Harry Sullivan stumbled out of the Kaled operating theatre. Dropping the bundle of surgeon's robes into the bin by the door, he leaned against the wall. He held out his hands in front of him; they were trembling with fatigue.

A woman followed him, wearing surgical garb plus a mask; she asked, "Sorry, Doctor Sullivan. We've asked too much of you, haven't you?"

"I…I'm just more tired than I thought. My hands…" He held them out, and she took one and held it.

"You've been in there for hours, you know. We thank you, for all your help. Why don't you lie down now and rest."

Rest sounded wonderful to Harry.

She led him into a dimly lit room, where rows of figures lay shoulder to shoulder on cots. Most were still; all were heavily swathed with bandages. There was an empty bunk at one end, and Harry sat down on it, and sipped at a glass of water given to him by – "I do apologise, but what is your name?" he asked.

There was a smile in her voice, although he couldn't see her mouth. "I am Fourteenth Surgeon called Fosu, Doctor Sullivan. Rest now."

Harry finished the water and lay back. His feet hurt as much as his hands and shoulders; he'd been standing, sewing up gashes and gouges on one patient after another, while other doctors worked on the more serious wounds. It was like some ghastly parody of an assembly line, except he was putting back together items that had been partially disassembled on the battlefield. And all of the patients were young men, terribly young, some not old enough to raise a beard.

Harry closed his eyes, and thought he might have dozed for a bit; he was roused by the sound of one of the wounded, thrashing and moaning. Harry raised himself up on one elbow to see better. The man's face was bandaged from the nose up, and his bandaged hands were patting frantically at his face.

"I can't see! I can't see!" said the soldier, his voice rising into hysteria. He tried to sit up and a woman was there, gently pushing the patient back. Harry thought she bore a striking resemblance to Third Outer Speaker.

"You are blind, Private Zo," she said. Harry winced at the flat statement of fact.

Zo stopped moving, and then asked, "Blind? Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Zo sighed, and seemed to collapse a little bit smaller into the bunk. "Then – you won't send me back?"

"No, no, we won't send you back. We promise."

Zo's voice sounded even smaller when he asked, "And … when will I be culled?"

Harry swallowed.

The woman replied sharply, "You will not be culled, Private Zo. And we will not send you back."

Zo shook his head, not seeming to understand. His voice turned querulous. "And what's wrong with my ears? Your voice sounds wrong. I can't hear you right."

The woman – Fourteenth Surgeon? Harry couldn't tell – unwrapped one of Zo's hands, baring the palm and holding the loose bandages against the ugly wound on the back. Sitting him up a little, she took his hand in both of hers and held it against her cheek, and spoke.

"My name is Tenth Healer called Tehea, Private Zo, and you are hearing me just fine. You will not be culled, and we will not send you back."

Zo was still; his fingers twitched a little against Tehea's face.

"A woman. I can't remember when I last heard a woman's voice. I…I didn't recognise it!" He sobbed once, harshly. His fingers moved gently over the side of her face.

"Are you in pain? Hungry?" she asked.

"No, no, I … I'm not in pain. I can just stay here then?"

"Yes," said Tehea. "Stay and rest. We can read or sing to you, if you like; or if you have any messages to pass on, we will take them."

"I can rest." The wounded man's voice was choked with happy astonishment. "As long as I want?"

"As long as you want, Private Zo. Rest now. No more forced marches, no more digging, no more running, no more killing. Just rest."

Zo lay back down, seeming to pass almost instantly into sleep. Tehea touched his cheek, and rose - and a shot rang out. Eyes wide, she clutched at her side, and then fell.

Behind her was a man in a filthy uniform, with a smoking gun in his shaking hand. Although Harry did not recognise him, he was the sniper who had been apprehended earlier while he was trying to shoot the Doctor and his companions. In the rush to get him off the battlefield, he had not been searched for weapons thoroughly enough.

"Stop! Drop it, right now." Harry rose to his feet, and all around them the wounded babbled and waved bandaged limbs, trying to figure out what was going on. Zo was patting the air around his bunk, desperately trying to find the woman he'd just been talking to. Harry ignored them against his will, focussed all his attention on the man with the gun. He had to stop him before he shot someone else. "These men are all wounded, for pity's sake put that away!"

"You!" The sniper lunged forward and grabbed Harry by the arm, pressing the handgun against him. "Who are you?"

"I'm a doctor and these are my patients!" Harry snapped.

"Got to, got to get out. Get out of here. You, take me out of here!" and Harry was dragged out the door much against his will.

Outside, the sniper started trotting down the hallway, hauling Harry after him. One of the other surgeons stuck her head out of a doorway, saw them, and lunged backwards; the bullet ricocheted off the doorframe instead of hitting her. Immediately there came a wailing from the room where she had hidden.

Eyyyiyiyiyiyi …

"No! Damn you!" said the sniper, breaking into a run and forcing Harry to run as well. They went down one white hallway, then another, and the wailing seemed to keep track behind them. Harry was trying to calculate how he could break free - the corridors were out, nowhere to hide, could he force a door and close it behind him? How did you lock these sliding doors anyway? Then the sniper stopped and pointed to a black rectangle on the wall, covered with white squiggles.

"There, read that for me!"

"I'm sorry, I can't read that."

"You can't read? But you're a doctor, not a soldier. Doctors can read!" The sniper let go of Harry and started backing away from him, towards the corridor intersection.

"You mean they don't teach-" said Harry, just as the sniper stepped into the intersection and a shot rang out, then several shots. The sniper dropped slackly to the floor, and Harry leaped to the corner - and then stopped. Could he drag the man back out of firing range? Should he? He didn't seem to be breathing. Harry was tempted to run, but he could not leave a man who might only be wounded, when immediate aid might save his life.

"Hold your fire! I'm a doctor!" he shouted, raising his hands over his head. He stepped sideways around the corner, and came face-to-face with four frantic looking women in loose white robes. One was barely out of girlhood, and the other three seemed to be in their thirties, but all four of them clutched ugly-looking rifles that were aimed directly at Harry.

# # #

The door to the Bunker security cell opened, and the Doctor was shoved through; the door had closed before he could pull himself from his hands and knees. Sarah Jane was there to help him up.

"Are you all right?" she asked. The Doctor looked exhausted, mentally bruised if not physically as well.

"Well, in one piece at least, Sarah. They wanted technological information, I gave it to them; every bit of gobbledygook I could remember, things even I can't understand. They'll be weeks trying to make heads or tails of it!"

"And where are we exactly?"

The Doctor frowned. "This is the Bunker, where the Kaled military and scientific elite are concentrated. They were formed to build weapons for the war, but they have grown so powerful that they can demand anything they want."

"Like the Manhattan Project," suggested Sarah.

"Exactly. But I am worried about Harry."

"Oh, Harry can take care of himself," said Sarah with an air of confidence she didn't entirely feel. She tried to think of what she could change the subject to. "Say, have you seen the washrooms here? Grab bars and foot pedals everywhere. Like in a hospital."

"Yes, well that follows doesn't it?" The Doctor ran a hand over his face. "A centuries long war means centuries of battlefield injuries. And handicaps. Everything has to be designed to be accessible to the injured, there probably isn't a flight of stairs anywhere in the Bunker."

The Doctor looked thoughtful. "Which actually might explain some things."

"Did you see the Dalek again?" asked Sarah.

"No, but I heard about it. Davros is driving the Elite to refine the Dalek sensory array. He's convinced that some error in the creature's perception caused it not to kill us. As soon as the new improvements are incorporated into the Dalek, we'll be presented to it again."

"Oh lovely," said Sarah. "We're its National Health vision exam."

The Doctor went on, "I'm more interested in why its sensory array reported that-" but he was interrupted by the cell door opening.

Both captives looked up. Ronson was standing there, with a black-clad guard at his elbow. Ronson entered, and when the guard made to follow the scientist ordered, "No, wait outside. I am armed." The guard closed the door between them.

Ronson said, "I'm sorry about your interrogation, but I couldn't think of any excuse to stop it. The military can be brutal, but they are the ones in charge." Ronson sat down on the end of Sarah's cot, and the Doctor sat on the opposite one. The scientist continued, "And I am under suspicion, because of my impulsive actions yesterday."

"I would think you'd be rather in favour, actually. Think how embarrassing it would have been if the Dalek had taken a pot shot at its creator. You may have saved Davros' life."

Ronson leaned forward, intensely focussed on the Doctor. "Dalek. You used that word yesterday, and I said I had never heard it before. Nobody had heard that word. But today, just a few hours ago, Davros announced that from now on, the Mark Three travel machine was to be known as a Dalek. Now how could you know that?"

The Doctor tried to think of how to tell him. How to explain that he came from a time where the Daleks were an intergalactic menace? He started with, "Let's say that I am here because the Daleks are of grave interest to future generations."

"Future generations," repeated Ronson. "And yet, as monstrous as they are, the Daleks may be the only chance of our race's survival."

"How so?" asked Sarah."

"The war, you understand. It has been going on for centuries. Right after the first massive nuclear and chemical weapons strikes, the Kaled race underwent a terrible change. More and more of our children were born deformed, genetically damaged."

'The Mutos," said the Doctor.

"Exactly. Davros ran simulations, and determined that the mutation process was irreversible. That our descendents would inevitably become the sort of creatures who could survive on the tainted remnants of our planet. He was determined to find our final form. He took living cells, exposed them to massive doses of poisons and radiation, and the results - lived."

Ronson looked down at his feet and swallowed before he went on.

"Davros was certain that these creatures could be the key to winning the war, if given means of propulsion and attack. So - the Mark Three travel machine project. The Daleks. They were conditioned to obey, to fight. Their travel machines make them unstoppable."

"Did Davros invent the neural transmission arrays as well?"

"The what?" asked Ronson. "You said before-"

"Yes, the round metal plates embedded in the Assistant's head. Flat, about the size of a fingertip maybe. They certainly looked like a transmission array to me."

Ronson replied, "Davros says that they are nothing, mere decoration."

The Doctor leaned forward. "Ah, and how does he know that?"

Ronson looked up. "Dissection, of course. He, he had me do the preliminary - cuts." The Kaled scientist flinched at Sarah Jane's expression, clenching his fists as though he wanted to crush his own fingers. Then his words can rushing out.

"And that's another thing, the Assistants. There are very few Kaled women born each generation. Ten males for each female, it's been that way ever since the war began, due to environmental stress. Kaled women are all kept in the Womens' Quarters, in the deepest part of the Dome, sheltered from the fallout and contamination as best we can. But - about a year ago, one of the scientists here, Hif, disappeared into thin air, and nobody found out what happened to him. A few months after his disappearance, there was an announcement, that a selection of women of the highest intellectual quality, the Red Hexagon group, was to be allowed to work in the Bunker."

"Highest intellectual quality. Do tell." Sarah Jane had thought the Assistant, and Thoss as well, rather pretty in a sharp-faced way. She could understand why the Elite, trapped underground in their laboratory, wouldn't mind having a few ladies with 'intellectual quality' around.

Ronson shook his head slowly. "They are beyond brilliant, every one of them. Instant calculators, deep and intuitive mathematicians, they take to gene engineering like second nature. And they are kind too, terribly kind. Nobody knows what the connection is between Hif's disappearance and their arrival, but I feel that there is one. The Red Hexagon have advanced our work unbelievably, but at the same time…at the same time, things are not going as planned."

The Doctor was sitting with his arms folded, staring at Ronson in a rather uncharitable way. "And I suppose when the Red Hexagon women showed up, Davros just picked one out and ordered you to dissect her? And you followed his order?"

Ronson twitched, and spoke more slowly, pausing between each sentence. "No, it was before anyone had ever heard of them. I went to one of the specimen rooms as ordered. She was already dead. There was a tattoo across her forehead, where the laboratory animals are marked. It said, J29A. I think," Ronson wearily rubbed his face, "I rather think that Nyder killed her."

The Doctor mused, half to himself, "A neural transmission array sometimes decomposes after death. If Davros had never seen one, he may not have known what he was looking at. It can be used to link mind to mind, or mind to computer. Ah, or perhaps - mind to Dalek mind?"

Ronson shook his head. "No, the Dalek biosphere is much too toxic. None of the Red Hexagon members would ever go near it. You understand, they must be protected. They must!"

"The Red Hexagon - or the Kaled creatures?"

Ronson looked the Doctor straight in the eye, and spoke with quiet force. "If I believed that there were enough women to carry on the race, I would go into the Dalek incubator room and kill them all myself, with my bare hands. Even if it meant my own life - and it would. But there are not enough. We must survive, our people must survive!"

"As Daleks?" asked the Doctor. "As war machines, conditioned to kill?"

Ronson shook his head violently. "No, no! There must be another way, a way that our race can go on as themselves, not as the amoral monstrosities that Davros is making out of them!" He leaned forward urgently. "I need to get information about what is going on here out of the Bunker and to the Dome! If they knew the full extent of how Davros is perverting the Daleks, they would end the project and shut down the Bunker. I can't go myself, we are all watched, especially since Hif vanished."

The Doctor leaned forward as well, Sarah Jane mimicking his motion unconsciously. "Then let us help you. You get us out of here, help us escape, and we'll go to the Dome."

Ronson started going through his pockets, finally coming up with a notebook and a pen. "I can give you the names of people you need to contact. Politicians, members of the military, people with the power to stop Davros."

The Doctor beamed. "An excellent suggestion, and we can look for a friend of ours who may be there as well."

# # #

In the main laboratory, two Daleks were now manoeuvring under the gaze of Davros and a group of the Elite. Nyder was standing at Davros' side; he still didn't quite trust these creatures, and kept a sharp eye on them. After a series of complicated moves, they both came to a halt facing Davros. One of the Daleks said, "We await your command."

In a tone eerily like that of his creations, Davros ordered, "You will evaluate the two specimens at the far end of this room."

The two Daleks turned and came close to the specimens, who were a younger scientist called Kavell and Second Laboratory Assistant, who were standing at attention side by side. The other scientists looked on with varying expressions of interest or concern. Gharman, head of the Scientific Elite, looked like he wanted to stop the evaluation; his hands were clenched into fists at his sides and he stared a bit too intensely at the Daleks.

Kavell whispered to the woman beside him, trying to move his lips as little as possible. "They could destroy us without a thought!"

"I think not," said Second Laboratory Assistant, her voice confident and very quiet.

The Daleks seemed to consult with one another, then they turned and rolled back to Davros.

"The specimens are Kaled adults, one male and one female. No anomalies to report," said one of the Daleks.

"Excellent. Disengage motive units," said Davros. At once the two Daleks stopped moving, their eye stalks and limbs drooping in a parody of rest.

Kavell drew a deep breath of relief, and Second Laboratory Assistant touched his arm. When he glanced at her, she smiled and said, "Well done, Kavell."

"Thank you Selaa," he replied, and his eyes followed her as she walked over to wait on Davros. Then Kavell's eyes met Nyder's, and he quickly looked away.

Second Laboratory Assistant stood before Davros as he delivered his instructions about further updates to the Dalek systems to the assembled scientists and technicians. When he was finished, and the Elite had moved back to their tasks, she said simply, "Your orders, sir?"

"Prepare a summary of the adjustments made to the Dalek deep radar and electrical sensing apparatus, and ready it for my review. You will also read and analyze the latest reports from the automated assembly project, paying particular attention to the elimination of redundancy in the automation procedure."

"Yes, sir. Permission to make a suggestion?"

"Your suggestions have always been of great value to my work."

Second Laboratory Assistant said, "There may be a more efficient way for your visual system to access the computer system, allowing you to review and analyze the data without having to have physical printouts generated. This also would have security applications: printouts could no longer be lost or incorrectly disposed of. The access device would be built specifically for you. Only you would have total access to the data."

"That is a very interesting idea," said Davros.

Nyder broke in, "I would want to review any such equipment before it would be used by Davros."

Second Laboratory Assistant looked at Nyder and smiled, to no effect. She dropped the smile and said, "All equipment will be fully tested and based on established protocols, of course. Davros, your permission to proceed?"

"Granted. Proceed as soon as the summaries are complete."

"I obey," she said, and left silently.

Nyder spoke to Davros, speaking low so that the scientists now examining the two inactive Daleks would not hear. "I am," he paused, looking for the right word, "concerned with the amount of influence the Red Hexagon have on the Elite."

"I do not share your concerns," said Davros. "Whether the Elite are motivated by fear of me, or affection," Davros twisted that word, made it sound like a curse, "for the Red Hexagon, the Dalek project will be completed. When the Daleks are ready, they will leave this Bunker and cleanse Skaro of my enemies forever. That is the only thing that is important."

# # #

Before Ronson took them to the lower levels of the Bunker, where he said they could escape using the ventilator ducts, he insisted on taking them to see the mutated creatures that were being encased in the Dalek travel machines.

The incubator room he showed them was closed off by a massive lead-lined door. Through a tiny vision port, the two prisoners peered in to see a room full of glass and metal bottles, where tentacled masses of lumpy flesh pulsated and writhed.

Ronson did not join them in looking. He said, "Unless you succeed, Doctor, this may be all that remains of our race in the future."

"I sincerely hope not, Ronson." The Doctor hit the vision port control himself, and a steel shutter came down, obscuring the Dalek incubation chamber.

The three of them proceeded to the lower level unchallenged; presumably the passing guards saw only one of the Elite taking two prisoners to be questioned or experimented on. They passed First Laboratory Assistant, who was carrying a coil of wire and an small metal loop studded with half spheres, as though in imitation of the outer shell of a Dalek. At least Sarah thought it was First, but Ronson said "Fola," and the woman nodded.

After the Assistant was gone, Sarah Jane asked Ronson, "Was that First Laboratory Assistant?"

"No, that's definitely Fourth Laboratory Assistant. We call her Fola for short," he replied. "She has a special skill for electronics."

The Doctor wondered aloud, "And what's your theory as to why the Red Hexagon women all look alike?"

Ronson shrugged. "I don't know. Davros was curious too, but he did tests and determined that they were not genetically identical."

And apparently that solved matters for Ronson. Sarah Jane thought there must be more to it than that, but maybe not. If there were so few women, such a small population, it stood to reason that all their children would start to look alike. Sarah had a sudden nasty thought and shivered, wondering how many of the Mutos were due to radiation, and how many were from inbreeding.

"This is it," said Ronson, stopping them by a large metal grille set waist-high in the corridor. While Sarah kept a lookout, the Doctor and Ronson worked to pry the grille loose and set it aside. The revealed ventilation duct was certainly big enough to crawl through, but it was a little disturbing that Sarah couldn't see the end of it.

Ronson was scribbling a last few names in his notebook. "Here," he said, pressing it into the Doctor's hand. "There's one last thing you should know about your escape route. The ventilation shaft leads out into a series of caves, caves where some of Davros' earlier experimental animals are confined."

"We'll watch our step," said the Doctor with more confidence than Sarah felt.

"Please be careful," pleaded Ronson. "And the notebook-"

"Don't worry, I won't let it fall into the wrong hands." With that reassurance, the Doctor crawled into the duct, followed by Sarah Jane. Ronson quickly levered the cover back into place and then walked away.

# # #

"We should shoot him," said the youngest woman, hustling Harry Sullivan down the Dome corridor.

"Be quiet," said one of the other three. "We have questions to ask him first."

Harry had questions too. "Why did you shoot that man? He wasn't threatening you!"

"We want no men here," the youngest woman actually hissed. She glared at Harry with an expression of loathing, and he flinched. What had he ever done to this girl?

"Ladies, please!" came a shout from down the corridor. "That man is our guest! Please release him!" Behind the shouting, Harry could still hear the strange wail, eyiyiyiyi. Maybe it was the alarum signal.

"He's ours now!" shouted one of the older women.

"He's a doctor, we need him out here!" came the reply from the distance.

The older woman turned and fired down the corridor. The explosion of the gunshot was shockingly loud in the enclosed space. "Keep back!"

There was a heavy wall that looked reinforced closing the corridor in front of them, with a single door in it. The area around it was marked, with streaks and gashes in the floor and walls, as though the area had been the site of some battle. Harry and his captors scooted through, and the massive door shut behind them with the grinding of metal on metal.