a hitherto concealed structure. 'Fascinating. Uh, what evil smelling plants.'

  'Professor. I'm going. Professor?'

  He doesn't appear to hear me. Instead he tugs away huge swathes of greenery. Stalks, leaves, vines and blossom petals fly back over his shoulder. The man's energy is phenomenal. And his enthusiasm to explore is nothing less than incandescent. He mutters to himself as he searches.

  'Professor?' Still he doesn't listen. OK, I tell myself, no more delays. You've got to walk to the fortress. You must find Captain Vay and the rest. 'See you around, Professor.'

  The man shouts: 'Jomi! Here!'

  I glance back. So what this time? Another gravity sensor? A device to sequence molecules in a dewdrop? A gauge to define the parameters of postponing what you must do now until tomorrow?

  'Jomi. Quickly.'

  It's his tone that does it. I run across to him where he stands still, frozen in the act of tearing away a swathe of vines that masks the hardware.