The Mind of The Daleks

Chapter 23: Disaster

"Exterminate!" grated the Dalek. "Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"

"Oh, dear," said the Doctor again, resigned. He closed his eyes tightly and leaned tense back against the wall, waiting for the blast.

"No!" Isabel cried, and darted out from around the corner.

Instantly, their two enemies swung around to face her. The Doctor opened his eyes, a look of idiotic surprise on his face.

What happened next was a snarl of swift confusion.

Isabel had taken the sliver of wood out of her pocket, hoping to jam it into the crevice in the Dalek's casing as she had done before. But the Dalek was too quick for her; before she could get close enough to shove it in, it knocked her backwards with its plunger-arm. She fell into a corner against a wall of computers, and the splinter slipped out of her hand and over the edge of the narrow floor.

The Doctor jumped forward and pulled the Dalek into a spin. The roboman, his gun still raised, aimed and pulled the trigger.

Off-balance, the Dalek tried desperately find its target and shrieked, "Exterminate!"

Just in time, the Doctor jumped out of the way and dropped to the floor. The two guns went off at almost the same instant, but the added momentum had so twisted them up that the Dalek and its slave only hit each other. The small space filled with bright negative light and the man crumpled without a sound to the floor. The Dalek gave an eerie scream and went into a spin, its gun going off at random and hitting the wall in several places.

Another of the slaves came around the corner at a run and narrowly avoided getting hit by a bolt of energy. He took in the situation at a glance and his eyes showed a sudden gleam of independent intelligence. Promptly, he raised his gun – taking aim at the Dalek.

But the Dalek had just enough astuteness left to somehow notice this and slowed just long enough to fire at its own slave, who arched backwards in pain and then collapsed dead to the ground. Then it exploded in a shower of sparks, metal, and acrid smoke.

The Doctor lay motionless for a moment, his arms flung around his head in protective abandon. Then he rose slowly to his feet and picked his way across the wreckage to where Isabel still lay as the Dalek had shoved her.

"I thought I told you to stay out with the car, Isabel!" he reproved, helping her up tenderly. "Though I must say that I was quite glad to see you again just now!"

"Yeah, well - I guess that makes the second time I've saved your life." Isabel attempted a smile as she shakily stood up.

"Yes, and I am most grateful," the Doctor said. "But whatever did you come inside again for?"

"You weren't out yet and I figured that there was something wrong. And then one of the Daleks came back from investigating the worksite and said that you would probably be headed back here. And then the man who was with the Dalek saw the dalekanium and the car. So I had to come back and warn you."

"Ah, yes; I see." The Doctor smiled at her kindly and then half turned away to examine one of the places where the Dalek's gun had blown a hole in the wall.

"He caught me," Isabel went on, gazing at him intently, her eyes filling with tears. "The man who was with the Dalek. I had to kill him; I had no choice."

The Doctor turned back to her, his face sad and understanding, and placed an hand on her shoulder. "Oh, Isabel, I'm very sorry," he said softly. "If he had been robotized there was no hope for him."

"But he was Mackenzie Donavan. We met him earlier."

"All that was Mackenzie Donavan had been removed from him," the Doctor sighed. "He would have died within a month or two at most. Now come along, my dear; we haven't much time and, if I can, I must finish what I started."