The Mind of The Daleks

Chapter 18: Interfaces

Past endless technology.

Isabel started to lose her sense of direction and began to seriously wonder if this exploration would do any good at all. The Doctor endlessly poked his substantial nose into nooks and crannies and thereby more than once put them in danger of discovery, but he seemed to have no success in finding any information. However, his face grew darker and more taciturn as they went, and Isabel suspected that he guessed more than he knew.

"Here we are, then," said the Doctor, stopping at a ladder that led upwards. "You first, Isabel," and he gestured invitingly upward.

"Wait a minute," she said, "did we go all the way around? I'm confused."

"I think so." The Doctor sighed. "Unfortunately I can learn very little from any of it."

Isabel nodded. She began to ascend the ladder, but then paused to ask; "If all you need is a way to access the information in the Daleks' computers, couldn't you use the hardware that we saw in the office up front? I mean, that computer looked like it was in pretty good condition, so you could hook it up and everything, couldn't you?"

"It's possible, I suppose," the Doctor said slowly, rubbing his chin. "Although it might present several very considerable difficulties. I shall have to examine the resources at hand, thought, to see if it could be done!"

Isabel hoisted herself up to the next and highest level with a feeling of relief. So, there might be an easy way out of this! She was now in an area just as complex and dense as the last, although the apparatus was smaller and laid out in such a way that suggested it had been designed for hands-on contact. Overhead, the ceiling was formed by the immense metal disc which the Doctor had said was the ship that the Daleks had arrived in, looking even more like a flying saucer up close; it was almost smooth, filled the whole room, and dipped gradually until at the center it could probably be touched by an outstretched hand.

A man below stomped past the ladder and the Doctor hastily pulled himself up beside Isabel. He sat there for a moment and then stood up and walked over to an arrangement of computers which was a mass of ports, slots, buttons and screens – the likeliest they had seen yet, though it still had a very hostile quality to it.

"User unfriendly, guaranteed," he muttered under his breath. He poked and prodded it, pulled out a wire and a thin card and then handed both to Isabel as he awkwardly crawled under to get a better angle.

"I'll say," Isabel quipped; "I haven't seen one chair since we left the office."

The Doctor gave her a reproachful glance as he crawled out again and replaced the wire and card. The next two minutes he spent examining the computer from every possible direction, but at last he stepped back and gave an exasperated, childish little stamp of his foot.

"Now, given a little time I might make it work!" he lamented. "Human technology may be compatible enough for me to rig up some sort of a connection."

Isabel groaned. "Won't it work at all?"

"If I only had the time..." The Doctor cast his eyes downwards and tapped his fingertips lightly together. "A few hours might just do it! But we cannot stay here long; and in any case it would probably be useless. I - Well, I'm afraid I'll have to find another way."

Isabel sighed and slid her cold hands into her pockets. They were in a fairly open space clear of any unwelcome company, so she turned and walked a short distance away knowing that she'd still be in sight of the Doctor. Everything was very bleak and stark. The austere metal and plastic reflected sullenly the sparse light and the room was very still except for the eternal hum of machines and that steady, unexplained pulse that filled the moments. Even the air was cold, but with the manufactured chill of an air conditioner and not the natural one of autumn.