Doctor Who: Target - Novelisations [016] - The Daleks by David Whitaker

Author:David Whitaker
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426101109
Publisher: Target Books
Published: 1973-03-13T23:00:00+00:00

6

The Will to Survive

The Dalek in front of me stopped moving and I tried not to think about what would happen if it fired. The Doctor was ahead of me and a little to one side, pretending to be urged forward by the long rod with the sucker attachment. But he would be right in the line of fire. I felt I knew how men in the Tank Corps suffered when an enemy bazooka suddenly appeared.

‘Steady, Chesterton,’ I heard the Doctor whisper, and then he raised his voice angrily. ‘Stop pushing me, confound you! I’m going. I’m going!’

We came to rest about six feet away from the Dalek and I was quite certain I wasn’t going to do any speaking first. I was too afraid of making a mistake. I kept thinking about the way the wall had melted in the cell. A bead of sweat ran down my forehead, trickled past my left eyebrow and ran down my nose.

‘They are going to level eight?’

I detected a slight lift at the end of the sentence as the Dalek spoke and it was the fast time I had noticed real tonal quality in their speech.

‘Yes.’

The Dalek examined us all for a few seconds then began to swing away.

‘There have been no instructions. The matter will be referred.’

I thought desperately and didn’t come up with anything. Then the slight figure of Susan appeared in my eye-line.

‘I won’t go!’ she shouted. ‘You’ve no right to keep us prisoners!’

She started to run, making to go past the other Dalek and along the corridor. The machine startled me with its speed of movement. It whirled round and I saw the sucker rod extend outwards and bury itself in the wall just ahead of Susan, stopping her abruptly.

‘Go back to the others.’

Susan turned slowly and stood next to her grandfather and Barbara appeared on the other side of him. The Dalek turned its eye-stick towards me and I saw its bulbs flashing.

‘I will help you move them into the lift room.’

I didn’t dare say anything. Those flashing bulbs reminded me that I hadn’t any idea whether mine were working or not. The Dalek extracted its suction pad from the wall, swung round and passed the pad over one of the bulbs on the wall. A door slid open and Susan stepped through it. Barbara stood directly in front of the Doctor so that he could grip one of the rods on my machine and pull me. We must have been inches away from the door. Barbara had already gone through when the Dalek’s eye-stick suddenly shot downwards and looked where I imagined the Doctor’s hand was holding my machine.

‘Step away! Take your hand away!’ The Doctor lifted his band and, of course, I came to rest. The eye-stick turned to me.

‘What is wrong? Are you damaged?’

I decided stubbornness was the best approach.

‘They are to go to level eight,’ I intoned. There was an indecisive pause and then the eye-stick wavered and the body of the machine swung away.

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