The crawl through the ducts was painful for both of the escaping prisoners. The corners of the joins had to be carefully gotten over, because they were sharp, and Sarah Jane banged her head on one or two sharp corners in the dark. She imagined that the Doctor was having a worse time of it though. Fortunately he had recoiled his extremely long scarf closer to his neck before entering the duct, or it probably would have tied them both into knots.
To distract herself, she said, "What was that you meant to say about the Dalek sensory array? Just before Ronson came in."
The Doctor's voice came from ahead of her, echoing sharply against the metal sides of the duct. "Oh? Well, what I was going to say was, maybe there's nothing wrong with the Dalek sensor array. Maybe there really were three aliens in that room."
Sarah stopped crawling for a beat. "You mean the Assistants are…"
"Are not just what they appear to be, yes."
Sarah was considering this when she bumped into the Doctor's feet.
"What?" she said.
"We're here. I'm getting the grill off," said the Doctor as he worked at the metal frame with his fingertips.
"Oh. Funny, I thought it would smell mustier or something," said Sarah.
"What?" replied the Doctor, as the grille fell down with a clang. He paused before crawling out, and said, "You're right, for a cave full of dangerous experimental animals it seems quite hygienic."
The Doctor crawled out and helped Sarah to slither free as well. They were in a natural cavern, with rough stone walls and stalactites hanging down. The only light came in irregular patches from holes in the roof.
Sarah Jane looked down and around, and said, "Doctor! Look at the floor!"
"Sarah, we have to get moving, that cell could be checked at any time." The Doctor started heading for what might be a brighter light at the end of the cave, and Sarah followed, protesting.
"I know, but there aren't any animal tracks or anything! It's all perfectly clean."
"What?" said the Doctor, ducking around the stalactites. They were in a brighter spot at the moment, and he fell to one knee and looked around. As though to himself, he said, "No spoor, no hairs, not even a leaf or a twig. And raked smooth." He ran his fingers through the sand; let it trickle smoothly from his fist. "Clean as a tourist beach - or a laboratory."
"Why would - OUCH!" Sarah's footstep had gone between two long white ridges in the floor, one of which had dislodged and barked her shin. Easily pulling her foot loose, she looked to see what had hit her - and saw it was a giant clamshell. And beside it was a cluster of other shells, some closed, some fallen open.
"Look at these!"
The Doctor examined one. "Only the shells left, the animals themselves are gone.
"Must have made quite a dish of chowder," Sarah joked.
The Doctor spoke seriously. "Sarah, I think that all the organic matter, living or dead, has been stripped out of these caves."
"By what?"
"I don't know. A predator? Some experiment of Davros'?"
"But then Ronson would have told us about it - wouldn't he?"
"I get the impression that Davros is not entirely forthcoming with his Elite as to the end results of their work. We should get out of here. As quickly as we can, and get to the Dome."
# # #
When the door slammed shut behind Harry Sullivan, he found himself in a square white room, surrounded by women. Young women, most of them with dark hair draped over their white-robed shoulders. And they all stared at Harry with the strangest mix of hatred and interest on their faces.
And also, he couldn't help but notice, they were almost all pregnant. That is, presuming that Kaled pregnancy looked like human pregnancy. It was as unnerving to be surrounded by all those high round bellies, as it was to be surrounded by those staring faces.
There was also the fact that the majority of them were carrying guns.
"Ah, well. Good morning, or afternoon. Ladies." Harry tried to straighten his clothes a bit, ran his hand through his hair. "Is there something I can do for you?" He was desperately combing through his mind for applicable knowledge - and coming up rather short. He was a Navy doctor, blast it all, he wasn't used to working on pregnant women en masse. Surely there must be a doctor here who would be more qualified!
The women who had dragged him in were having a fierce discussion with the others, quietly hissing their words. Harry couldn't make out what they were saying. They seemed to reach an agreement, and the older woman who had helped bring him in, and shouted "Keep back!" while firing her rifle, he couldn't forget that, came close to him.
Harry held out his hand, smiled, and said, "Hello, I don't believe we had time to introduce ourselves. I'm Doctor Harry Sullivan." He almost said Lieutenant, but thought that claiming rank on an alien battlefield might not be the wisest thing to do.
The woman looked at his hand, then briefly touched her palm to his and snatched her hand away, as though he was hot and would burn her.
Harry was keenly aware that the youngest woman was watching him, and that her gun was ready to sweep up and fire in an instant. So, after a pause, he politely withdrew his hand.
The older women said, "You are a doctor? But you are not a Kaled doctor!"
The other women muttered, and one of them hissed, "A Thal!"
"No, no, I'm not a Thal." Harry had talked to some of the surgeons during his marathon operating theatre sessions, about who was who in this war. "But I'm not a Kaled either, that's true. I'm sort of a travelling doctor."
"Are you from an island?" came a question from someone in the back of the group.
"Well," England technically was an island of course, "well, yes I am."
"An island doctor, but you are working with the Daughters?"
"Oh, you mean the young ladies outside who all look alike? Yes, and really, they're wonderful doctors, some of them, and if you need medical assistance I'm sure they are much more qualif-"
"We do not trust them!" snapped the young woman. "How can they really be doctors? How could Kaled women be trained to become doctors?"
There were calls of agreement from the rest of the group. Then a stirring, as someone came forward and whispered in the older woman's ear. Harry sincerely hoped she wasn't whispering something like, "Twenty of us just had our waters break."
The older woman turned back to Harry, and touched his chest with one hand, briefly, and then pulled back again. "My name is Caso," she said. "Come with me."
As Harry was hustled further into the series of white rooms behind Caso, he saw bunks, couches, and everywhere women, nothing but women. And mostly pregnant women.
But where were the children? No babies in arms, no sounds of playing, just women in white robes. Their hard faces watching him as he was swept along in Caso's wake. Harry felt like a complete alien, which of course he was. It was a relief to be brought into a room with only one other woman in it.
She was the oldest woman he had seen so far, with touches of visible grey in her hair. She was lying on a table in the middle of the bare room, covered with a blanket to her neck, and she was still, much too still.
"This is Dynna. Heal her!" Caso commanded.
"What?" He tried to sound reasonable. "But look, I need more information, before I can find out what's wrong with her."
Harry went to the table and took Dynna's wrist in his hand; her pulse beat strong and slow. He watched the rise and fall of her chest for a moment, timing her breathing, and then asked Caso, "How long has she been like this?"
"Two days," said Caso. Behind her, the younger woman, the one who didn't want men here, slipped into the room and took up a position beside the doorway, her eyes boring into Harry.
"She's been unconscious for two days and you didn't call a doctor?" Harry said. "Why ever not?"
"We cannot bring a doctor here. Heal her!" said Caso again.
Harry put down Dynna's wrist, and pressed his hands in front of himself, palm to palm. Get a grip, he ordered himself, she's a patient now. Find out what's wrong with her, and then convince the other women that they have to send for a Kaled doctor, to get her proper treatment. He drew himself together, pushed away his weariness.
"Has she woken or spoken at all?"
"No," said Caso, watching closely as Harry gently probed around the woman's neck.
"No bruises that I can see. Did she have a fall in the last few days, or strike her head?"
"No."
"Did she complain of pain or numbness in her chest, or down one arm?"
"No," said Caso again.
Gently, Harry raised one of Dynna's eyelids; he didn't have a flashlight to shine in her eye, but he could block the overhead light with his hand and then move it aside. He saw her pupil contract, and the same thing happened when he looked into her other eye.
"Did she say she had a headache, or a sudden pain in her head? Slackness to the muscles of one side of her face or body?"
"No, she just was found like this."
"Well, I'm not an expert at Kaled physiognomy, but for one of my," he almost said 'species', "people, I would think it could be a stroke. A burst blood vessel in the brain. Which means that you must to get her to a hospital. She can't be treated here, she needs tests, X-rays or imaging, maybe surgery."
"You haven't asked the important question," said the younger woman, coming forward a pace, her hands white-knuckled on the gun.
"Koll, be silent," said Caso, frowning. Then she looked at Harry, narrow-eyed, and said slowly, "But it's true, you haven't asked the question, the one the doctors always ask."
Harry rolled one hand as though drawing out her answer. "And, that question is?"
"How long since she last carried a child to term?"
"Good heavens, Dynna isn't pregnant now, is she?" Harry spun and looked at the prone women, surely she was too old.
"No," said Caso from behind him. "It has been four years since she last bore."
Harry sighed, "Well, that's a relief." He turned back, to find both Caso and Koll staring at him, slack-jawed, as though he had said something completely shocking. He hadn't, had he?
"What did I say?" he asked, feeling a little helpless. More than a little actually.
"Don't you think she should be culled?" said Koll.
Harry's feeling of helplessness suddenly flashed over into anger. He strode to Koll and shoved her gun barrel aside when she raised it to him. Holding the gun pointed away from him, he stared into her angry girlish face and said, forcefully, "Now look. I don't know how you do things here, but where I come from, we don't kill people just for being old or injured!" He glared at Koll, and slowly let go of the gun barrel. Then he spun on his heel and went back to Dynna.
As he raised one of her arms and dropped it (it dropped loosely, no tension), he asked Caso, "Is that why you won't call the Kaled doctors for her? Because she'd be culled?"
"All women too old to bear are culled, it means more food and water for the young," said Caso, as though it were obvious. "But you do not believe that?"
"No, I do not! It's abominable, it's a disgrace. But," and he stopped. How could he get this women the sort of medical care she needed, if the doctors here would kill her? "Please, let me go ask the Daughters for help, I'm sure they wouldn't harm her." He turned with his eyes suddenly alight with hope. "I know they won't! One of them, Tenth Healer, was telling a blind soldier who'd been brought in that he would not be culled, not sent back. You have to trust someone, you have to help her! Let me get her help. Please."
A hand closed over Harry Sullivan's arm; he turned and looked down, into Dynna's open eyes. Slowly, she pulled herself into a seated position, staring at Harry all the time. She seemed wide awake, but was silent.
"Careful, madam, Dynna," Harry said, patting her hand where it was gripping his arm with almost painful force. "I'm a doctor, you'll be all right now. Can you understand me?"
She nodded, slowly.
"I need to ask you some questions, please, so we can determine what-"
"I heard you," said Dynna, quietly.
"You heard me. You were conscious but you couldn't move, then?"
"I could move." As though to prove it, Dynna swung her legs off the table and stood, staring up at Harry.
Harry frowned, then turned and looked at the other women. "This was a test, wasn't it?"
"You passed," said Dynna. Without another word, she swept outside, followed by Caso. But when Harry tentatively moved to follow, Koll blocked his way. Her hands were still white on the gun barrel.
"I hate you," she said, for no apparent reason. Then she gave her reasons. "I hate men, for keeping us here, not letting us out to fight our enemies! Not letting us learn! I hate that they treat us like machines, like things for making babies." Koll didn't seem to realise it, but she was starting to cry. "I wish I was a man! I wish I could go out there and kill them all, kill the Thals, die with glory! I thought that when the Daughters gave us guns, we would all leave here, but no. Dynna and the other oldest, they said we should wait and see, that maybe the Daughters were right, that maybe things could change. But I don't believe it! Men are evil! Men care nothing for women, nothing!"
Very gently, with one hand, Harry pushed aside the gun barrel that Koll had pressed against his chest during this venomous tirade. He carefully took the gun out of her hand, and leaned it against the wall behind her. Then he took her by the arms and looked down at her, at her tearful face. What could he do, what could he possibly do, to show her that it didn't have to be like that?
In desperation, he kissed her. It seemed the only thing he could do for her.
From her reaction, it was more than enough.
# # #
The Doctor and Sarah Jane wove through the caverns and finally fetched up at a corroded series of metal bars, blocking off the cave entrance. The Doctor reached out to touch one of them, wiggled it back and forth to see how easy it would be to break it free.
He touched another bar, and a third. Sarah was wondering if she should offer to help when the Doctor stuck his arm through the bars and swept them to one side like a curtain: they were strung along a rail or a wire at the top of the entrance frame, and slid right aside without effort.
"It looks like somebody has been using this entrance, and doesn't want it to be known," said the Doctor, brushing the rust off his coat sleeve.
"You're right. Look down," and Sarah Jane pointed to the spread of overlapping footprints in the sand and mud at the entrance to the caves. The Doctor took a few steps, examining the tracks. Placing his generous foot beside one of them, he noted that the tracks were made by rather small feet.
"Well, which direction now?" asked Sarah.
The Doctor looked around: they were in a gloomy valley, surrounded by low crumbling dirt hills. There were pieces of rusted iron debris here and there, and lying sadly in the shadows was a line of huddled shapes in Kaled uniforms, dirty and windblown. Nobody even to bury them. There were several possible directions to head, but the Doctor noted that the footprints from the cave entrance all went towards the left.
"I think that way, but just in case, I should get up to the top of the hill and see which way it is to the Dome," said the Doctor, suiting actions to words and heading for the slanting slope in front of them. He paused at the foot of it, looking up to judge the best path to the top - and a hand closed over his ankle!
He looked down. One of the Kaled corpses looked up at him, with live eyes behind its filthy gas mask, and its gloved hand was tightly around the Doctor's ankle. With a jerk it threw the Doctor to the ground - or tried to: the Doctor kicked free and stumbled backwards, towards Sarah, who was screaming. With good reason: the corpses were all moving, rising to their feet, turning their masked faces to the travellers.
And as they moved forward they wailed, their voices weirdly muffled and distorted by the gasmasks. Eyiyiyiyiyi …
"Run!" said the Doctor, and he did. Sarah was close behind him, but had only gone a few steps before another corpse rose and caged her in its arms. She screamed, fighting. The Doctor paused for an agonised moment, but there were too many of them, and he had to run.
But he had a plan: even as he ran, he knew he had to get rid of Ronson's incriminating notebook. He ran, dodging between the low hills, trying to draw some of his attackers away, then circle around and get back to Sarah. When one of the pursuing corpses drew too close, he turned and threw himself on it, knocking them both to the ground in a flurry of Venusian aikido - and at the same time thrusting the notebook deep into a hole in the ground.
He rolled back to his feet, feinted, dodged between two hills - and he was back at the entrance to the caves. Sarah Jane was being held by two of the corpses, and more of them waited for him. He threw himself into the mass of them, fighting to get through, but they clung to his limbs and dragged him down. The eyyiyiyiyi suddenly stopped, all at once, and Sarah caught her breath.
Then they dragged the Doctor to his feet. Sarah gasped in relief; except for being rather more dishevelled than usual, the Doctor seemed unharmed. The corpses marched him over to Sarah Jane. They stood their captives side by side, and she asked, "Who are these people? Deserters?"
"They're guards in disguise, I think."
"The prisoners are not to go out," said a muffled voice from behind them. They turned, or rather were turned by their captors, to face a woman standing in the entrance to the cave. She was wearing the same grey uniform as the Laboratory Assistant wore, but with a plain black armband. Her head was enclosed in a gasmask.
One of their captors pulled off its mask - her mask. Instead of a corpse, or a zombie, the face of a young woman with black hair was revealed. She snarled, "We're trying to get them back in! And you are not supposed to be out here either."
The Doctor was quickly evaluating the features of the 'corpse': there were slight differences in the set of her nostrils and ears, but she was practically identical to the other women they had seen. He said cheerily, "Excuse me, but do you have a sister working as First Laboratory Assistant?"
"And Third Outer Speaker, you look just like her," added Sarah, staring fascinated.
The woman cut her eyes at the Doctor. "Just a coincidence, I should think. Security Liaison, can you take them back? Now?"
"Oh, but we really couldn't dream of going back. We have urgent business in the Dome," said the Doctor.
"Urgent business with whom?" Security Liaison asked, and then paused, but no answer was forthcoming. One of the disguised guards stepped towards her and handed her the dirty, rolled-up notebook that the Doctor had hidden - apparently, not hidden well enough. She examined the notebook's cover, but did not open it.
"Interesting," she finally said, looking up at the two captives. "Well, I have received no orders from Davros that you are to be released, so I am afraid that I must see you back to your cell. Will you come quietly or do I need to have your legs broken?" She said this as casually as if she was offering them a choice of lemon or sugar for their tea.
"Well, I guess our urgent business will have to wait," said the Doctor. Inside he was kicking himself for not finding a way to destroy the notebook.
Security Liaison turned and went back into the cave. The Doctor and Sarah Jane were shoved after her, with two guards bringing up the rear. The iron bars were drawn back over the door of the cave with a rattle.
Once they were all inside the cave, the Security Liaison paused and peeled off her gas mask.
"Shouldn't do that," said one of the guards. Her voice was muffled by her own gas mask.
"I'm inside the perimeter and the wind is from the south," Security Liaison replied, turning to examine her prisoners. Somehow Sarah Jane was not surprised to see that she, again, was almost identical to the other women. But unlike the smiling Thoss and Laboratory Assistants, her face was still and solemn.
"Are you called Selia or Esselle?" Sarah asked brightly. "I thought the initials of Security Liaison, well, that seems to be the way your names run," and her voice stumbled as the other woman looked back with an expressionless face.
"I am called Security Liaison," she said, and looked Sarah over, and did not seem very enthused with what she saw. She then turned her attention to the tall Time Lord.
She said to the Doctor, "I am impressed by your resourcefulness. And it is doubly impressive that you would escape without assistance." She paused, waiting for the Doctor's answer.
The Doctor shrugged and smiled in a deprecating way. "I've never been one to just stay put. I myself am impressed by your guard system. Disguised as corpses, that is very ingenious. If a bit gruesome."
"War is a gruesome business. Right now," Security Liaison held up the notebook by the spine, fanned its pages to dislodge a rain of dirt, "I need a light."
An electric torch was offered to her handle-first; she looked at the guard offering it with a bland expression.
"A match."
A box of matches was handed to her, and she lit one and held it close to the pages of the open notebook, squinting.
"Now if only I could read this - oh." The page has caught alight, and the Doctor and Sarah Jane looked at each other as she gently fanned the flames higher. "How very clumsy of me, this notebook is burning. Dear me. It looks like the entire thing will be consumed."
Sarah shivered; the words were jovial but the tone was absolutely flat and uninflected, like a machine's.
The last bits of the notebook's pages fluttered to the ground; Security Liaison said, "So much for fire hazards." She carefully brushed out the ash from the spine of the notebook, and tucked it under her arm.
She addressed her prisoners. "It was absent-minded of someone to leave you wandering about. Would you mind terribly if I just tucked you back into your cell? We certainly don't want to get anyone into trouble, now do we."
"Not more ducts," groaned Sarah Jane as she was hustled through the cave. "I've seen more ducts in the last few days than I could shake a stick at!"
The cave was getting very dark, and the echoes of their footsteps sounded like the walls were drawing closer. The sand underneath their feet was gone, and they were walking on solid rock. The Doctor reached out one arm to touch the wall and found it smooth and flat under his fingertips.
"We're in a tunnel," he said, stopping: the guard behind him urged him forward. "Sarah, feel the wall on your side."
"You're right!" she exclaimed out of the blackness. "It's smooth as glass!"
Security Liaison spoke from somewhere in front of them, "I don't like ducts. Mind your eyes, it's bright in here." A high, narrow doorway widened in front of them, and the travellers stepped forward into the blazing light.
The blazing light was actually quite normal light, and a familiar setting.
They were back in their cell!
The Doctor whirled and lunged for the door - the wall actually, but it was closed and as solid seeming as ever. He started patting along the wall, testing the seams, trying to find the way to open it from his side.
"Well!" said Sarah Jane, sitting down on one of the bunks. "In again and out again and without a by-your-leave!"
"We're trapped again, you mean," said the Doctor. "This whole wall opened, but now it feels as solid as ever. If only I had my sonic screwdriver!"
"Ronson didn't warn us about guards."
The Doctor kept patting at the wall. "He might not have known."
Sarah was shaking her head back and forth slowly, as though she could shake her thoughts into order. "It doesn't make any sense! If Kaled women are vital, why are they outside where it's so poisoned and dangerous? And why would they burn the notebook?"
"I don't know." The Doctor sat down heavily on the other bunk, and thought aloud. "A secret society of women, who seem to be working against the military, and both for AND against the Elite. With neural transmission technology - very advanced, that. I definitely get the impression they are not native to this planet. But if Davros has tested them genetically, they can't be aliens either."
"And the Red Hexagon women are all identical, yet they aren't clones." Sarah Jane had recently had a rather nasty encounter with a Sontaran, and it had made her rather badly disposed towards clones for the moment.
"Not exactly identical. I think Security Liaison is at least two centimetres shorter than First Laboratory Assistant. There are clearly things going on here that we don't understand," mused the Doctor. "Maybe even Davros doesn't understand them. Don't tell him I said that, though."
Sarah looked up, and saw the Doctor's brilliant smile. Despite it all, she had to smile back.
