Chapter Three

Ace wakes up and attacks the Headmaster. He goes down easily and she unbolts the cellar door.

"Exterminate! Exterminate!" the Dalek was screaming.

Nita and the Doctor fall backwards into the corridor and Ace bolts the door shut in the Dalek's face.

"Exterminate!"

"Doctor!" Nita was shaking and the Doctor puts an arm around her shoulders in comfort.

"What's the matter with him?" The Doctor nods at the Headmaster.

"Stomach ache," Ace replies with a smirk.

"School dinners," the Doctor mutters. "Give me a hand to move him."

"Professor, he tried to lock you in."

"Ace!"

They drag the Headmaster away from the door, and the Doctor finds some electronics implanted behind the Headmaster's left ear. The Doctor, Nita and Ace run out of the school just before the Dalek blasts the cellar door down.

The Headmaster wakes up. "I'm sorry."

"We must repair the transmat," says the Dalek.

"Yes."

An RAF Land Rover is parked up outside the school.

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asks the airman in the Rover. "Oh, never mind. Get this thing out of here."

"I was ordered to deliver the ATRs to this position, sir," the airman replies.

"ATRs. Anti-tank rockets," the Doctor realizes.

"Yes, sir," the airman confirms.

The Doctor, Nita and Ace run round the back and open the canvas cover.

"Will these things be any good against the Daleks?" Nita asks the Doctor.

"It's not the Daleks we're after, it's the transmat."

Down in the school cellar, as usual it isn't the Dalek getting its sink-plunger dirty with actual work.

"You will remain here," the Dalek orders the Headmaster.

Outside Coal Hill School, the airman hands the Doctor a clipboard.

"You'll have to sign for them, sir."

The Doctor signs with a question mark then attempts to pocket the soldier's pen.

"Ahem."

"Come on," the Doctor says to the girls, while reluctantly returning the airman's pen.

The Doctor, Nita and Ace leave with weaponry. The airman starts to close up the back of the Land Rover when the little blond girl appears.

"Hello, love," the airman greets her.

The Doctor and the girls return to the school corridor.

"What about the Dalek? Won't he try and stop us?" asks Nita.

"Quite possibly. Stay close behind," the Doctor replies.

"Hey. It must have gone back down to the cellar," Ace says, looking around.

Wrong.

"You will be exterminated!" the Dalek shouts.

The Dalek fires and misses. The Doctor overturns a table as a barricade.

"Girls, get down!"

"Exterminate!"

The trophy cabinet is destroyed. Ace uses the anti-tank rocket. KaBOOM goes the Dalek.

"Ace!" shouts Ace.

"You destroyed it! The Doctor is surprised.

"I aimed for the eye-piece," Ace explains.

"This way!" says Mike, entering with a group of soldiers. "Move it, move it! You fetch the Group Captain. Any more?"

"No," the Doctor replies.

"Did you do that?" Mike asks Ace, impressed.

"It makes a lot of smoke, doesn't it," Ace remarks.

"Yeah," Mike replies, staring at Ace.

Gilmore runs in with Rachel and Allison. "You've destroyed it. Good."

"It is not good," the Doctor disagrees. "Nothing about this is good. I've made a grave error of judgment. Oh, I'm going to wish I'd never started all this. Group Captain, I must ask you to evacuate the immediate area."

"That's an absurd idea," Gilmore scoffs.

"Why, Doctor?" Rachel asks.

"I've reason to believe a major Dalek Task Force could soon be operating here."

"Great," Allison says sarcastically.

"And where will this Task Force arrive from?" asks Gilmore.

"One certainly is in place hidden somewhere in this vicinity. The other probably from a mothership in geostationary orbit."

"Be reasonable, Doctor," scoffs Gilmore.

"Do you doubt the non-terrestrial nature of the Daleks?" asks the Doctor. "I mean, examine this one. Or better still, ask your Scientific Advisor."

The Doctor leaves them with the Dalek.

"Well, Professor?" Gilmore asks Rachel.

"I'm afraid the Doctor's right. It is alien."

"You're positive?"

"Yes."

"Professor, a word. This Doctor, do you trust him?"

"Well, he knows what he's talking about, and considerably more than he's telling us. I think we should go along with him for now."

"And later?"

"We could ask him for an explanation."

"We could do a lot more than ask." He walks over to the Doctor. "Very well, Doctor, I'll have to get a decision about this evacuation from my superiors."

"Splendid."

"I should know either way by tomorrow morning. I'll see you all then."

Gilmore leaves.

"I shouldn't touch it if I were you," the Doctor warns as he sees the women lean close to look inside the Dalek. "It may not be completely dormant yet."

"That stench," gasps Allison, waving her hand before her face.

"Now, Doctor, I have questions I would like answered," says Rachel.

"So have I," says the Doctor. "I'll return in the morning."

"Doctor, where are you going?" asks Nita.

"To bury the past," the Doctor replies enigmatically.

"I'm coming with you," says Ace.

"It is not your past. You haven't been born yet," replies the Doctor. He turns to the women. "Would someone look after Nita and Ace for me?"

"Yes, of course," agrees Rachel.

The Doctor takes Ace's baseball bat. "I'll borrow this."

"Sergeant, have you room for Nita and Ace at your house?" asks Rachel.

"Yeah, sure," replies Mike. He turns to the girls. "Mum runs a boarding house. I'd like you to meet her."

"Ace?" says Rachel.

"Yes?"

"Not been born yet. What did he mean by that?"

Ace just smiles and winks at Nita.

The Doctor enters the café. The sign says open, but there are no lights on and no customers. A Jamaican man comes out from the kitchen. "Can I help you?"

"A mug of tea, please."

"Cold night tonight."

"Yes, it is. Bitter, very bitter. Where's Harry?"

"Visiting his missus. She's in hospital."

"Of course. It'll be twins."

"Hmm? Your tea. Sugar?"

"Ah. A decision. Would it make any difference?"

"It would make your tea sweet."

"Yes, but beyond the confines of my tastebuds, would it make any difference?"

"Not really."

"But…"

"Yeah?"

"What if I could control people's tastebuds? What if I decided that no one would take sugar? That'd make a difference to those who sell the sugar and those that cut the cane."

"My father, he was a cane cutter."

"Exactly. Now, if no one had used sugar, your father wouldn't have been a cane cutter."

"If this sugar thing had never started, my great-grandfather wouldn't have been kidnapped, chained up, and sold in Kingston in the first place. I'd be an African."

"See? Every great decision creates ripples, like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge, rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences."

"Life's like that. Best thing is just to get on with it."

The little girl looks in the window at them, and leaves as the Doctor notices her.

"Did you see that?" the Doctor asks.

"See what?"

"Nothing. What would you do if you had a decision, a big decision?"

"How big?"

"Saving the world."

"Really?"

"Really."

"I wish you the best of luck."

"Let's hope I make the right decision. Things could get unpleasant round here. I'd take a holiday if I were you."

"Oh, sure. How long?"

"Two or three days. After that, it won't matter one way or the other. Thanks for the tea."

"Any time."

The Doctor puts a coin on the counter and leaves. John picks it up.

"Nineteen ninety one?"