Doctor Who - I Am a Dalek (3 page)

Frank got up and followed him to the table, scratching his head.

‘I thought it was a supporting beam,’ he said. Something about this bloke made him feel like a beginner.

‘No, look at the edges. Too smooth for that.’ He reached out and shook Frank’s hand very tightly. ‘I’m the Doctor, by the way.’

‘Frank Openshaw. They said someone was coming down from London. . . ’

‘Did they?’ The Doctor saw another find on the table, a worn Roman coin. ’Ah, look at that. Nero. Takes me back.’ He knelt, slipped on a pair of glasses and chuckled at the man’s profile on the coin. ‘He was fatter than that.’ He pointed upwards. ’So, there was a Roman town there, right? And it went up in the revolt of Boudicca. The Britons chucked everything down into these caves. About 1950 the British government builds a great big bunker in the caves: centre of regional government. Looks like a bungalow up top, very secret. When the Cold War ends, someone goes to fill this place in and build some flats on the surface. Then they find this stuff and call you in. Am I right or what?’,

Frank swallowed. ‘Pretty much. OK, come and have a look at this.’

He led the Doctor to the pile of most recent finds and handed him a metal triangle. ‘Gardening tool?’

The Doctor shook his head sadly. ‘No, handle’s wrong. That’s a pizza slice. Except they didn’t have tomatoes then. It was more like herby cheese on toast. Cheesy naan actually. Yum.’ He took off his glasses, put them away and looked right at Frank. ‘Sorry. Am I being annoying?’

‘Didn’t catch your name,’ said Frank.

‘Just the Doctor. The. Doctor.’ He scratched the back of his neck.

‘Now, would I be wrong to think you’ve dug something up that you really, really don’t understand?’

Frank sighed. ‘And I suppose you’ll know just what it is.’.

14

The Doctor shrugged. ‘Might do. Sorry. Everybody loves a smar-tarse. . . ’

Frank pointed down a narrow corridor that led off the main dig.

‘Image on the right of the mosaic. Down there. Follow the lights.’

The Doctor gave him a thumbs-up and walked off. Frank stared after him and wondered. And the more he wondered, the odder the thoughts that came into his head.

One of the students broke into his thinking. ‘Frank!’ he called from the pit. ‘There’s something metal down here. Dead weird it is!’

The Doctor sauntered along the corridor. A standard lamp shone down on to a display case with a large, rough-edged mosaic inside.

The Doctor guessed that when the Britons had looted the Roman town above, they’d tossed it down into the caves too.

He saw what was depicted there and felt his hearts skip a beat. At the same moment he heard cries of excitement and surprise from the main dig. The radio was switched off.

He ran back. ‘Frank! Mr Openshaw!’

He emerged into the huge hollowed-out room and jumped down into the pit, striding over to where Openshaw and his workers were gathered in a far corner.

‘Get away from it!’ he called, pushing a couple of the students aside.

And found himself facing a Dalek.

15

‘LOOKS LIKE A ROBOT,’ said Frank.

The thing had been unearthed hurriedly by the students. In their excitement they had forgotten that the first rule of archaeology was patience. Its base was still covered in earth and its sides were caked in lumps of dirt. It looked exactly like the thing in the mosaic. Its golden casing had lost its colour but it remained whole. Eye-stalk, sucker and stubby gun were lifted arrogantly. The Doctor waved a hand over the eyepiece. No reaction.

He seemed to consider for a second. Then, as Frank moved to touch it, he cried, ‘It’s a bomb! Step back from it, Frank!’

Frank pulled his hand back. One of the students looked the Doctor up and down, then asked, ‘Who’s this?’

Frank and the Doctor looked at each other. Somehow, Frank trusted this odd young stranger. ‘It’s the bloke from London,’ he heard himself saying, though he knew it wasn’t true.

The Doctor slapped the student’s arm down as he lifted it towards the gun stick. ‘And the bloke from London says get back!’ Then he grabbed a loud hailer from the floor of the pit and called, ‘Evacuate the area! I have authority from London and all that! Get up to the surface now!’

Frank wasn’t surprised when the students obeyed. But he found himself remaining.

The museum teashop opened early. Kate, who was the only customer, munched in a daze on a teacake while speaking on the phone to Serena. Getting angry with Serena was pointless – but still, Kate was getting angry. ‘Yes, I was nearly run over. Just now.’

‘Nearly run over running for the late bus, then?’ asked Serena’s dull, flat voice.

17

‘The “nearly run over” part of the sentence is the important bit!’

Kate snapped.

She felt a wave of anger rushing up inside her. Why did she have to even
pretend
to be polite to this idiot? The meaning of the phrase

‘seeing red’ suddenly became clear to her. She felt that if Serena had been there she could have picked up her butter knife and stabbed her.

But she wasn’t, so she flipped her mobile shut and grabbed the café’s copy of the paper from the counter. Idly, she turned to the puzzle page.

She might have a go at the easy crossword to calm herself down.

The sudoku puzzles caught her eye instead. She’d hardly bothered to look at them before – she’d always been rubbish at maths – but this morning the numbers seemed to dance in the air. Without even thinking about it she filled all the empty boxes in – for all three: the easy, hard and killer sudokus – her fingers whizzing across the page.

Then she looked at the crosswords. She filled in the blanks with letters easily, solving even the hardest clues in fractions of a second.

It was easy. Really easy. Why had she never noticed that before?

She looked around, taking deep breaths. Something in the world had changed – or was it inside her?

She could see the atoms dancing around the room. She knew the exact temperature of her coffee. She saw and understood the chemical processes taking place inside the cup. But this wasn’t like thinking.

She didn’t have to concentrate, or make an effort. It felt as natural as breathing. And with it came a sense of strength and power. Her hand reached for a sachet of sweetener in a bowl. She rubbed it gently between her thumb and finger and watched as it broke apart in a little blizzard of static electricity.

She took another deep breath and looked up. Someone had entered the little shop – the pretty blonde girl who’d held her hand out in the road, Rose. That seemed like a dream. She wanted to sneer. As if a speeding car could stop
her
!

‘So you’re OK now?’ asked Rose.

Kate smiled. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Just gonna finish this and go to work.

Thanks.’

Rose sat down next to her, leaning close. ‘That car smacked right 18

into you. You were dying. What’s the deal? You can tell me.’

Kate bridled. ‘Sorry. Could you move a bit back? I like my personal space.’

Rose pointed to Kate’s blouse. ‘You’re covered in blood. You should be dead.’

There was something very kind and trusting in the girl’s deep brown eyes. Kate swallowed; a cruel thought came into her mind. Such emotions were
weak
.

Rose went on, ‘I know what it feels like. Something happens that you can’t explain. You invent any excuse to stop thinking about it.’

‘What’s your name again?’ asked Kate, though she knew.

‘Rose. Rose Tyler.’ She held out her hand.

Kate took it, shook it. Tight. ‘Great. Now then, Rose Tyler, clear off.

I’ve got enough on my plate.’

Rose flinched and pulled her hand away.

Frank watched as the Doctor ran that glowing metal tube of his slowly over the object he’d described as a bomb. Then the Doctor gave a deep sigh. Some of the cheeky light came back into his eyes. He looked across at Frank. ‘Is there any point me asking you to go home?’

‘None,’ said Frank. He pointed to the section of the bomb where the domed head met a rusty metal grille surrounded by metal slats.

‘Could be a hinge there.’

The Doctor smiled. ‘I like you, Frank Openshaw. You’re clever.’

He applied the tip of the tube to the hinge and then carefully lifted up the dome. Frank came closer. Inside there was a tangle of electronic parts and wires. It looked as if something was missing in this central space, something about the size of a football that would once have sat there. The Doctor reached in and picked up a handful of dust. He sifted it between his fingers and then blew it away.

‘Dead as a doornail,’ he said. He seemed relieved – but also, Frank felt, perhaps a little sad, as if staring into the past.

Frank made a small snorting noise. ‘A bomb? In earth that hasn’t been touched for 2,000 years?’

19

The Doctor rubbed the dust from his hands and smiled. ‘OK, clever Frank Openshaw, you’ve got me. It’s not strictly a bomb.’ He pat-ted the casing. ‘It’s all that’s left of the most terrifying thing in the universe.’

‘I’ve never seen one before,’ said Frank.

‘And you don’t how lucky you are.’ He whistled and pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘Now really, hop it.’ He returned to his study of the object.

Frank didn’t move. He considered the Doctor’s words. ‘You said

“universe”.’

‘What about it?’ asked the Doctor.

‘Nobody would say “the most terrifying thing in the universe”. Un-less they were mad, and you’re not mad.’

The Doctor frowned. ‘Go home, Frank. You’ve got a day off. Put your feet up, have sausage and chips, watch
Brainteaser
. Come back tomorrow.’

‘You’d only say “universe” if you were – I don’t know, from space,’

said Frank, laughing to himself as he said it.

The Doctor blinked. ‘Don’t be silly.’

Frank pointed to the object. ‘And that could be from space too. And from what you said about Nero, and the pizza. . . you’d only know that if you’d been there.’ He laughed once more at the madness of what he was saying.

The Doctor blinked again. For once he wasn’t saying anything.

‘Sorry. Am I being annoying?’ asked Frank. He knew his theory couldn’t be true.

The Doctor laughed and clapped him around the shoulders. ‘No.

Now, I really,
really
like you.’ He pointed to the object. ‘That’s a Dalek. No – that was a Dalek. From the planet Skaro. Once, yeah, the most terrifying things in the universe. They were very gifted at war.

Now they’re all dead, all the creatures inside. This is just the shell, a heap of old bits. There’s more life in a tramp’s vest!’

It was the strangest conversation of Frank’s life. The Doctor was obviously joking, making all this up, but still Frank decided to join in.

‘So what killed them?’ he asked.

20

‘I did,’ said the Doctor. ‘Many battles, one final war.’ He kicked the base of the Dalek. ‘There’s nothing to be scared of any longer.’

‘I want you to meet a mate of mine,’ said Rose, trailing Kate as she left the teashop. ‘He can help you.’

Kate sighed. ‘Thank you for your concern, but I really am fine.’

Rose grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her to face one of the museum’s windows. ‘You’re blonde. When you ran out in the road, I saw you. You had curly red hair, and now. . . look!’

Kate saw herself in the window. Her hair was straight and bright yellow, like some Swedish supermodel’s. She shuddered, took a step back. She couldn’t accept what she saw.

‘Kate, come and meet the Doctor,’ said Rose.

Kate’s head swivelled round. The movement felt totally instinctive.

Doctor! The Doctor!

‘Come on,’ said Rose, taking her gently by the hand. ‘He’s at a place called Crediton Vale. Do you know that?’

Kate nodded. Another bus was just turning on to the green. She pointed. ‘We can get that and be there in five minutes.’

‘Don’t be scared. He’ll know what to do,’ said Rose, leading her to the bus stop.

As she walked across the peaceful village street of her childhood, terrible images ran through Kate’s mind’s eye. Somebody else’s memories. Whole worlds burning, planets falling through space like balls scattered over a snooker table. The word
Doctor
echoed in her head.

She saw the shadow shape of a man framed by fire. There was a knot of anger inside her, something vicious and confident and sharp. Then another emotion took over – fear.

A word started running through her head. Its four syllables de-manded to be shouted out loud, again and again.

Exterminate!

21

THE DOCTOR GENTLY LOOSENED the connections and removed the Dalek gun an inch at a time.

Frank noted that there was sweat on his brow. ‘Thought it wasn’t dangerous,’ he said.

‘Not in itself,’ said the Doctor, holding the gun at arm’s length. ‘But you tell me, what happens if some clever clogs gets this in his lab?

Finds out how it works? The human race gets the secret of Dalek weapons. You’ll all be dead by Wednesday week.’

He placed the weapon with care into Frank’s hands, rolled up his sleeves and bent over the open casing, using the metal tube to work inside.

Frank looked down at the weapon, confused. Part of him didn’t believe a word of what the Doctor was saying. But the other part of him believed every bit of it.

A few moments later, the Doctor looked up and said, ‘Frank, you don’t ask questions. Normally by now people are saying, “What’s it like in space? Can I go back and save Kennedy? Can I stop myself meeting the wife?” That sort of thing.’

Frank nodded to the Dalek ‘That looks tricky. Don’t want to put you off.’ He smiled. ‘And I love my wife,’ he added sincerely. ‘If I could go back, change anything, I’d want to meet her years before I did. Funny, she was in her third year at Durham University when I was in my first year, but we never met for another ten years.’

The Doctor stood up straight. ‘You are a remarkable person. Right.

I need to ask you something.’ He tapped the Dalek ‘I’m taking this to bits. Just for safe keeping, take the gun away. Pretty soon, someone up there’s gonna come down here and start asking questions.’ He nodded to the gun. ‘They can get their hands on me, OK, but nobody must get their hands on that. Pop it in your bag and take it home. I’ll 23