The Doctor was, to be honest, in a bit of a snit.
He had just completed a vast and complicated task at the behest of the White Guardian, and just when he had got it all over and done with, the Time Lady travelling with him, Romanadvoratrelundar, had decided to regenerate. Just like that! Without a care in the world!
He could only think that he was becoming a good influence on her.
Frivolously, Romana asked his opinion of one body and then another, and finally settled on something short and blonde. He was a bit aggrieved, though, when she showed up dressed in a fair imitation of his own clothing, her new round face (someone else's face he pointed out) wearing Romana's serious expression a bit oddly, like a mask that did not quite fit.
And along with that, the Doctor's dog K-9 had developed laryngitis. Which was ridiculous for a robot, of course; the Doctor wondered who in their right mind would decide that when something went wrong in a K-9 unit, rather than have it flash a light or print out an error message or send out a radio signal, it would instead start having laryngitis. Technically K-9 didn't even have a larynx.
There was nothing to be done for the poor dog right now, though. "Well, are you quite finished yet?" he said to Romana, after she decided on a pink coat and white scarf.
"Yes," and the TARDIS shuddered as it landed. K-9 coughed futilely. "Where are we?"
"No idea, thanks to the randomiser. Which means the Black Guardian has no idea either." He ran a practiced eye over the sensor readouts. "Oxygen and water vapour optimal, temperature within the normal range, minimal radiation." He opened the viewscanner to the outside, and said in a tone of delight, "Oh look, trees!"
An orchard, from the looks of it. Trees heavy with fruit, planted in neat lines. Beyond them was a purplish mountain range. The angle of the sunlight and the fresh dew on the grass suggested it was morning.
"Looks lovely," opined Romana.
"Yes, but you know, I don't think it looks familiar. And yet somehow…No, I'm certain it's not familiar. Something new. Good." He hit the controls and opened the doors, then petted K-9 apologetically. "You'd better stay in here, boy. Wouldn't want you to get any sicker."
Outside, the orchard was even more impressive. All the trees' branches were carefully shaped and pruned. The ground below them was bare of fallen leaves or branches: there was nothing but thick, soft turf. It looked perfect for a stroll. A new world to explore - and for once, one that didn't promise imminent danger or death.
# # #
The Dalek waited.
Its current position was on the coast of the Skaro sea. Thal territory: it and its cohorts bore flags of truce. An unnecessary gesture, in its opinion, but it was a Dalek. It obeyed orders.
Its sensors detected a small wooden boat, nudging its way towards the coast through the thick morning mist. There were life forms on board: Kaled and Thal life forms. And although the boat was crudely made, there was at least one energy signature of advanced equipment on board.
While the Dalek monitored its current position, and charted the progress of the boat, it also listened to the conversation of its fellow travellers. They were not Daleks, and their words made little sense. Presumably the dialogue was some sort of pair-bonding behaviour. It listened, and filed the words away in its memory for future understanding.
"In my native tongue, sharp is a flavour, you know. Like a tart fruit."
"Hmmm…and what else?"
"Also musical notation."
"Musical notation?" The male laughed.
"And fine is a measure of thickness, and of quality, and also a punishment payment." The female then laughed.
The Dalek rotated its dome, slowly, and stared at the Kaled male and female, who were sitting on one of the two-wheeled machines they had ridden to get here. Why they would want to sit on the same machine, facing each other, arms and legs entwined, faces occasionally touching - that was also not understood.
The Dalek looked away, and spoke, "The ship is approaching the dock."
"Excellent," said the male, moving the female off his lap and standing with her at his side. "Any weapons signatures?"
"Shaped metal. One energy source." The Dalek considered what else these 'sailors' might have. "Possible non-powered, non-metallic projectile weapons."
"An arrow with a bone point, say."
"Hullo!" said a voice out of the blank greyness of the mist. "What depth?"
"Advance twenty ship-lengths to establish visual contact," rasped the Dalek.
"What was that?" The Dalek's distinctive tone was apparently unknown to the voice.
The male replied to the ocean. "Ahead slow, you're almost at the dock. The bottom is dredged out to the shoreline; you're in no danger of grounding. As soon as we see you, we'll throw you a line."
When the ship finally appeared out of the mists, it was small and battered. It had broad cloth sails, and oar-ports along its sides. The male at the bow of the ship was heavily bearded, and the beard was mostly white with age. Before it might have been blond. He took the rope that was thrown to him, and the boat was quickly hauled parallel to the long wooden dock.
The men on the boat, the sailors, stared up at the Dalek with frightened eyes. Men in rough worn clothes, cuffs stiff with salt. Refugees from the mainland, who had fled the war and made their lives on the islands of Skaro. They should fear, of course. The Dalek was their superior in every way.
The female on the dock spoke first. "Captain Gre, I presume?"
The bearded man grunted. His eyes darted from the Dalek to the Kaleds, and to the large heap of wooden crates that were also on the dock. "I'm Gre."
"I am Security Liaison called Esselle, and this is Security Commander Nyder. With a Dalek security escort."
Nyder nodded his head, eyes cool behind his glasses.
"I believe you have passengers of interest? Two passengers?" she asked.
"I'm here," said a man, moving to Gre's side. He was young, but grief had marked his face in harsh lines. "I'm," he choked, "I'm so sorry. So very sorry…"
"It will be all right, Rett," she said soothingly, reaching out to take his hand - and stopping, as Gre's arm thrust between them.
"We had a deal," he said harshly. "Him and t'other one, for food, and tools."
Esselle leaned back, and delicately shrugged. "The supplies are here. Send your men to look at them." She looked unconcerned as the sailors clambered off the ship and went to inspect the boxes.
The Dalek watched the sailors, closely, using all its senses. Some of them had knives in their belts, hilts and blades worn with much use. The Dalek knew that Nyder and Esselle's leather outer garments could stop a knife; its main concern would be to blast down attackers without harming its allies.
One of the sailors returned to the ship, and whispered in Gre's ear. The Captain's eyes widened alarmingly.
"He says there's more than we can stow on board!" he snapped.
"Well, we thought you should be able to pick and choose," she said. "Anything you do not take on this trip can either be held specifically for you, or in trust for anyone who wants to depart for your islands and needs supplies."
Gre seemed to consider this, then turned and gestured sharply. Two sailors moved to the mast, and started untying the man who was bound there, his head drooping forward. Then Gre stepped back to the rail, and stared at Esselle.
"You look like her, y'know. Are you her sister?"
"We are the Daughters of Skaro; we are all sisters."
"Well, how about that." Gre's brow was furrowed. "I tell you, when Rett showed up with his wife, well, I thought it would be the end of everythin'. That we'd spend all our time fightin' over her instead of workin'.
"But Ellsa was - real nice. And she worked hard, not as hard as a man maybe but as hard as she could. She and Rett brought a radio, and unbreakable fishin' line, and sewing needles, and just half a hundred things we needed. And she was smart, and she was beautiful." Gre looked at the woman on the dock. Her long dark brown hair, her sharp nose and dark eyes. "Beautiful too," he repeated, and scuffled his feet.
He dropped his arm, and Rett leaped off the ship in one movement and went into Esselle's embrace. "So sorry," he was still whispering. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a round metal sphere (the Dalek scanned it, and determined it to be the previously detected energy source: a compact memory recorder of Reflectionist manufacture). "I did like you said, I touched this to her after he, after we found her. We buried her. I'm so sorry."
"It will be-"
"It's not all right!" he half-shouted. "You trusted me with Ellsa, with her life, and I got her murdered!" Then he turned and glared at the bound man who had just been dragged to the rail.
The bound man had been clean-shaven, but he had not been allowed near a blade in some days, it seemed. His cheeks and upper lip were grey with stubble, and his face was grey with fear.
"She's one of them!" the prisoner shouted, lunging against the ropes that still held him. "One of those creatures!"
"We creatures, as you call us, ended the war," Esselle retorted. "I recognise you. Commander, would you like to make official identification?"
Nyder stepped to the edge of the dock, and the bound man writhed in the grip of the sailors, desperately trying to get loose. He examined the prisoner's face as though trying to decide where to place the first cut.
"Identity confirmed. Captain Gre, do you require help in loading these supplies?"
"No."
"We have made arrangement with the Thals. This dock is yours for three days, in case you want to unpack or repack any of the cases." Or inspect them for hidden bombs and such. "We will take your passengers now. There are people eager to see them." He stepped closer, and looked down at the bound man, who'd been slung over the railing and onto the dock as though he were a bundle of cloth. The prisoner rolled frantically, but Nyder's boot prevented him from, say, dropping into the ocean and filling his lungs with seawater.
The Commander leaned forward a trifle, and almost smiled. "Hello, Councilman Mogran."
# # #
The Doctor and Romana were walking, taking in the alien sights and smells, and noting the signs of the planet's unseen inhabitants: neatly trimmed grass, benches of some polished white stone, a glittering fountain dripping with flowers. It was a beautiful world, and it was strange that they hadn't seen any signs of people.
"Look here!" said Romana, and the Doctor joined her at a tree that had fallen, breaking the orderly row. It had fallen recently, from the look of it: the broken trunk was still weeping sap. Romana was looking at the inside of the stump. "It's all hollow inside."
The Doctor looked, and then looked again. What looked from the outside to be a solid tree trunk was revealed as a delicate web of nearly transparent material, supporting a solid shell just inside the bark. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver, but it couldn't distort the strands. "An assembled matrix."
"What?" asked Romana.
"These trees aren't really trees: they're live bark and wood grown over a shell of artificial material."
"Why not just grow the trees naturally?" Romana asked.
"Oh, I don't know…A speed gardening competition?"
Romana gave the Doctor a look; he looked back with an innocent expression. Overhead a bird sang: the Doctor's eyes could not determine its species, but there seemed to be something familiar about the shape of its bill. Then with a flick of red wings, it was gone.
The bird was going to a birdhouse. It perched at the entrance, and as it had been carefully trained to do, it raised its head, just enough so that the pinhead-sized metal button on the top of its head would make contact with the metal rim. And it thought.
It thought about what it had seen recently: trees, sun, animals, insects, moss, a new blue box, other birds, and new walking-things with interesting nest-building material on their top ends. Then it waited. It knew, from its training, that when it touched its head to the rim and thought of new things it had seen, a hatch would open and things-to-eat would come out.
The hatch opened. And things-to-eat came out. Lots of them. Lots and lots! The bird chirped, and started to feast.
# # #
"They are here. Prepare to intercept. Contact all units in the field. Begin the transmissions."
"We obey."
# # #
The travellers had found the edge of the orchard; a steep rocky cliff sliced downwards at their feet, and the great expanse of bare ground beyond was almost blinding white; they could feel the heat off of it on their faces, warmer than the sunlight.
It was what was moving on that white plain that made the Doctor fall into a crouch, and grab Romana by the ends of her tasselled white scarf and drag her down as well.
The plain was dotted with black circular objects, with a metallic gleam to their edges. It was hard to judge exactly how large they were; they lined up as far as the horizon. Some of them seemed to be unfinished, with bits of their outsides lying about or being manoeuvred into position by machines, or by other things.
It was those other things that told the Doctor exactly how big the black disc-shaped objects were. The other things looked like tiny rounded cones, studded with half-spheres in lines along the bottom, and crowned with a dome that bore a metallic eyestalk. Each cone also had a sucker-tipped arm, and a weapon; some of them had different arms attached, with specialised equipment. But they all had weapons.
"Those are Daleks, aren't they?" said Romana. "I recognise them from the Academy lessons…they're a lot smaller than I thought they were."
"No, they're farther away than you think. This must be a salt flat, a dried-up ocean. Those are Daleks, and they're building spaceships. Probably a war fleet."
"How do you know it's a war fleet?"
The Doctor frowned massively. "Because Daleks are building it…ah!" He was staring wide-eyed at the purple mountain range, finally recognising it. "Drammankin!"
"What's a drammankin?"
"Those are the Drammankin Mountains, and this is - come on, we have to get back to the TARDIS." Suiting actions to words, the Doctor crept away from the edge of the cliff on hands and knees, then rose and half-dragged Romana after him.
"Why do we have to get back?" she said, half-running to keep up with his long loping strides.
"This is Skaro. The Daleks' home world. I've been here before; too many times."
"But why would Daleks have an orchard?" she protested. "They're war machines, creatures that live only to kill. They don't even eat!"
"Doctor."
"What?" he snapped over his shoulder at the woman's voice, irritably. Romana could be rather slow to react sometimes.
"I didn't say anything!" she protested.
"What?" he said, and turned, and saw the four figures standing behind Romana.
