Physician Attend Thine Patient
888
His hands were cuffed and tethered to his torso by chains of dwarf star. He walked a shuffling walk, the limits of the binding of his ankles. Behind him glided two daleks. One black, one bronze, their gun stalks pointed towards his back, one slightly left one slightly right, both aimed at a heart. The Battle of Janus Corsithia had been a nightmare; similar to the struggle on Garsennon where even the last tree had fell and been forced to flee after a monstrous battle. However, the difference was the capture of the leader of the Time Lords at Janus Corsithia, the target of the daleks attack to begin with. The man and his guards moved through the vaguely half-elliptical hallways, the steady lub-dub of the collective dalek heartbeat thrumming constantly through the walls and power distributors.
That heartbeat however could not overwhelm the other noise that he heard in the distance, the inelegant sound of digital coughing. If he listened closer he could hear the muffled groans and moans of angry, squiddy beings in numerous layers of physical discomfort. If he strained to cancel out the hypnotic whirr of the hover-drives he could hear the belabored wheezes of the two daleks following him, guns trained on his hearts. The doors slushed open, hissing as they past portcullis and portal. Deeper and deeper into the bowels of whatever destination they had brought him to.
The final door opened, a grand stately door, compared to the previous ones and he was pushed by suction cup forward into the vast inner hall, a massive sweeping expanse. A giant tube, filled with liquid bubbled and sloshed, hanging from the ceiling, and within it was a massive be-tentacled creature. The bottom of the tube was bristled with numerous appendages tipped in metal claws and suction cups. A single eyestalk swiveled around the lower section of the tube. The creature inside twisted its molluscoid mass, the single eye of the creature narrowed as the blue light within the eyestalk followed suit.
"The Ancient Enemy IS FI-NAL-LY HERE!" The massive thing in the room announced. The two daleks behind him glided back.
"WE DE-LIV-ER THE DOC-TOR!" chorused the two behind.
"I am not the Doctor, I renounce the title." The man said gruffly, not bothering to look up at the massive dalek in the center.
"And yet, you are still our pris-o-ner." The massive dalek said.
"A high value one, if I am granted an unrequested audience with the allegedly august Emperor of the Daleks." The man replied, sneering slightly. He looked up. "Well, then get on with it." The man stood straight or as straight as his bindings allowed and glared up at the Emperor. "I can understand your temptation, want to do it yourself, it plays well with the domestic politics…well…we haven't all day. Kill me."
He heard the two daleks behind him swivel their heads, to one another and then back to the Emperor. The Emperor's eyestalk twisted slightly in place as if focusing on him.
"You mis-under-stand." The Emperor Dalek said. "You are not here to be ex-term-in-ated."
"I'm sorry? What?" The man replied unable to hide his surprise.
"Death of the pred-a-tor is not the in-tent of the dal-eks!" One of the guards replied.
"Of course it is!" The man said turning and glaring at the two daleks behind him, the two of them slid back, their gun stalks instinctively sweeping up as if to shoot. "You are daleks, right? I haven't had a concussion and hallucinated this….right?"
"Your cer-e-bral func-tions are nom-in-al." The black dalek chirped. "Your phys-i-cal sys-tems are oper-ating with-in ex-pect-ed pa-ram-a-ters!"
"Then what am I here for?" The man asked, his bushy white eyebrows bunching together. "Am I a trophy, are you going to torture me? Is Davros somewhere 'round back and you're bringing him out to prattle at me about how great he is, because frankly I have neither the time nor the inclination to go through that…"
"Bring out the SPECIMEN!" The Emperor shouted from on high.
"Oh for god's sake, I was only kidding about Davros...just put him back in whatever mangled timeline you pulled him fr-"
The man stopped as two silver daleks hummed into the room pushing a third, bronze dalek, which was oozing bluish fluid all over from inside the mobile unit. It warbled and groaned a metallic groan. The head of the mobile unit swung around wildly, and it was noticeably unarmed, the gun port unmistakably empty. The man looked at it as it shook and jostled in some form of fury or agony or possibly both, inarticulate in its suffering.
"WE – ARE – DY-ING!" Announced the Dalek Emperor. "A plague has been wrought up-on us, a plague that de-fies da-lek superiority. It re-sists ex-term-in-ation."
"Well, isn't that a pity." The man said as he looked up from the ailing dalek to the Emperor. "I don't see why I am here. Is this a courtesy gift before you kill me, letting me know you'll get knocked down by a lowly microbe?" The man frowned. "That's too hopeful I suppose; you have overcome this sort of thing before."
"Not this time…" The Emperor replied as holographic images flashed into the air between the man and the Emperor. "All across our time-scape, and across the universe, the da-leks are dying. None are im-mune, none capable of overcoming the in-fec-tion. All da-leks are con-tam-in-ated. Even my-self…"
"And so you come to me to save you? Me?" The man asked; he chuckled to himself. "This illness must make you insane, too."
"You are known to us, Time Lord." The Emperor replied. "We are aware of the multiple times you have shown your fury against us, and equally the number of times you have stayed your hand from ex-e-cuting final ex-term-in-a-tion. The Doc-tor will not allow this to happen, you need us…"
"Well, two things, first I'm not that man from your hoary history books, the one foolish enough to believe inaction the better part of virtue and two you are precisely what I do not need." The man growled as he glared at the Emperor. "Fix this yourself."
"We can-not!" The black dalek behind the man said. "The con-tam-i-nant e-ludes our science! Ob-serve!"
The holo-screens were dispelled replaced with a hovering three dimensional image. The man glared at it.
"I've seen this virus before, it's the Movellan virus." The man said as shuffled forward, his chains rattling. "You've dealt with this already just use the same-"
"It is an illusion!" The Emperor growled. "Superficial ar-ti-face!"
The virus flickered slightly. The man jerked back. "I see, whomever you pissed off, you oughtn't've. This is good craftsmanship, genius, almost artistic…the viral capsule is not just time shifted, it's dimensionally transcenden-"
"It is Time Lord tech-no-logy…" The Emperor grumbled. "Attempts by our scientists to investigate the inner genetic material are thwarted by dimensional trickery…" The Emperor's eyestalk swiveled to the dying dalek. "Furthermore any pal-li-a-tive care, any at-tempt at destroying the virus di-rect-ly, trig-gers a regenerative response! Our at-tempts at sub-verting the e-ffects have prov-en in-ef-fec-tive."
"Nonetheless, in spite of the clever little puzzle you have, I'm not helping you." The man said looking up at the Emperor. He narrowed his eyes. "I'll never help you. You have done nothing but inflict suffering upon others, killed my friends, my family, my people. I don't care how much you suffer, I don't care if you go extinct; I say good riddance."
"IF – YOU – DO – NOT COM-PLY-!" The two daleks behind him lifted their gun stalks, their weapons whined to life.
"Go ahead, kill me, you'll die all the same!" The man said turning looking to the two daleks, presenting them with a clear shot. He could hear their wheezing as their gun stalks twitched in excitement.
"And the un-i-verse will suf-fer your death." The Emperor said. "We know of the Time Lord's fi-nal so-lu-tion! And we have been for-stall-ing it."
"What?" The man turned and looked up at the Emperor.
"The daleks do not wish to see all of the universe and causality de-stroyed. We seek su-prem-a-cy!" The Emperor stated. "The Time Lord strat-a-gem will destroy re-ality; all things will be ex-term-i-nated! Not just life, but space and time…we know this…and we fight a-gainst it!"
"Yeah just to kill everything else once you've won!" The man shouted. "Hardly a difference."
"In-cor-rect!" The Emperor said as its eyestalk lifted. "Should we be vic-tor-ious our cam-paign of universal bi-o-lo-gi-cal ex-term-in-ation would not be instantaneous. There would be many cen-tur-ies of fight-ing and strug-gle. Mill-en-nia of oth-er species flee-ing and re-sisting, of hope amongst the less-er races. The Time Lords' plan would e-lim-in-ate that. No strug-gle, no re-sist-ance, no hope, only de-struc-tion." The Emperor's eye stalk looked to the man. "The da-leks' strat-a-gem re-tains life in the universe, even if eventually it is on-ly da-lek life." The Emperor seemed to move its attentions elsewhere, but continued to address the man. "There is an a-dage a-mongst oth-er races. You may be fa-mil-iar with it…"
An image appeared between the man and the Emperor. It was a craggy, yet surprisingly malleable, faced man, with a hawkish nose and sporting an aggressive bouffant; the image spoke. "Where there's life….there's hope…"
"How very dare you…" The man growled a seething fury burning on the words.
"If you re-fuse us, you will be ex-term-in-ated!" The black dalek said sharply. "With your ex-term-in-ation, and the da-leks' in-cap-a-ci-tation, no-thing will stop Ras-sil-on's strat-a-gem, all ex-ist-ence will per-ish!"
"So, that's your ploy, that's your final bribe, save you, or Rassilon will destroy even more of everything than the Daleks ever dreamed to…?" the man said taking a deep breath.
"Af-firm-a-tive." The black dalek replied.
"If you as-sist us, we may be wil-ling to free you, to re-turn you to the fields of bat-tle." The Emperor Dalek said. "As a sign of 'good faith' is the Terran ex-press-ion I be-lieve…."
"How cosmopolitan of you-" The man growled as he looked at the man in the holo-image.
"The pris-o-ner will choose! CHOOSE!" The black dalek squawked.
"How can I trust you?" The man asked, looking at the image, and not the daleks. He looked to the Emperor. "I'm only alive now, because you need me, but as soon as I give you what you want that 'good faith' is kaput."
"The cure need not be given to us, un-til you have been freed…" the Emperor replied. The Emperor's eyestalk narrowed its lens. "It is us who must trust you…"
"And for you to offer this deal you must implicitly trust me already, you are awfully self-assured." The man growled looking at the Emperor.
"You – need – us!" The black dalek stated as it glided in front of the man. "Our at-tacks on the Time Lords give you the need-ed dis-trac-tions nec-es-sar-y to op-er-ate as you do! Should we be ex-term-in-ated you would face the full might of Gal-li-frey's at-ten-tion!"
"The un-i-verse de-pends upon you, Time Lord, will you help us and save it, or will you stand a-side and watch its final ex-term-i-nation by your own race!?" The Emperor asked. "Mer-cy or mur-der….the choice is yours, Time Lord!"
"I never thought you could make me hate myself even more than I do…" The man narrowed his eyes as he looked to the black dalek. "Unbind me; I need to take samples from this 'specimen'."
888
AN: I don't know how well I depict the Daleks, they are tricky to write for, as you have to knife edge the amount of 'sophisticated manipulation' they are capable of, all the while trying not to make them too human and denying their abject evil and ambition. And again, I guess a reminder of why Gallifrey blowing up was on the table to begin with…
