The Dalek Factor Read online

  Then I see what he's staring at. 'Monitors. They're working?'

  'Yes. But what do they reveal?'

  There are perhaps twenty monitors, probably a little larger than my outstretched hand. Through the mass of vines I see that they are lit and display moving shapes. Only the leaves of the plants obscure my clear view. With a single movement, I sweep the plants away.

  'It's Captain Vay!' I'm stunned. 'What's happening to him?' I glance at the monitors. Each reveals a different scene. Now I see that they show my comrades from the platoon. But what are they doing?

  The Professor tugs more of the green stuff away from the bank of screens. 'They're held prisoner,' he tells me. 'See? They're restricted in their movements. It appears to be a small cell of sorts. Each soldier in separate confinement.'

  Dread rushes through me in waves as I watch. 'They seem to be under attack. What's in there with them?' I see the way their eyes dart into every corner of the room. They're alert to some danger; a number of the rangers react to something that is off camera.

  'Daleks!' My hands bunch into fists. 'Daleks are torturing them!'

  'But are they? Look… Watch this screen - the one with Captain Vay.'

  The Captain crouches in a corner, clutching a steel bar - part of a chair? As I watch, a dark shape with long limbs darts furiously at him. Captain Vay beats it back with the bar, then retreats to the corner again, panting. His face is grim. I realise he's been fighting his attacker off for some time. The creature must be trying to wear him down. I scan the other monitors. One shows Pup kicking away insects that crawl across the floor toward him. On another screen, Rain is shouting at the figure of a man in uniform. To my astonishment, I see it is me. A second later she throws herself at it, pushing it back against a wall. It explodes into a swarm of insects. That 'me' was one of the walking hives that have such a sinister habit of shape-changing. My eyes flick from one screen to another as my friends fight their solitary battles. Once more, the longlimbed simian beast launches an attack at Captain Vay. Once more, my commanding officer beats it back. Only this time I see blood running from a cut in his cheek. How much more of this can he take?

  'There!' The Professor taps another screen just above eye level. I see Kye in a cell. And what happens next occurs with staggering speed. One moment she is standing in the centre of the room, her helmet gone, her gun in her hands, looking up at the ceiling. Then she tilts her head as if hearing a strange sound (the Professor and I hear nothing; we have only visuals, not sound), and all of a sudden she flinches back. We watch, not even breathing. Suddenly a deluge of liquid floods into the cell. It swirls around Kye; she struggles to keep to her feet. The liquid surface quickly rises up the walls of the cell. Then it closes over Kye's head. With the liquid reaching the ceiling of the cell, Kye can't break through the surface to breathe. I realise I'm going to have to stand there and watch her drown before my eyes. Now the camera reveals the cell as it is under water. Kye is suspended in its centre. Bubbles escape from her mouth. She's looking round, trying to find some way out.

  'No,' I breathe. 'Please, no… '

  The coldest sensation I've ever known creeps into my stomach. I'm going to stand here and watch my friend die. As I look on, Kye's movements slow. She hangs there suspended in the liquid. Then, suddenly, she grabs hold of the gun, raises the muzzle with one hand and finds the trigger with the other. She fires from the hip. The shot carves out a steaming tunnel in the water that instantly collapses into a cloud of bubbles.

  I let out a terrific whoop. Before I know it, I'm slapping the Professor on the back so hard he nearly loses his balance. 'See what she's done! See it, Professor! She's only gone and blown a hole right through the wall!'

  He's seen all right. In the cell wall, on screen, is a hole that you could thrust your two fists through. Immediately the water rushes through it, no doubt flooding some other area of the jail. The currents of the outrush swirl Kye around like she's a doll there in the water. Her limbs wave, her hair swirls round her head. For a moment I think the evacuation of water from the cell will take too long. That Kye will have been immersed for longer than she can hold her breath. Then I see the level of the fluid drop beneath the lens of the camera. In seconds, Kye raises her head above the surface and is breathing huge lungfuls of air. All the while, the water level drops, until soon she's standing knee deep with the gunshot hole now exposed in the wall. But even as we watch, a shadowy mist forms in the hole, then hardens into a black seal.

  My heart plunges, because I know what will happen next. Sure enough, just minutes later the water gushes in again with a force that knocks Kye off her feet. She is submerged. She blasts a hole in the wall. Out rushes the water again. In moments she's standing panting, knee deep in water.

  'That's going to repeat itself, isn't it?'

  The man nods. 'I'm afraid it will. Your friends all have their own recurring challenges.'

  Captain Vay battles with the simian creature. Pup swats away poison insects. Rain is confronted again and again by the hive of parasites that can take on human form - my human form. Fellebe is the only one not under direct attack. But I see she watches a hole that has appeared in the floor in the corner of her cell. The hole is growing larger. It's slow yet relentless. Fellebe goes to peer into it. From her expression, I can tell the drop is a long one. And not one that can be used as a means of escape. If anything, it is the weapon of her execution. All she can do is watch the deadly slow creep of the lip of the pit toward her. At some point, it will consume the entire floor of the cell. The only ranger I don't see is Dissari. I hope he escaped the initial attack.

  'It's the Daleks,' I tell the Professor. 'They're doing this.'

  'Then we must find your friends.'

  I turn, ready to run toward the fortress.

  'One moment,' he shouts. 'I think a little more has just come back to me.'

  'I can't wait, Professor.'

  'It won't take long… Now if I do remember correctly, this should… Ah.' He grips a corner of one of the screens between finger and thumb, then pulls. It peels away. Now it's as flexible - and as thin - as a sheet of paper; he folds it, then slips it into his pocket. 'I think it should prove useful to have one of these, don't you?'

  We hurry down the slope, past the pit that nearly claimed the Professor's life. Then we pause. A dense swathe of forest lies between us and the cliff face ramp that rises up to the fortress. That jungle forms a forbidding barrier between us and our goal.

  'Now,' the man murmurs, 'which is the best way through?'

  As I glance at him, I find my attention caught by something beyond him. I touch his arm and nod at what I've seen. There, a hundred paces away, is a green mound. Standing on it is the figure of a man - an old man with long, white hair, wearing clothes in a style similar to the Professor's. He's facing us; watching us intently.

  The Professor's eyes fix on him. 'My word,' he whispers, awed.

  'It's nothing. Just one of the walking hives.'

  'Yes, I know that… but even so…' Tentative, he runs his fingers over his own face as if trying to map out his features. 'Only I'm sure I knew that man once.'

  'Professor, we can't waste any more time.'

  'Time? No, never waste time. Never…' He's distracted by the whitehaired figure on the mound. 'An old, old man. I knew him long ago.'

  'Come on, Professor. We've got to try and figure a way through that jungle.'

  The old man hasn't moved at all since I first noticed him. Only now he does move. With a slow, deliberate action that is strangely graceful, he raises one arm… He lifts it until the hand is level with the shoulder; the arm extended so it's straight out to the side. Never once does he break eye contact with us.

  I shake my head. 'Am I seeing things? Or is he - it - really pointing?'

  'He's pointing all right. He's showing us the way.'

  'Professor, it's just a swarm of insects. We can't trust them.'

  'We can at least take a look for ourselves, Jomi. I mean, lookin
g won't bury us, will it? Hmm? Come on.'

  We run diagonally down the slope. Within fifty paces, we realise that man-shaped cluster of insects hasn't deceived us. There, almost hidden from view by two large bushes, is a paved way into the jungle. It looks little more than a tunnel through the greenery, but it's enough.

  'We should really thank our helpful guide - every last thousand of his insectile self,' the Professor says. 'Uh, where'd he go?'

  I look back at the mound. The old man has vanished.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE OLD MAN, WALKING HIVE, MOBILE BUG HEAP, INSECTILE congeries - whatever it was - indicated wisely. The jungle path takes us swiftly to a ramp that leads up to the ruined fortress.

  For a moment we pause at the edge of the forest. Bird calls ghost through the tangle of branches. Toady reptiles cling to slimy tree trunks; they regard us with bulbous, alien eyes. Insects buzz all around. We're both watchful: those are vicious pests, ready to dart and sting in the blink of an eye. At that moment, I hear a voice calling from a thicket of swaying canes.

  'Hey… hey…'

  I look through the mass of shifting stalks that are twice as tall as me.

  'Hey… Jomi…'

  I glance at the Professor. 'That sounds like Dissari.' I move toward the canes. 'He must have managed to escape.'

  'Take care, Jomi… It might not be really him.'

  'I'll take a chance.'

  I run toward the thicket. Standing there on a pathway is ranger Dissari. He's lost his helmet and his weapon. He looks dishevelled, exhausted. His face is scratched; nonetheless, he's smiling broadly.

  'Jomi. Sweet life, am I pleased to see you!'

  I begin to walk toward him, but the Professor catches me by the elbow. 'Caution, remember.'

  'Dissari, where are the others?' I ask.

  'I don't know… We had to split when we saw the Daleks. I've been running for hours.' He begins kicking at the vegetation that swarms over the forest floor. He's searching for something. 'I dropped my weapon,' he explains. 'Hell's door. How unprofessional is that? But I nearly bust a vein when I saw that.' He pushes aside a bush that conceals a coneshaped object.

  I start back with a gasp.

  'Don't worry. It's dead… I've met more dangerous juice cartons.'

  The bush he rips down reveals a Dalek. Rust stains smear its flanks. Vines climb over its shell. The eye-stalk and two frontal limbs hang limply down.

  In a relaxed way, Dissari kicks it. A hollow clang rings from the metallic body. The sound of an ancient mortuary bell.

  Dissari shakes his head. 'It's been rotting there for centuries. Gave me a shock when I walked into it, I can tell you. Ran like crazy and jumped into that crater over there. Only I went and dropped my gun in the process. It must be hidden under these vines. Sweet life, look at them; they crawl like snakes.'

  'I'll give you a hand,' I tell him. 'Professor, you'd best stay back. These weapons can become unstable if they're damaged.'

  'Oh, don't worry. I'll watch from a safe distance. Besides, our whitehaired friend might make an appearance.'

  I return to the search. 'No wonder you can't find the gun, Dissari; the moment you shift the vines they shift themselves right back. It's like trying to part water. Any luck?'

  'No. I'm not even sure if I searched this area before.' Grunting, he stands up with a handful of vines he's snapped away from their bulbous roots. He slings them back over one shoulder, where they rattle against the corroding Dalek. 'Man, I'm glad to hook up with you again, Jomi. This is one dreary place. I didn't want to wind up spending my days and nights alone here.'

  I crouch on the ground, running my hands through that tangle of vines, trying to find the ranger's gun as much by touch as by sight. My weapon is slung across my back. I feel the heat of the ammo cyst through my suit. For a while, I suspected that Dissari was one of the walking hives, but from the way he bled from scratches and rumbled on in that garrulous way of his, I knew it was the real Dissari, mentor ranger of six years' standing.

  Dissari tends not to grab more than half a breath between every five hundred words or so of speech. I guess he's relieved to find a comrade.

  '… crap. You think that after all this time they'd have developed a gun that would come running when you whistled for the thing.' Grinning, he whistles. 'Here, boy. Here, boy.'

  I'm working my way through the vines and glance up at him as he stands there, hands on hips, monologueing his way through my search for his weapon.

  '… Jomi, let me tell you. When you qualify, you want to enrol in Strategic Ops. They have soft chairs and big, big desks. They don't crawl through swamps on their bellies looking for old tin pots that have been dead for a thousand years.' He jerks his head back at the Dalek that's rotting away into jungle loam. 'Strategic Ops get extras. They get superior transport; they get apartments with views of the ocean; they don't eat supper out of a plastic bag.'

  My eyes stray from his face as his monologue becomes a grouch about the hardships of a ranger's way of life. The Dalek sits in the dirt; butterflies flutter above it; a bird calls in a tree. Then, in one smooth movement, the old demon draws breath. The eye-stalk smoothly lifts to the horizontal; fluidly the limb and weapon do the same. And at that moment, though I don't see it, instinct alone tells me that a flood of some power, dormant for centuries, has just surged through the dark heart of the machine. Suddenly, its flanks acquire an uncanny lustre. The moss and vines creeping over the carapace wither and shrink as life with a deadly purpose flows into once-inert components.

  'And, I'll tell you this, Jomi, as soon as I get back to the ship, I'm filing my application. Yeah, that's right, buddy, it's time Dissari got some soft bed time, too. Or I'll-'

  'Dissari! Down flat!'

  Still crouching, I swing my weapon up, ready to fire the moment Dissari throws himself to the ground. But my warning hasn't registered. He merely gives me a puzzled look while hunching one shoulder as if to ask: 'What the hell are you playing at?'

  'Dissari! Down!'

  That's the second he realises. His horrified eyes meet mine, then he spins to see the Dalek as it rotates its flattened dome to lock its eye-stalk on the man, while simultaneously targeting him with its weapon. The blast wave shakes blossom from the trees. I smell burning meat. The concussion comes like a boot stamping into the side of my face. I couldn't fire before because Dissari was in the way. Now my answering shot won't harm him. The blast from the Dalek's weapon has punched the ranger's torso into burning fragments and torn his head free from his neck. Sickeningly, the flayed skull rolls across the ground to stop right by me; its eyes still shift from side to side as steam and blood ooze from its jaws. In the split second that I absorb the ugly scene, I automatically fire. The explosion tears the top off the Dalek, sending a geyser of biological matter and debris high in the air.

  There's a sudden silence. Strangely, the very absence of sound hurts my ears. Then the insects begin to buzz again, and the birds call to one another.

  The Professor runs up to me. 'Jomi… Jomi. Are you all right?'

  I cover the seared skull with a handful of vines; then, without a backward glance at the smashed Dalek, I walk away.

  'Jomi,' the Professor tells me. 'You should rest for a while.'

  Grim-faced, I shake my head. 'We've wasted enough time. Come on.'

  The Professor is staring at the ruined machine. 'Jomi? That's a Dalek?'

  'That was a Dalek.'

  We leave the remains of ranger Dissari and the Dalek behind. In moments we've reached the ramp that, hugging the face of the cliff, rises to the Dalek fortress. Before climbing, we check the screen that the Professor unfolds from his pocket. It shows the platoon in their cells. They are enduring torture - nothing less. Every few minutes, Kye's cell is engulfed with water. Again and again she fires the gun, punching a hole through the wall. The water empties, then the rupture reseals. She is exhausted. I know she can't last much longer. The same goes for Captain Vay, whose face is marked with cuts from
tireless attacks by the creature. Pup crushes ant-like insects beneath his boots to prevent them from swarming up his legs. Rain bursts a walking hive with her fists. Meanwhile, the mouth of the pit in Fellebe's cell has devoured half the floor space.

  This renews the urgency in our pace. The Professor insists on leading the way up the ramp. He estimates it will take a good fifteen minutes to climb to where the cuboid building rests on the cliff top. Despite my relentless training at the academy for these kind of operations, I find the heat and humidity debilitating. My feet feel as if they've been encased in iron as I climb. The Professor's stamina astounds me. Time and again I have to grit my teeth and increase my speed to keep up with him.

  He estimated fifteen minutes. We make it in twelve. The ramp sweeps inward through a doorway that's twice as high as a man - yet built for no man. Close up now, I see vines clinging to the face of the structure, veins of festering green from which clusters of poisonous- looking red berries hang. At one side, the cuboid superstructure runs into the bedrock, as if the stone has become fluid at some point and part of the building has simply sunk into it. At the other side, the cubes stand on slender pylons that are interconnected by more of the aerial tube-ways. The place breathes a blood-chilling desolation. This could be some lonesome graveyard. Nothing moves. The spirit of abandonment passes through these dead buildings like a lost soul.

  Suddenly I'm struck by self-doubt. 'Are we sure they're here?'

  'Your friends? We can't be sure. But of all the places we've seen, this seems most likely.'

  'Then we're being lured here, too. It can't be a mere random set of circumstances that dumped us by a bank of monitors that show the platoon being tortured.'

  'Oh, yes, it's dangerous. Incredibly so.' He gazes up at a moss-covered column. 'All of what we've witnessed suggests that we'll end our days in a cell, too.'

  'Tormented by Daleks,' I add bitterly.