"Doctor, you seem distant again" Sara observed as the three friends put their best feet forward en route to the computer room.
The Doctor's reaction was brutish in tone and short in temper.
"Don't bother me child, can't you tell I'm pondering a problem?"
"It could help us a great deal if we could ponder your problem together" Sarah replied, hurt but understanding of the pressure The Doctor was under.
"Let us in Doctor, Sara's right, the three of our heads can crack open whatever case you happen to be on. You need'nt be alone"
"Something deliberately pulled us here" The Doctor revealed.
"That'll win points for the most obvious deduction of the year" Sara quipped.
Steven, however, could tell The Doctor meant something altogether different, he saw a hidden hand in the circumstances that had taken them to Trodos.
"He's not underselling the obvious Sara, he's looking past it, aren't you Doctor?"
"Whatever do you mean Steven?" asked Sara.
"Well think about it, a planet like this may have some impressive technology on display, but nothing that can possibly match the marvel that is the TARDIS. That old girl is centuries more advanced, and capable of bending back time as well as space, you'd have to make a corridor in the vortex to shaft us where we need to be" Steven explained.
"The tractor beam that too hold of the ship folded space back to grab us, but we were held
"So you think some otherworldly force took control of the ship and prevented us from retreating through time when the tractor beam seized control of us in space?"
"There is a great evil all around us" The Doctor warned.
Sara's ears picked up a motorized, gliding sound.
"I feel such evil may be about to show itself, I hear them coming"
"Then the computer room must be along here somewhere" Steven noted.
"Yes, yes exactly right my dears, quickly, behind me" instructed The Doctor, picking up a long smooth metallic bar, one that had been ripped from the led lined walls by an insurrectionist who, prior to his own demise, had gotten further than the others at the Protein plants.
As the Trod came into view, The Doctor urged Sara and Steven to get behind him as he carefully led them behind a control unit.
Sara and Steven watched as the Trod glided past them, turning its head left and to eventually to their right. As it's sole cycloptic eye trained itself on them, The Doctor seized the moment to strike from behind, and severing the Trod's aerial from its head with the tip of the metallic bar. A series of loud beeps that got fainter and fainter followed, and the Trod fell. Dead. And silent.
"That's one Trod out of action, not much good without their aerials are they?"
"Great thinking Doctor" complimented Steven.
Inside the computer room, MacTaggart awaited an update from the Trod patrolling the particular sector of the city the travellers were navigating. He took to the coms system to speak to it directly.
"Trod 12, come in number 12, I am unable to make contact with you, what is your present situation?"
There was no reply. Mactaggart took swift and decisive action.
"Attention all Trods, calling all Trods, our prisoners have escaped, urgent message to all Trods, find and recapture the prisoners. Find and entrap, repeat, find and entrap"
"Doctor, there's more of the Trods on their way" Sara warned as some of the Trods advanced from behind the scurrying travellers.
"Quick child, hide behind here" The Doctor instructed, pointing to some apparatus that they clambered on top of.
"It's incredible, this place serves a twin function, a control room and a corridor connecting to larger chambers" Steven observed, The Doctor urged him to keep quiet as they ducked behind the apparatus just as a Trod glided into view, placing it's hand on a central dial in the centre of a panel.
"It's quite alright, he hasn't seen us" The Doctor whispered.
"He's preoccupied with turning on those controls, let's hope that buys us the time we need to slip away" Steven noted.
Suddenly, the floor began to move.
"My boy, the floor also functions as a conveyer belt, the Trod has just activated it" The Doctor explained.
"Our luck right now is farcically comical" Sara remarked.
"Doctor, Sara, look, just ahead of us" Steven spoke in alarm, "There's some kind of machine grinder, and we're heading straight towards it"
"Here, take my pen knife" Sara suggested, handing The Doctor the item.
"Yes, yes, exactly what I was thinking, very good my child. I'll use this to cut the belt and free us from it"
The Doctor did so, cutting away at the fabric of the belt and snapping it in two, the travellers crashed to the floor where they found the patrolling Trods encircling them.
"It appears for now our enemies have won" a defeatist Doctor admitted.
The travellers were taken back to the control room, their original goal, though their objective was now lost to them.
Davros, his presence, even existence, still unknown to The Doctor in this early incarnation, chose a most unique of verbal exchanges.
"I will ask you one question, one only, and you must not hesitate to answer, or your friends will die here, now"
"Not a hair on their heads, do you understand?"
"Then answer"
"Ask away sir"
"What is it like to die? Do you even know? Do you ever think the end will come for you? And your children of time? Will they see a life beyond this mortal horizon? Or does the soul lay dormant within the shell of the body? Its purpose to be simply lay dormant until such time we can learn to extract it as quantifiable information?"
"This tyrant of Trodos speaks to you as if he were a scientist Doctor" replied Steven.
"Do you perhaps lean into the theory that a quantum version of consciousness can give rise to the theory of a quantum soul good sir?" replied The Doctor.
"Quantum physics, everything to do with time, and space, and bending back both to travel in between this life and the next, fascinating, but where you are from, that is not quite a theory is it now Doctor?"
"Doctor, does he know things about you?" Sara asked. The Doctor remained stoic, and unmoving, lost very much in thought as he pondered his problem further.
"My soul is caged, my body betrays me every waking hour, I long to be free of it, reincarnated into something new. Change and renewal Doctor, all life depends on it. Even yours, it is that quantifiable narrative I seek to extract from you when you die a dozen or so times at the hands of my traps"
"I'm sorry, your traps?" Mactaggart replied, a little taken aback by the malice in the great healer's voice. He appeared to be taking great delight in this predicament.
Davros proceeded to display a map of the city on the screen, laying out precisely what he had in store for his prisoners.
"This is a diagram of the city I have prepared for your trials, all buildings you'll find are now booby-trapped, you will have nothing to utilise but your mind and skills to navigate these traps, it should prove a most interesting ordeal"
"Why would you not kill us now? While we stand?" The Doctor asked.
"Seeing how humans, or in your case humanoid, thrive under greater, unyielding pressure can provide me with great experimentation, so other than serving as modest sport, it enables the situation to function as a grand experiment that tests out my latest technological advances, and appeals to my better nature as a scientist"
"You are a legitimate madman sir" The Doctor remarked.
"Malice is not a symptom of insanity Doctor, it is a basic reaction to frequent exposure to overwhelming frustration, a need that must be purged and released from the mind and body to put the quantifiable soul at rest. I will succeed at that. Now, choose which building you wish to enter"
The Doctor spotted a structure that had twin towers stretched outright, it resembled almost a scarecrow overlooking the larger landscape. Fixed upright and ridged. It had a certain majesty to it that appealed to the Doctor's flare for architectural design.
"Seeing as we have no other choice, that is the building we shall enter" The Doctor announced.
"Then do so" Davros instructed.
As The Doctor, Steven and Sara were led outside and marched towards the tower of choice, a flustered and frustrated MacTaggart confronted Davros over his plans.
"I arranged for my Trods to provide you with anything you needed for those buildings, but not once did I consider you would be willing to sacrifice them as part of some twisted scheme of revenge. These travellers are known to you, the eldest one in particular, but in what way?"
"He is a source of great delay to my advancements on the galaxy. Previous creations of mine have been hampered in their progress by his meddlesome interventions" Davros admitted.
"These creations, are they as the rumours suggest? That before your turn to the greater benefit of the galaxy, you were responsible for the creation of the dreaded Daleks?"
"I would not subscribe to rumours so readily, when you lack the sufficient evidence to make such a claim" Davros replied.
"I may lack evidence, but what I don't lack is common sense. From how you've reacted, these people don't belong in this time, meaning they lack knowledge of you and your alleged deeds. It would be incredibly delicate if one were to give them advance knowledge of it would it not?"
"Stop him my Trods" Davros instructed. The Trods swarming over MacTaggart, their weapons trained on him.
MacTaggart, however, was ready for such inevitable treason.
He produced a small smoke pebble from his pocket and threw it the floor, it created a thick shroud from which he used to make good his escape, he made a dash towards the same tower as The Doctor, Sara, and Steven, only for one Trod to successfully target him and struck him in the back with a powerful beam. MacTaggart, writhing in pain, barely managed to slide under the tower's doors as they lowered.
Inside the tower, The Doctor cautioned his two friends not to touch anything, and to test a nearby flight of stairs before they could climb it.
"Our only chance of survival is to think of every conceivable booby trap" he said, picking up a nearby fountain monument with Steven's help.
"Stand clear Sara" he instructed, as he and Steven threw the fountain at the stairwell. Upon instantaneous contact, the stairwell exploded, throwing the companions backward.
"Everything we touch is liable to explode, I fear it is only a matter of time before we make a most fatal mistake" The Doctor warned.