"This way."
He started towards the edge of the building. Jasmine hovered where she was, looking towards the open square in which she had recently been penned up with the other prisoners.
"The other soldiers..."
He turned, visibly suppressing his impatience.
"I know. But sometimes you just can't save everyone. And we're running out of time now."
"There were still about thirty of them down there."
"Yes. Which means about a hundred and seventy dead so far. Believe me, I hadn't lost count."
He gave her no time, but with a fast run up leaped across the six foot chasm of the alleyway below to the roof of the next building. Jasmine could do nothing but follow. They repeated this in a zigzag pattern until they were almost at the perimeter of the settlement, blocked by broad roadways on either side.
"Now what?" she asked. The Doctor held up his hand.
"Just a second."
There was an ear-splitting crash from behind them, and Jasmine whirled to see a thick column of smoke rising above the building from which they had just escaped.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, it just means those cables I knotted together have finally melted through. It's only noise and smoke but it should get the Daleks scurrying over there. Meanwhile..."
Casually, he jumped over the side of the building and vanished from view. Jasmine rushed to see what had become of him and found him standing on the roof of one of the chunky six-wheeled vehicles she had seen the previous day rolling through the streets of the colony.
"... We can escape in comfort," he finished.
----------
"Good thing, too," the Doctor was saying as they rolled to a halt at the top of the slope where they had left the Tardis. "The Daleks chose their spot carefully. Flat terrain and a steady upwards slope in all directions. They'd catch up with anyone trying to escape on foot in very quick time."
He switched off the engine and they clambered out. The Doctor glanced at his chunky steel wristwatch.
"Look at that. Safe, and with several minutes to spare. There's a novelty."
Walking up to the Tardis door, he pushed his hand into his coat pocket and his face grew still. Jasmine spent a few moments watching him scrabble in that pocket, then in others, before drawing the key from her own pocket.
"Oh." The Doctor glared at her sourly, and plucked the key from her fingers. "Right."
He opened the door, and they both walked tiredly into the comforting hum and bright light of the console room.
"Sorry your first trip wasn't more fun," the Doctor said, starting to circle the console and flick switches. Jasmine's attention turned to the image of the doomed colony on the monitor. "How about this time we head somewhere specific? The Eye of Orion, perhaps. Nothing terrible happened last time I was there, although..."
"There's someone out there."
The Doctor's head snapped up to stare at the corner of the screen as indicated by Jasmine's pointing finger. The antlike figure of a man was clearly visible scrambling up the slope towards them.
"Roboman?" he murmured. "Seems unlikely, on his own, this far out from the control centre. Well, we'll see."
He twisted a dial, and the display zoomed in on the figure. Jasmine felt she knew who it was long before his weary, desperate face came into focus on the screen.
"Kerrigan."
For a long moment the Doctor's eyes didn't leave the screen. Then he checked his watch again.
"I think he's just about going to make it. They must have spotted the Tardis yesterday and now he's realised it's his only hope of a way out. Jasmine, stand by the door control. It's that one there. I'll dematerialise as soon as he's inside."
Jasmine circled to place her hand on the red lever as instructed, always watching Kerrigan struggling his way towards them. She blinked as the display moved away from him, panning left to sweep across the landscape.
"Just checking," the Doctor said.
The screen showed vast expanses of empty dust, and the crumbling, desolate rim of the crater in which the colony stood. It was when the view shifted to the endless plateau beyond that they both tensed. The sole outstanding object in that whole wilderness, the unmistakable carapace of a lone Dalek gliding inexorably towards them.
It was making fast headway. The Doctor switched the monitor back to Kerrigan, then back to the Dalek, gauging the progress of each of them. Jasmine felt like rats were gnawing at her insides.
"He's not going to make it, is he?"
The Doctor switched the screen back and forth once more, watching with narrowed eyes.
"No."
In magnification, the Dalek now seemed to be almost upon them. Suddenly it dawned on Jasmine that it was not one of the regular Daleks. It had silver studs in its armour, not black.
"Ceros!"
The Doctor turned.
"What?"
"It's Ceros. The Dalek commander."
"Oh." He shrugged. "Well, Dalek officers do their own dirty work."
Jasmine was thinking fast.
"Listen, Kerrigan's almost here now. If I could just distract the Dalek for a few moments..."
His attention had been drifting back to the screen, but at this he looked round sharply.
"Whatever you're thinking, forget it. You're not going back out. It would kill you."
"I don't think he will. You don't understand. I told him I'd help when he was being tortured back in the cave and I think he feels something because of that. Why else would he have taken me out of the queue for that machine at the base?"
"Did it know you were with me?"
"Of course not. How could he?"
"Well, it'll have had some ulterior motive." The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment, then leaned forward, palms on the console, and spoke steadily. "Look, I know you're desperate for some way to help. I understand. But Daleks are evil. You can't appeal to their better nature because they haven't got one. If you go out there, it will certainly kill you."
"But..." Half remembered lessons in life from a softly spoken old man returned to her. "But you told me no one's really evil through and through! You told me where there's intelligence there's the chance of compassion."
"I never for one moment thought you'd ever have to meet a Dalek!" His voice rose painfully. "They're not natural creatures. They were genetically engineered to be incapable of compassion or any other emotion except hatred. You could say it's not their fault. They didn't ask to have their DNA turned inside out by a megalomaniac and they live a wretched, meaningless existence because of it. The fact remains, they cannot be reasoned with and, let me say this one more time, if you go out there it will kill you."
Jasmine looked up at the screen, the zoom focus now showing a closeup of Kerrigan's drained, exhausted face. She looked down defeatedly, and the Doctor relaxed.
She pushed the lever and bolted out through the opening doors, pursued by the Doctor's hysterical, panic-stricken cry:
"Jasmine, NO!"