The Doctor grew more and more curious as he followed after Nyder, through the corridors of the Bunker, holding his steps short so as not to outpace the other man. Every Dalek they encountered seemed to roll back or turn aside - and not at the sight of the Doctor, but of Nyder. What had happened to the Commander, what could he have done, that the Daleks retreated from him on sight? The man was furious beyond reason, but why should that alarm the Daleks? And what had Esselle done that Nyder was so intent on getting his hands on her, that he would be willing to abandon Davros to pursue her?
The door to Laboratory Nineteen was locked, but Nyder's red passkey worked. The room beyond was stripped of equipment, and the door to the lift stood open. Nyder pushed a button beside it, and after a long and dreadful moment of waiting, the lift slowly rose into view.
As the lift came to a halt, the Doctor and Nyder exchanged glances. The Doctor cocked out one elbow, and with extreme reluctance Nyder took his arm and stepped onto the lift, trusting the alien to guide him through the dark and to Esselle. If she was down here. If it wasn't too late already.
# # #
Out in the corridor, Davros touched the silver ring to one wall - and the entire wall slid to one side with a squeak of metal on metal.
Leela blinked. "What is this for?" she asked, as they both descended the long ramp slanting downwards behind that wall.
"The Prime's private escape hatch," he said, not pausing in his stride. "She won't fit on the lift."
They went down into confusion. The stone floor was the same, but there were people running through the darkness, arguing voices faintly echoing. The sounds of machinery were gone. There was a thread of dripping yellow light going pop-pop-pop from the ceiling; Leela thought it might be molten metal or rock flowing from the Bunker lower level. Davros ignored all of this; he stepped to his right, where they could see a red platform in the distance.
"Wait! Isn't that her?" said Leela, squinting into another direction; Davros looked and saw a long glowing shape, an illuminated table, and tiny beside it a figure with long black hair, in a black uniform. It must be Esselle, she was the only one who wore black, or covered her arms.
"Yes. And she's still alive. Come!"
After a breathless dash through the darkness, hearing people gasp and jump aside from them as they ran, Davros arrived at the red platform, and shouted demandingly, "Prime!"
A whistle of breath, and five long white tusk-tips came creeping over the front of the platform in a cluster in front of Davros. "Supreme Commander Davros," came the echoing female voice - and then a yawn. "Forgive me, I have been resting for the journey-"
"Then how is it that a decompilation order was just signed by you, for the destruction of Security Liaison called Esselle?" demanded Davros.
The whistling breathing stopped. "I signed no such order," said the Prime, her voice dropping with each word.
"Neither did I, but my mark is on it," said Davros ironically.
"And she is there now!" asked Leela, gesturing into the darkness, the faraway table where Esselle stood.
There was a creaking from the platform, as though something large and heavy had moved across it. "A meeting - without me? Davros, I apologise but I have not been informed of your wish to terminate Esselle - nor would I accede to such a request. She is unique, her memories should be preserved. Or is this Nyder's wish perhaps? He could-"
"The order was created without his knowledge or mine. Nyder is down here, with the Doctor, to try and save her."
"Now that is interesting." A deep dragging sound from the platform was combined with what could only be a snarl. "Come."
The white tusks rose up, and were joined to legs, long hairy red legs with too many knees that suspended something over their heads. The legs stepped forward, like a forest walking, around and past them, and Leela and Davros went through the darkness, following the tap-tap-tap-tap sound of the Prime's progress towards the light in the darkness.
# # #
The Daughters of Skaro, those who remained in the Bunker, sat at Council. There was a long table, its white glass top glowing in the darkness. Around it sat the Council members who had not yet fled out into the wilds; all that could be seen of them were the black silhouettes of their hands atop the table, and the occasional flash of a face as they leaned forward. They were supposed to be finalising their evacuation plans, but a surprise piece of unfinished business had presented itself. Or rather, herself.
The Council members were seated, but Esselle was standing, her face lit from below by the table. Her hands were also on the table, in handcuffs. Beside her stood Executioner; her mask hanging suspended in the darkness.
Esselle's face was full of sorrow. "My sisters, what have I done that I stand bound before you? Convicted, sentenced to death based on a decompilation order that is false?"
A voice spoke from the head of the table, the position given to their Leader. "A false order that is conveniently not here."
"It's in Commander Nyder's quarters," said Executioner. "Any of you are welcome to walk in there and fetch it - if you think you won't wake him." Her voice was ironic.
"The order is true," said the Leader. "What you have done warrants destruction."
"What have I done?"
There was an imperious air in the Leader's words. "For starters, you have hopelessly failed at managing Davros' mental collapse."
Esselle shook her head, the light from the table rolling over one side of her face and then the other. "Sister, I shared my mind with his. He truly does not yet believe that he needs help. And if he does not believe that, he will fight us every step of the way, undo anything we do."
"So you abandon him to lapse into catatonia?"
"I judged that we could offer him enticement, say, a new piece of technology, and if he found himself too dispirited to even reach for it, that might show him the truth."
"And you left him unguarded?" The Leader slapped the table for emphasis. "When the Daleks are all but warning up their instruments to cut him out of his body and install him in one of their shells?"
"I did not leave him unguarded!" Esselle protested. "I sent the message, asked that his office be protected, that the Daleks be told to keep their distance! I sent that message directly to you, Leader!"
"I did not receive any such message."
"But you can see-" Esselle touched two fingers to her head.
"And no one is to link to you, and risk contamination!"
Esselle froze, eyes wide. She waited to hear what the Leader would say next.
"But all this bungling is part of a wider plan - a plan that included not only Davros' mental incapacitation, but the mind-wipe and reprogramming of Projectionist. You destroyed her as part of your plot to replace the Prime with - Davros!"
There was an indrawn breath from everyone around the table – except for Esselle, who laughed.
"I think that Davros would make a spectacular Prime! I have never said otherwise! But the universe is wide, and space is nearly within our reach. There is room enough even on Skaro for another Prime – let alone out there!" She pointed up with both her bound hands. "And besides, what does this plot have to do with trying to assassinate Davros?"
"It was a bluff of course, a blind. Once he was damaged, you would arrange for him to be transformed."
"Nonsense! The stress of injury on top of a body transfer and a Prime transformation? His personality would be scrambled like an egg, you can't think that I am that disorganised!"
"You have driven Davros to madness. You have infected your sisters with your madness, and destroyed them. Your poison dies, here and now."
"The decompilation order is illegal, and I will not carry it out," said Executioner, fading back into the darkness.
"I will," said the Leader; one of her hands was now holding a dart gun. At the sight of the weapon there was a rising murmur from the Council.
Esselle slapped her palms down on the table, hard; the metal cuffs clinked against the glass. "No!" she hissed. "You are our Leader, you are chosen for your love and your dispassion, both. If you are so overwrought that you would do this thing, you should step aside for one of your Leaders-In-Waiting." She looked around the table, even though she could see no faces. "Where are they?"
"Already evacuated, unfortunately." There was a sneer in the Leader's voice. "And once you are gone, I see no reason why we cannot provide Davros with a higher quality of assistant. One of us, not one of them. It is time for Commander Nyder to die-"
"No!" Esselle said, her voice almost a shriek now. "I need," and she paused, redirected her plea, "Davros needs Nyder. The man knows him better than any of us, better even than myself. If I have failed, he will not. And we need Davros, and the Kaleds need Davros. The Kaleds are still too few, we can't afford to throw away even one of them for revenge!"
"She's right, you know," said the Doctor, appearing at her shoulder as though by magic. His wild curls formed a fringe like flame above his face in the table's light. "You thought Nyder was worth saving before, why not now?"
"Time Lord. You would not understand. Commander Nyder is no longer necessary-" said the Leader flatly.
"I would disagree," said Nyder himself, stepping into the light on the other side of Esselle. Several pairs of hands jerked in surprise; clearly Nyder had not been expected. The prisoner drew herself straight, standing at attention, although she did not dare look at him.
"Commander," she said, softly. "Go to Davros, make him say that he needs you alive. He can protect you. I cannot."
The Leader's hands splayed aggressively over the table. "Do you really think we would leave our sister to be abused at your whims, Commander?" She pointed dramatically, the light forming a long line on the underside of her arm to one extended finger. "We can smell her blood on you, we can smell you on her! She is better off dead!"
In the politest of tones, Nyder said to the Council in general, "Excuse us for a moment." He took the chain between Esselle's handcuffs in one hand and raised them up, high enough that he could get her arms around his own neck. She turned to his motion as though not understanding - or not daring to understand.
He pulled her close to him, and said in a whisper for only her ears, "If you would call me Sharp, I would call you Fine." He had meant to say Mine, not Fine, but his mouth on hers said mine, mine, mine, clear enough for both of them to hear. And her mouth answered: yes, yours, yes.
The Doctor looked on with an expression of bug-eyed surprise. The Council's hands lay limp on the table - and perhaps only the Doctor noticed, out of the corner of one eye, as one pair of hands raised up and mimed applause.
When the kiss ended and they both turned back, Esselle was flushed.
"Well, that certainly seemed sincere," she breathed. Her handcuffs shone on Nyder's shoulder, and his arm was firmly around her waist.
"No one is going to decompile you," Nyder said, his hand stropping the small of her back possessively, "except possibly me." He glared at the Council's shadows, wondering if he could just grab Esselle and drag her off, counting on the darkness to shield them.
The Doctor spoke. "Leader, excuse me but I don't believe I had your number?" The Reflectionists numbered themselves by their roles, and he was fairly certain that he should be addressing her as say Thirty-First Leader, or something of the sort."
"I am the Leader," the woman replied, and the Doctor arched one eyebrow for a moment before continuing.
"If you've issued a decompilation order for Esselle, you must have a good reason. What has she done to deserve that? What does she know that she must never pass on, that must be destroyed before she can share it? It must be something, what?"
"We want nothing from her," snarled the Leader, leaning forward to reveal her face: she looked identical to the other Reflectionist women, but her eyes were wild. "We will have our revenge for her plot-"
"No!" objected another Council member. "We don't take revenge on ourselves, that would be like slapping your own wrist!"
"She is only one, and we are many. Who would speak to defend her?" challenged the Leader. She looked rather taken aback as a chorus of female voices answered, "I will."
"I will," growled Nyder.
"I will," said another man's voice. Davros' voice, as his face appeared across the table from Esselle. "She has always served me truly. I know nothing of her conspiring against me, and she has freely opened her mind to mine, many times. Surely I would see if she was going to betray me!"
Esselle looked across the table, at Davros, with a tiny relieved smile on her face.
"Our minds are deep and vast, Davros. You do not see all," the Leader said. "We did not see all. We must destroy her before she destroys us all, infects us mind to mind with her madness."
Davros arched one eyebrow, imperious. "I forbid it." The Council murmured, and hands disappeared from the table.
Leela, who had been circling the table, came up behind Esselle and Nyder and asked, "Should I make him let you go?"
"No," they said as one, and then glanced back over their shoulders at her, their faces shadowed.
Leela looked at them again, and then stood back a pace; nobody heard her murmur under her breath, "About time."
The Leader's hands were fists. "We must save ourselves! We must destroy the imperfect, the defective! There will be one mind - one Reflection – one – only one! All who are different must be purged!"
And then another face appeared in the table's light, beside Davros: the face of a woman like the others, but with red bushy hair and eyebrows that met in the middle. The face was closer than Davros', which made no sense because Davros was standing right against the table.
A twist of perspective, and the onlookers could see that the second face was not closer; it was bigger. A lot bigger. It looked like a Reflectionist, but it rose up, up, twice as tall as any person could stand, then peered down at the table, and spoke in the husky voice of the Prime.
"I am the many, and the one. By your grace I am your Prime, the holder of all Crowns, the compiler of wisdom, the judge above all councils. Who is the sister of mine, whose mind has been so damaged that she must be destroyed rather than shared between all of us? Why shall be one pattern among us, instead of the many? And why are we ignoring Davros, without whom none of us should be here? If you would disagree, keep your hands before you as token of this."
A swift slithering of hands as they disappeared from the table. The women sat there, silent. Only the Leader leaned forward, staring.
The Prime waved two left hands in the air before her in a swooping gesture. "I can nullify this decompilation-"
"No!" The Leader rose to her feet, shouting. Her shaking hand pointed the gun first at Esselle, then Nyder. "We have to destroy her, destroy them both! We can't leave them running around like animals, killing and killing…we've got to destroy them! Kill them all! Exterminate!" She turned and pointed her gun at the vast shadow of the Prime.
Leela has the vague impression of something rising on the far side of the table; then it flashed across, a hairy red leg, like an insect's, tipped with a long gleaming claw. The claw and the leg smashed the Leader down and back; and she thrashed on the floor, pinned, shrieking. The leg twisted – and the shrieking stopped. Just as quickly, the long limb of the Prime withdrew.
Her voice was soft. "By my word, this decompilation order is false and shall not be carried out. We need Esselle, now more than ever. Something is terribly wrong when our chosen leader, who should remain safe among us, can be so corrupted. And that Davros should fall into disarray at this time, it is too much of a coincidence. Freshen Twenty-Second Leader's memories again - but use the machines, not your own minds. Track her thoughts. Trace her movements. Something or someone has found a way to her, has harmed her, has dared to harm one of us!" Her face vanished into the shadows. "Find who has harmed her. The many are in danger if this can be done to one."
Her tines click-click-clicked away into the darkness, and then were drowned out by a clanging, thundering electronic alarum.
"Evacuation!" shouted the women. The click-click of the Prime became clatter-scramble-click as she ran on her many legs. Her voice howled out the eyiyiyiyiyi of the alarum cry, echoing and booming in the vast empty spaces.
Everyone else ran the other way, for the lift up to the laboratory floor. "That's the power plant breach signal," said Davros as they ran. "If the Daleks are disassembling that, they could blow the Bunker to dust! My Bunker to dust, that is."
Everyone who could squeezed onto the lift; the rest ran for narrow mechanised ladders which would lift them to the surface. Nyder unlocked the handcuffs, then possessively grabbed Esselle's hands in his. She stared into his eyes, dumbstruck, as the lift rose.
"I ought to throw you over the edge," he growled.
"You wouldn't be able to watch me hit and splatter," she said, blinking.
"Can we save the romantic niceties for later, Commander, Liaison?" asked the Doctor; this line of conversation was making him a bit queasy. And he wondered what would be waiting at the top of the lift.