Leela and the two men had followed the path until it merged onto a road that seemed to be made of one great flat stone. They followed the road to a stone tunnel, and down it: the tunnel zigged and zagged, and had metal boxes along the sides of it that probably held weapons. Leela kept her hand on her knife.
They finally reached the end of the tunnel, and a massive metal door. A voice came out of a box above the door. "Present identification and state the nature of your business."
Ravon reached into his pocket and pulled out a metal card, which he held over his head. "Teacher Ravon, Red pass. I have Student Stor here with me, for a tour of the Bunker. And Leela," he looked over his shoulder at her, then back to the door, "a foreign woman, a traveller."
"There's no tour of the Bunker on the schedule, Teacher Ravon," said the voice.
"I have a Red pass, Tane. If there's no tour on the schedule, let us in anyway and mark me down as meeting with my physical therapist." Ravon's words might be hostile by themselves, but his tone was still flat and relaxed.
Those words must have worked, because the metal door opened and the three of them entered. The door slid shut behind them, with great firmness.
Inside was a metal room: metal all over, like a Tesh place, thought Leela. There were men in black carrying guns, and a man sitting behind a console of some sort. A metal arch was at her right, with more metal boxes attached to it.
"Captain Tane. Thank you for letting us in," said Ravon, but all of Tane's attention was on Leela.
"She's brown," said Tane, with a frown; he was dark-haired and looked like he usually frowned.
Leela looked at her own tanned arm. Had these men stayed in their boxes so long that they did not remember the sun? "Of course," she said, puzzled. "The sun makes you brown, everyone knows that."
Ravon looked at her, as he stepped up to the metal arch and stood under it. "You are from far off," he said, and then the arch started to whine.
Leela crouched and touched her knife; the boy Stor laughed at her movement, but she ignored him. The arch was whining and Ravon was standing still, seeming to ignore the terrible noise. Then the noise ended, and he stepped out of the arch, unharmed.
"No metal detected," said Tane.
"Except for the usual," said Ravon, touching his forehead. "Stor, your turn."
Stor pulled the knife and sheath from his belt, and placed them on Tane's console; while he went through the arch-whine ritual, Ravon came over to Leela and spoke to her softly.
"I would very much appreciate it if you would leave that weapon here," he said. "This is an important place, and we have very important people working here."
"Captain Tane," said a new voice, and Leela looked up to see a woman with long dark hair, standing beside the Captain. The woman continued, "Is this the traveller?"
"Yes, ah," and Tane stumbled, as though not knowing what to say.
"I am Third Outer Speaker, called Thoss," said the woman, reaching out and touching Leela's hand on the knife hilt. But not as though to stop her drawing it: it was more a gesture of respect, recognising that Leela had a weapon and could use it. She looked up at the taller woman, and said, "Are you of age to take oath?"
Leela calculated: she was past First Moon, named as a warrior by her people, and she'd been travelling with the Doctor for - how long? Surely it would be safe to say - "Yes."
"Will you swear by your name not to draw this knife except in self-defence?" said Thoss. She tilted her head, and her silver earrings glittered in the overhead light.
Leela's free hand touched her throat, shoulder - and then paused, as she realised that this ritual didn't mean anything here and now. Instead she said, hunting for the right words, "I am Leela of the Sevateem, and I swear by my name not to draw my weapon except to defend myself."
Thoss pulled a long red cord from the pocket of her grey outfit and said, "Fair enough." She leaned over Tane and whispered, "You know how he is about meeting travellers in their natural state," emphasising the 'he'. She reached out and tied the cord in a series of loops around the knife's hilt and sheath; Leela could see that she could still draw the blade, but once she did, the knots would unravel. Clever, she thought.
She went through the arch-ritual then, which was quite painful: the noise made her bones shake and her ears hurt. But she passed the test, it seemed, and the inner door opened.
Student Stor hesitated for a long moment, before going through the door. Leela, who really wanted to see this rude boy get taught a lesson, moved after him, and Ravon followed up behind. As the door closed, Leela looked over her shoulder and saw the room, and Tane and the other men, but not Thoss. Where had she gone?
"Well, Stor," said Ravon, "here is the Bunker. And as you can see, the floor is not made of gold, nor are there great heaps of foods everywhere that are being withheld from the Kaled people-"
"I've only seen the corridor so far," said Stor witheringly. "I need to see more. I need to know everything!"
"An excellent attitude," said Thoss, walking smoothly around the corner in front of them. As smoothly as a predator stalking prey, thought Leela. Thoss' eyes were cold, as they flickered over the visitors. The other woman was now wearing a black uniform, with a red six-sided pattern marked on the collar. She came up to them and took both of Ravon's hands in her gloved ones.
"Hello Ravon," she said, her serious face lightening in a brief smile. Leela frowned; this woman looked just like Thoss, down to the little disk-shaped earrings, but how had she changed clothes so quickly? And why did she seem shorter? She could not remember if Thoss had been wearing shoes or not; this woman was wearing high shiny boots.
"Are you not Thoss?" Leela asked suspiciously. There had been a woman in her tribe who had borne two children at once. Twins, could this be Thoss' twin?
"I am not Thoss," she confirmed.
"An introduction is in order, I think," said Ravon. "Student Stor, Leela of the Sevateem, be pleased to make the acquaintance of Security Liaison, called Esselle." The woman called Esselle gave a little bow of her head without letting go of Ravon's hands. "She is a Daughter of Skaro; they all look the same."
"So, Teacher," Esselle asked, "what are we teaching today?"
"Student Stor is under the impression that the Elite are hoarders, saving all manner of good things for themselves. As I have visited the Bunker on occasion, I thought a brief tour would enlighten him."
"I see," said Esselle. "And you?" she said to Leela.
"I'm - here to trade tales of my travels, for cloth to keep away the fungus," she said awkwardly.
"Good trade," opined Esselle. She finally let go of Ravon's hands, as though reluctantly, and turned to Stor. The boy's eyes showed white all the way around now: he apparently found this Esselle very frightening. Leela looked at her, and thought he might have reason: Esselle reminded Leela of something small and deadly, like a jungle horda.
"Well, Stor, if you want to see how we really live in the Bunker, clearly we should visit the personal quarters. At this hour we shouldn't scare anyone out of the shower. Please, follow me," she invited, and they did.
They went through several metal tunnels, passing men in stiff white clothes or marching men in black with guns. They all stared at Leela as they passed, and she started to wonder what they were looking at. Finally they came to a place where several metal tunnels came together.
"Quarters," said Esselle. "So Stor, pick a room. Any room."
"Any room?" he said, his voice uncertain. Then he pulled himself together, and pointed down one corridor. They all walked down it, and he pointed at the second door down on the right. "This one."
Esselle held up one hand as though to make a suggestion, then stopped. With the other hand, she touched beside the door Stor had chosen, and it opened.
Inside, the room was barely large enough to hold all of them. Lights came on as they entered, but there was not much to see. A single narrow bed, with a metal box at the foot of it. A console like Tane's, but smaller, with no controls on it. Another, smaller door in the wall to one side (Leela believed in always counting the entrances and exits).
"These are the standard personnel quarters, Stor. One bunk, one desk, one bathing facility. One floor, one roof. Four walls. And that's all."
"I don't believe it," said Stor, looking around the room - not that this was very far to look. "My room in the Dome is bigger than this! This must belong to one of the guards. Someone from Security. Not one of the Elite!"
Esselle took a piece of paper off of the desk and handed it to Stor. "Here's a memo, you can read who it's addressed to yourself," she suggested, pointing to some markings at the top of the page.
Stor stared at the page, seeming to be frightened again. He looked up at his teacher, then down at the paper. "Na-"
Esselle suddenly looked sad. "No, that symbol with the underline is Ny." Her finger moved. "And this one is De, and the third one is R, as in stand-alone R, not R with a vowel." She glanced at Ravon, who gave a minute shrug.
Stor's lips moved, and then he looked up at Esselle too fast with his eyes too wide. "Nyder. Security Commander Nyder."
"Yes. You were right, it is someone from Security," said Esselle encouragingly.
The paper was shaking in Stor's hands. "But…he's the Bunker Security Commander! He could have anything!"
Esselle spread her hands wide. "And this is what he has, Stor. This is Commander Nyder's bunk, this is Commander Nyder's chair, and these are Commander Nyder's boots," she said, turning to the door. "With Commander Nyder in them."
The door had opened silently, admitting a cold-faced older man in a black uniform like Esselle's. But he had silver buckles on his uniform's shoulders, and the collar symbol was an eye and a lightning bolt. His gaze raked over the four of them, and settled on the cringing Stor.
"What is this boy doing in my quarters?" he asked, in a harsh nasal voice.
"Hello Nyder," said Ravon, his voice as calm as ever. And his eyes more intent than ever. Nyder looked at the other man, and then away, and Leela caught the hint of a smile on Ravon's lips.
"Teacher Ravon is giving one of his students a tour of the Bunker, to disabuse him of the notion that the Elite are some sort of decadent lounging aristocrats," said Esselle. Leela was not sure what an aristocrat was, but this man Nyder held himself like a predator. Her hand fingered the red cord woven around her knife.
Nyder's head jerked. "Security Liaison. Outside." She stepped out into the corridor, but the door stayed open. Leela strained to listen, but Nyder's voice was too low, she could only hear the last word "-privacy!"
"I did not choose the room, Commander," replied Esselle. "Student Stor chose it at random."
"That is unimportant," Nyder said, louder now. "You could have chosen another room."
"Stor would not have been convinced then."
"All these papers!" said Stor, who was still looking at the desk. "Is this all work?"
"Yes," said Ravon, moving to stand behind the desk and look down at the paperwork. "You might complain about after-hours schoolwork, Stor, but the Commander carries a workload far heavier." He bent a little, as though about to sit.
"Do not sit on my bunk!" snapped Nyder as he stepped into the room again, and Ravon straightened. "All of you, out!"
The three of them obediently filed out and joined Security Liaison in the corridor. Stor was looking at Nyder with an expression of awe. Nyder's cold eyes settled on Ravon.
"Teacher Ravon. You will please move your tour to another area of the Bunker - Central Stores should be a good place. And report to Tane when you leave, so that he can notify me at once." Ravon and Stor left, and Nyder's attention turned to Leela. He looked her up and down, slowly, with a look on his face like a man trying to decide where to strike an enemy.
"You are the traveller?" he finally asked.
"Yes," she replied. And stared back, measuring him in turn.
"I understand that you have stories of your travels to tell. Our Supreme Commander is fascinated by travellers, and would very much like to speak to you. Now." His tone did not leave any room for rejection of this suggestion.
Leela said softly, "You lead." As Nyder walked down the corridor with Leela behind him, and Esselle trailing behind them both, she eyed his straight back - and wondered how Esselle was eyeing her in turn.
# # #
The Doctor was hauled running and stumbling some distance, fast enough for him to quite lose his breath. When he finally was brought to a halt, he thrashed and freed his arms from his scarf (which had been wound around them as a crude restraint device) and then tore the scarf from his neck. Breathing in deep gasps, he looked around him. There was no way to tell exactly how far he had come: the landscape looked exactly the same. Perhaps instead of landscape, he should think of it as fungusscape.
This looked like a camp of some sort: there were tents of black cloth, and racks with great slabs of the fungus drying on them. He was surrounded by grim-faced and grubby men wearing a strange mish-mash of military gear, augmented by leggings and cloaks lined with some fabric woven with black glittery thread. This was another confirmation that he was on Skaro: there had been a thousand years of war here, with each side losing more and more of its technology over time, until plasma beams and radiation bombs were replaced by clubs and spears.
But the war was over. He had been there when it ended. The fungus was the proof of it: it had been a major part of the Peace Accords, that the fungus and the particle fountains be exchanged between the two sides, the Kaleds and the Thals, as a token of good will. So why were these men still in combat gear?
"Hello," he said. "Are you Kaleds or Thals - or maybe Mutos?" Mutos being the outcasts of both races. At his feet, one of his captors was lacing crisp black leggings around the Doctor's own legs: ah, he thought, that must be to repel the fungus.
"We are none of those," hissed one of the men, and then stopped. He stepped forward, and shoved back the rough white hood covering his face. "I know you!" he said.
"What?" The Doctor frowned, his eyebrows crinkling, and said slowly, "Didn't you beat me about the shoulders with a rubber truncheon at one point or another? Lonrie, that's the name! You're assigned to the Kaled Bunker, correct?" Lonrie had been one of the guards there, a rather brutal fellow.
"I have taken a higher calling," said Lonrie. The he turned and addressed all the men.
"I know this man!" he half-shouted. "He is not a Kaled, or a Thal, or a Muto. He is an alien, like the Daughters of Skaro! Like them!" Lonrie drew a brutal-looking knife out from under his jacket and pointed it into the distance, where a too-symmetrical lump suddenly resolved itself into the Kaled Dome.
The hand holding the knife turned as Lonrie pivoted, until the tip of the knife was pointed directly at the Doctor's chest.
"Alien," said Lonrie. "He's working with them, working for them! We should kill him now!"
The Doctor interrupted. "This fungus-repelling cloth is quite advanced. Tell me, do you make it yourselves?"
Another of his captors scowled, and said, "No. They make it in the Dome, and distribute it. We take what we need. We live out here, and eat the fungus."
"Oh, well, how is it?"
"Dull," said Lonrie and there were groans of displeasure from some of the watchers. "But you can live off it. We have shelter and food and warmth, they tell us if we want more we can come to the Dome, but that there is enough here for us to be happy. Happy!" he said, and spat. "It has been this way since the end."
"The end of what?"
"The end of the war. The end of everything." Lonrie sheathed his knife and raised his hands beside his head; his fingers pointed upwards like ears - or horns. "But we have faith. Faith that the God of War will return, will lead us in bloodshed and slaughter as we were born to do! When His avatar is revealed, it will be Kaled against Thal, both against Muto, and death for all!" Lonrie's eyes were wild, and the men around him were raising their hands in the same gesture. "One of us shall be called by the God. To become His avatar, and lead us again to holy war!"
"Holy war?" asked the Doctor incredulously.
Lonrie's gaze dropped from the sky to the Doctor's face, and he said in a chill voice of absolute conviction, "All war is holy."
The Doctor swallowed.
"Perhaps the calling of the avatar of this generation requires sacrifice," said one of the men slowly. All eyes turned to the Doctor, who flashed his most disarming grin. When he tried to back away, he found that the black leggings had been tied together with straps, immobilising him like a man in a sack. He tried a tentative hop or two, as they moved towards him.
# # #
The Supreme Commander's place was full of machines and drawings of machines, and the console there was very large. It was piled with sheets of paper, and sitting on the papers was the skull of some ancestor, inlaid with metal - at least Leela hoped that it was only a skull, and not something more. Beside the console was a chair covered with gleaming metal spheres, and sitting in the chair was a man wearing a stiff white uniform, like the others out in the corridor. He rose to his feet as Leela entered, his eyes full of interest. Nyder stayed by the door, and Esselle moved forward and to one side, watching the visitor carefully.
Instead of talking to her, the man in white circled her, staring as though her brown hair and skin, her leather garb, were all of consuming interest. She kept her hand carefully away from her knife, and watched him out of the corner of her eye. When he came to a halt in front of her, she saw a man about the same age as Nyder, slight and intense, only a little bit shorter than herself. He held himself like a leader; but there was something a bit wild about him, that reminded her of a shaman. And while Ravon had moved like an old man, this one moved like a young boy, full of energy. The skull on the console was something a shaman might have. That was bad; shamans should not be leaders.
The man tilted his head a bit to one side, his eyes almost dancing as they flickered over her clothes and hair. Leela was unnerved by this treatment, but she waited calmly, not revealing her emotions. She would not let them frighten her.
"I am Davros, of course," said the man without any preamble. Leela recognised the everyone-knows tone again. "And you - a tropical or subtropical climate, full nutrient and caloric requirements met during your youth and adolescence - that accounts for your height and excellent muscle tone. Show me your teeth."
"No!" she snapped. "I am not an animal!"
"Oh, excellent," said Davros, and smiled, showing his own straight white teeth. "Your people have done well for themselves, that they can risk sending a lone woman to meet with me."
"I did not come here to meet with you," Leela replied.
"Oh? Why not?"
She shrugged. "I've never heard of you."
Davros stepped back a pace, looking affronted. "You've never heard of me? The Supreme Commander of the Kaleds, greatest scientist of this age, the creator of the Daleks and you say you have never heard of me?" He brushed his dark forelock aside and came right up to Leela, staring into her eyes as though looking for falsehood.
"Never," she said, and let a look of boredom come over her face. "I come from very, very, very far off."
"How many days did it take you to get here?" asked Esselle; she had shifted her vantage point, and Leela guessed that she was holding some weapon in her concealed hand. It said a lot for the other woman's confidence that she thought she could drop Leela before she could draw and use the knife. Of course, there was Nyder as well, watching Leela's back.
"It did not take me days, not days as you know days," she said. "I travelled here by machine."
"By machine? An aircraft?" asked Davros curiously.
"Impossible," said Nyder. "Even if one was in storage on some island, it would no longer function after all these centuries."
"The machine does not fly, it moves from place to place without wings or wheels." That ought to confuse them; it certainly confused her. She had never quite figured out the TARDIS.
"How many people does this machine hold?" asked Esselle.
"Oh, it could hold many. But there is only me, K-9 and the Doctor now," Leela said, and at her words suddenly everyone was moving. Esselle revealed a small shiny gun and moved to flank her; and she saw Nyder moving into position at her other side. Leela's hand went to her knife and she backed towards the door, her eyes trying to keep track of all three of them at once. What had she said?
"Keep back, Davros!" hissed Nyder, but Davros was instead moving towards Leela as though to grab her. She stepped away, and he followed.
"The Doctor?" Davros said, in an intent voice more arresting than a shout.
The room exploded.
Davros' console spewed fire behind him, blowing apart, the top of it seeming to float for an instant as the bottom half disintegrated. The air was suddenly thick with smoke and flying papers. Leela hurled herself backwards, and slammed painfully into the wall; she could not see the others through the smoke. Shrieking alarums went off, and the lights flickered out.