‘They had a gift for war. New weapons every other day. She was trying to make the machinery in the casing work again. Even without a Dalek inside, the shell is dangerous. It could run on automatic, like a chicken with its head cut off.’

Kate blinked and looked round, confused. ‘What’s happened to me?’

she managed to say.

‘You’ll be all right,’ said the Doctor, but with a confidence Rose had learned to mistrust slightly. ‘She’s a new weapon.’

‘But how?’ Rose pointed to the Dalek. ‘It’s dead!’

The Doctor was thinking. ‘And what if, when it was dying, it sent something out, a genetic imprint? Remember that the Daleks hate the human race. They loathe all other creatures. Why would they even consider mixing their race with another? No mixed marriages for Daleks.’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps they imprinted the Dalek factor in the human race or tried to. Why?’ He indicated Kate. ‘And thou-29

sands of years later, the imprint’s still there, buried away in her genes.

Something triggered it off today, so she gets strength, intelligence, the power to heal herself.’

The Doctor helped Kate to her feet and steered her away from the Dalek.

Another terrifying thought struck Rose. ‘The Dalek factor,’ she whispered. ‘It could be in me? In everyone?’

‘No. This must be a fluke. Whatever the plan was, it went wrong.

The Dalek got killed. The imprint failed.’

‘How do you know?’

‘If they’d passed the Dalek factor on to the whole of humanity, I think I’d have noticed.’ He handed Kate gently over to Rose. ‘We’ve got to get her away, far away. I’ll sort it out later. There’ll be a way.

The further she gets, the safer she’ll be. What’s she called again?’

‘Kate Yates.’

‘Cruel parents and the Dalek factor. Unlucky girl. Go.’

Rose grabbed Kate round the middle and ran for the lift as fast as possible.

The Doctor returned to the Dalek casing. The green sparkles had faded.

The electronics inside were damaged by age. It was unlikely that Kate had managed to spark them into life, but it was worth making certain.

He waited, thinking over his next move. After a minute, he raised the sonic screwdriver for another check and peered inside.

A greasy green eye blinked up at him. A newly formed Dalek creature, smaller than an adult, was already stretching its slime-coated tentacles towards the connections.

The Doctor leapt back. ‘No,’ he breathed, staggering a little. ‘No.

That’s impossible. . . ’

He hesitated for a second. He knew he had to kill it – and kill it now. Could he?

The casing slammed shut on its hinge with a deafening clang.

The tip of the eye-stalk opened, glowing a bright, healthy blue.

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The sucker arm started to twitch. The base shifted, freeing itself from the earth that covered it. A croak came from the grating beneath the head. ‘ Aaaaaa. . . ’

The lights on the domed head flickered into life.

The Doctor realised that he had one option left, an option that had served him well on many occasions. He ran to the lift doors and pressed the up button desperately.

Over his shoulder, the Dalek was slowly turning its eye-stalk and sucker arm, moving unsteadily from side to side on its base.

The Doctor kicked the lift doors. ‘Come on!’

He heard the lift settle into position, saw the doors open, ran inside and pushed the up button. The lift doors closed with casual slowness.

Just before they closed completely, the Doctor saw the Dalek moving over the uneven ground of the pit towards him, its base a few inches off the ground.

The lift started going up.

The Dalek reached the closed door of the lift shaft. The socket where its gun had been twitched uselessly. Then its sucker arm reached out to the thick steel where the doors met, forming a cup against it. It tugged.

The doors bulged out. The Dalek pulled at the huge chunk of metal until it was free, then tossed it aside with ease.

It darted into the lift shaft, switched into its anti-gravity mode and started to rise.

The lift was moving up with, it seemed to the Doctor, painful slowness.

He heard a couple of shattering crashes from deep below him and thumped the wall. ‘Come on, come on. . . ’

The Dalek rose up the shaft. Its eye turned to the base of the climbing lift. Its young mind considered.

Slowly it tilted itself backwards. Then its sucker arm extended from the casing. It clamped on to the base of the lift with a metallic clang.

It heaved. Gears crunched and the motor screamed. The Dalek began to drag the lift – and the Doctor – back down.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

THE LIFT JUDDERED. GEARS screeched.

The Doctor looked up. The ceiling of the lift was made up of four metal plates. He stretched to his fullest height and aimed the sonic screwdriver at them, loosening the massive bolts in the corners. He heard the bolts fall one by one and slide across the floor of the lift.

He steadied himself, then spat on his hands and leapt, knocking the roof of the lift, trying to push one of the panels off to the side. It barely moved.

Below him, he could hear the newborn Dalek croaking.

He took another jump, bashing his palms against the panel. It shifted slightly.

Something rammed into the base of the lift. He looked down. A hole was being ripped in the floor.

Using all his strength, the Doctor jumped again, knocking the panel aside. He jumped a fourth time, gripping the rough edge of the free corner.

The hole in the floor grew bigger as the Dalek’s sucker tore at the metal. Though it was young, confused, still forming, the Doctor realised, it must have worked out how to use its sensors to see through into the lift. To see him.

He pulled himself up and out through the gap into the lift shaft, thankful for his skinny frame. Then he grabbed hold of the steel cable and climbed up it, hand over hand.

Rose got Kate out of the site and on to the main road. It was easy to hitch a lift from a passing lorry driver. ‘Two blondes,’ thought Rose.

‘Double hitching power.’ She told the driver, a pleasant young man who introduced himself as Atif, that Kate was feeling a little sick. They got up into the cab with him.

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Kate’s eyes flickered open fully and she turned to Rose. ‘What just happened back there?’

‘Don’t worry about it. We’re getting away,’ said Rose, trying to sound confident. She turned to Atif. ‘Where are you headed?’

‘France eventually,’ he said.

‘I can drop you off in Hastings,

Dover. . . ’

Rose took another look at Kate. ‘Dover’s fine.’

The Doctor crashed out of the bungalow. He looked quickly round the site, trying to spot any advantage, any tool he could use against the Dalek.

His face fell. ‘Oh no.’ A couple of police cars had chosen that exact moment to arrive, turning on to the waste ground. A security man and the student diggers were clustered round the site entrance.

One of the students spotted him and pointed. ‘That’s him, the bloke from London.’

The Doctor raced forward. ‘Please, you’ve all got to get out of here!’

He looked back at the bungalow. The noise of tearing metal echoed from inside. ‘Now!’

The security man stared at him uncertainly. ‘Can I see your identifi-cation, please, sir?’

The Doctor felt for his psychic paper, then decided against it. Explaining would just waste time. ‘There’s no time for that!’ he shouted.

‘Run! Get out, all of you, now!’

His hearts sank as he saw four police officers get out of their cars.

The students were looking at him, this time with amusement. The security man put a hand on his shoulder.

The Doctor knew what was coming for these innocents and it chilled him.

A gargling croak came from behind and he whipped round. The Dalek was moving across the waste ground towards them, its eye-stalk and sucker arm twisting and turning angrily.