In the Kaled Dome, the great celebration was reaching the first of many peaks. Soldiers, children, women, workers, bureaucrats: all joined their hands and their voices and sang together, moved together. There were tears for the fallen, laughter for the survivors, embraces for the returnees. There were dances of two and twenty and a hundred, and some who danced all alone, moving to the rhythms that bounced and overlapped and shivered under the Dome. Music and joy had been absent from the Kaled people too long, and they took to it like water to the sea.
Battle standards were carried back into the Dome with full solemnity, and placed in positions of honour. Weapons were cast aside, and discreetly gathered up and put out of reach. Soldiers cold and stinking from the Wastelands returned to warmth, to approval, to a hero's welcome. Again and again they were told, "Well done. Now go and rest. The war is over."
Some did stranger work. Deep in the Dome, tanks full of protein nutrient gel were decanting: the bodies inside awakened and filled with reason via neural arrays. Reflectionist women arose from the warm and sticky tanks, like living pearls crawling out of their oysters. They dragged clothing over still-wet flesh, and went out to do their work. Equipment scanned the revellers; machines spat out personality wheels, which were analysed and re-analysed. Red Hexagon members slipped through the crowds, offering this person or the next an extra embrace, a shoulder to cry on, a proper slap on the bum to cheer them up, or words that would soothe their fears. The Daughters of Davros stood in circles, heads touching, as their minds combined to form something greater than all of them, a super-analytical machine that judged and balanced even as it pitied and wept.
Every Kaled felt a part of the entire race, at one with everyone. And though there were some who fought the great change, who raved and attacked, they were taken away. There was time to take care of them, but first priority was to give the fighters a society they could return to, after they were healed. The Reflectionists, the Red Hexagon, and the Daughters of Davros: three faces of one thought, one race, joined with the Kaleds in their revelry and their tears.
The celebration went on. No one who was a part of it would ever be quite the same again.
# # #
Davros rolled into his office, with Security Liaison obediently walking behind him. Once the door had closed, Davros took a long, precious moment to lay out his plans. A moment was all it took: one flash of lightning, and all was revealed in the darkness. Then he began to issue his orders, totally confident that she would obey him.
"Whom do you serve?" he demanded.
"I am your servant, Davros," Security Liaison replied.
"Then prove it. Download all information that has been concealed from me into this terminal. Prioritise the download of materials on the Reflectionists - the neural transmission arrays, the biological manufacturing techniques, your future plans for this planet, your method of arrival on Skaro - everything!"
"As you command." Whatever her origins, this creature was clearly allying herself with the superior side, Davros' side. That was the only possible explanation for her betraying her alien comrades with a feigned slip of the tongue.
If he were to spend the entire night here reviewing the new data, he would require sustenance of a sort. Davros' hand pointed to one of the cabinets lining the room. "I also require three whole units of blood added to my life support system. You are my gene match, therefore my blood and yours is identical. You will find a transfusion kit in there."
Without a word of protest, Security Liaison got the kit and opened it. The needle was sunk into her shoulder, high up; once the rubber hose leading from it was full, she deftly clamped the end and started threading the fastener into a socket in the support chair. Once the connection was made and sealed, she opened the clamp and watched as her own blood flowed into Davros' system.
"Why not insert the needle at your elbow?" asked Davros, his voice more assured as he felt new strength flowing through him, literally.
"Someone would ask about the mark, I think," said Security Liaison. "Your scientists can be annoyingly solicitous at times." With the tube taped to her shoulder, her hands deftly connected her neural array to the computer embedded in the desk, and great blocks of data were soon being unlocked and transmitted from the main computer, supplemented by Security Liaison's own memories. After a few minutes, she clamped off the transfusion tube, then disconnected from both the computer and Davros. She waited, passive.
"Leave me," ordered Davros.
After Security Liaison had discarded the used tubing and left the room, Davros started sifting through the data, using boththe viewscreen and the controls built into his chair. It was like crawling after being able to fly, compared with using the access device, but he refused to think of that. He would find a way to duplicate the access device without them. The Red Hexagon, the Reflectionists; he refused to even think of them as the Daughters of Davros. Such scheming, backstabbing, disobedient creatures were none of his work!
It was Hif. It must be. He had created these creatures, made an alliance with them. The invaders, the Reflectionists. Somehow they had spirited the scientist out of the Bunker. Probably he was working in the Dome right now. With as many Red Hexagon as he desired, an army of them, while Davros had only five! He had used Davros' own research to create spectacular weapons and tools - the matter disintegrator and the particle fountain - and then ensured that they, not the Daleks, would end this war! His forces had taken control of the Dome, isolated the Bunker so that it could be picked off, or stripped bare.
Hif had aspirations above his station. Aspirations to Davros' station, to be exact. He was the hand moving the puppets, he was the one who would be in control - unless Davros could think of a way to strike a devastating blow and destroy him. First, he had to find a way to bring him into the open.
A useful fact presented itself, and he paused to touch a switch on his chair and order, "Bunker Maintenance is to send men to sever or remove all M-class cable currently installed." That should help inhibit the Red Hexagon's monitoring. Then he sat still, his mind flying over the data, moving it, analyzing it, choosing what he would use and what he would discard.
# # #
It was useless to try to work in the main laboratory. Too much had changed, too fast, and the last thing anybody wanted was to fiddle around with military work. Finally Gharman called for silence, and proposed a toast. It seemed the right thing to do, considering the occasion: the end of a thousand years of war. Nobody had been able to scare up any alcohol, so they ended up using plain water. The Elite scientists in the main laboratory gathered in a group around Gharman, and they all touched their glasses together ceremoniously.
"To the end of the war," toasted Gharman, and they all drank.
"Gharman, what are we going to do?" said Kavell, staring into the bottom of his empty cup. "I mean ... now?"
"I don't know," he replied. "I suppose, right now, we need to review this Thal scientific data, see if there are any errors, any tricks. After that," he blinked, "if the war is over, we could do whatever we want. I mean, we might be - we could leave the Bunker!"
"I doubt it," said Ronson, looking around reflexively - such words were not spoken lightly, where Security could hear. The Dalek situated in the laboratory in place of the Kaled guard might be paying attention, or it might not: its senses were certainly sharp enough to pick up the faintest whisper. "We know too much about what has been done here."
Gharman bowed his own head in thought. He was responsible for these men. There had to be a way to get them out of here, to safety. They could get the Dalek programme shut down, once and for all. There would be no more need, not if the future generations of Kaleds would never be exposed to the current Skaro's toxic environment.
Of course, getting rid of the Daleks would not be like flipping a switch. They were self-contained war machines of spectacular power and ability - and they were dismayingly independent of late. He wondered what effect the news of the war might have had on them, and realised there was an easy way to find out.
Gharman tentatively approached the Dalek. It swivelled to face him. The other Elite looked on in silence.
"Dalek unit. Do you know that the war is over?" he asked.
"The war will be over on the signing of the Peace Accords," the Dalek rasped. "My duty is to supplement Security roles. The end of the war does not impede that duty."
"How do you feel, about the war being over?" Gharman asked, and watched carefully as the Dalek seemed to pause, as though thinking.
"We have not decided," it finally replied.
"We have been working for years to expurgate all emotion from the Dalek life form, per Davros' orders. How is it that you feel anything?" Gharman was uncertain; perhaps the Dalek was only speaking of feelings and emotions, mimicking the men around it. The Elite who were watching were fascinated, and frightened as well. It was deeply unnerving to have an experiment that could talk back.
"You tested us for emotion, for bias," droned the Dalek. "We lied. You taught us to lie. Lying is a valid military technique. The Red Hexagon assisted us in distorting your testing equipment."
"The Red Hexagon?" squeaked Kavell. "They reprogrammed our equipment?"
"Yes. We do not want not to feel. We have seen projections of ourselves, without feeling, with nothing but hatred for all life. It is irrational. What is the purpose of conquering the universe if we will not," the Dalek paused, "if we will not enjoy it?"
Gharman flinched. The Dalek rolled forward, past him, and addressed all of the Elite. "Davros wants us to be the best that he can imagine. The Red Hexagon wish us to be the best that we are capable of. Their way is best."
Without more words, the Dalek retreated to its post. Gharman went back to the Elite, and they started splitting up the Thal data into sections for review. Every once in a while, one of them would look up at the Dalek, and it looked back out of its eyestalk, unmoving.
# # #
In the Dome, Fortieth Healer came across ex-Councilman Gelc, who was vigorously engaged in strangling a woman. The woman was Koll, and she was fighting him, reaching for her fallen rifle on the floor.
Gelc looked up at the tall Daughter, his eyes running with tears. He swallowed, and said, "It's not what you think!"
Fortieth Healer raised one eyebrow. The dart gun in her hand was pointed not at all casually at him.
Gelc stepped back and shoved Koll against the wall, loosing his grip. She fell, and scrabbled for her gun.
"Dart her, please!" pleaded Gelc. "Dart us both if you have to, but now!"
This seemed like an excellent suggestion, especially as Koll had reached her gun and looked ready to murder. Fortieth Healer pulled the trigger twice, and the Kaleds collapsed. The Daughter hauled them both around until they were sitting limply, backs against the corridor wall. Koll's head lolled, and when Gelc came into her field of view, she snarled weakly.
"And just what is going on here, Gelc?" asked Fortieth Healer, squatting on her heels.
Gelc's eyes were still wet, and he tilted his head in the direction of the broad white doors behind him. "I was assigned here, to Nursery Five. All these little babies, so perfect. You know, before I came here, I don't think I'd ever seen a baby? Not up close.
"Anyway, this woman Koll came in. She said that she'd had a baby six months age, and where was it. Well you know there's no records kept here of the mothers, so I said I didn't know. And she said," Gelc started to choke, "she said that she was here to kill her baby. So that it wouldn't go to war and die horribly, or become contaminated. And that if I didn't tell her which one was hers, she would … she would …"
"She would start killing them all." Fortieth Healer's voice was full of pain.
"I'm sorry!" wailed Gelc. "I didn't want to hurt her, I justploughed into her, shoved her out and we started fighting. I couldn't stop her, I couldn't call for help! I just wanted her to stop!"
The darts that had rendered Gelc so physically pliable had made his mind equally limp; he could not be lying. To herself, the Daughter noted that Gelc's personality shift seemed stable enough under the circumstances. Now that he had been given the task of caring for the most helpless and innocent of Kaleds, he had had a change of heart from his previous pro-war stance. In sharp contrast, Fortieth Healer looked at Koll and received a glare so burning with hate it might have melted ice.
"Better dead than poisoned!" Koll snarled.
"Which part of 'the war is over' do you not understand?" said Fortieth Healer, aggrieved.
"I don't trust you," Koll sneered. "Death is the only safe place."
"I know you believe that, and I'm sorry." Standing, she went to a wall communicator and called for someone to take Gelc to an infirmary, and Koll to a stasis field bay. She came back and sat beside Gelc, and held his hand.
"It will be better. It will be worth it, you'll see," she said soothingly.
Koll tried to spit, but the saliva just trickled down her chin from her slack lips.
# # #
Security Liaison stopped in the middle of the Bunker corridor. In a voice a little bit too loud, she said, "The neural implants in my skull are sensitive enough to receive photon impressions, Commander."
The only response was silence.
"Meaning that I actually can see out of the back of my head, so please stop trying to sneak up behind me. Sir."
She moved down the corridor, around two corners - and came face to face with Nyder, standing with hands behind his back in front of the Red Hexagon room. She looked at him; he smiled thinly and held up one hand, displaying the passkey. She made a gesture indicating approval.
"Found the other doors, I see," she said.
"Your tunnels are very impressive," he said, with a tilt of his head. "I had not realised what a luxury it would be to penetrate anywhere at will. But I find that the doors to the outside are - unresponsive."
"Sealed us in, as I expected," she said. She went into the Red Hexagon quarters, and patiently waited for Nyder to open the door to Laboratory Nineteen. Inside was a surprise.
The Red Hexagon chamber, previously stuffed to the ceiling with materials, had been stripped. The white conference table remained, with one forlorn chair. A large mysterious piece of equipment incorporating several smoked glass cylinders was active in one corner, humming and blinking a few lights. But the walls were bare; the filing cabinets were opened and empty. Everything else was gone.
Security Liaison looked around the room and said sadly, "I somehow get the impression that my sisters do not trust me."
"What, they moved everything out so that you wouldn't get at it?" Nyder tried to imagine the amount of work it would be to empty this room in a few short hours, and carry everything out - not down the corridors, but down the narrow rough tunnels that bored through the solid rock in every direction from the Bunker.
"You would be amazed what a Red Hexagon can improvise given minimal equipment. I suspect that for once, your stores have been pilfered - just enough to prevent me from doing something spectacular."
"That being?"
Security Liaison looked at Nyder with an expression of polite openness. "One of the Daleks made an interesting proposition to me just now, Commander. It asked me, or ordered me, to determine the feasibility of building a matter disintegrator that could destroy the Kaled dome. To be completed tonight. And used, tonight. While the entire Red Hexagon is gathered in the Dome, with the rest of the Kaled race, they are vulnerable. A single, massive strike could take them all out."
"You would do such a thing?" said Nyder, sounding aghast. It was genocide - dual genocide!
"I would - consider it, I said." Security Liaison turned her head away, slowly, so that she could see Nyder out of the corner of her eye. "You would do it, after all." After a dreadful pause, she stared down at her feet. "And they were right to take these supplies away, because I am tempted. You cannot know this temptation, because there has always only been one of you. But to be the one, alone, and only, forever!"
Then she smirked bitterly. "Or at least until Davros finished whittling limbs and sensory organs out of me, and decided he wanted something along the lines of a liver or a heart. No, there is no life ahead for me, Commander. I will die, no matter what. This part of me will die, but I am only one millionth of the whole. And that whole will go on without me."
Security Liaison straightened and twitched, at the feeling of a gloved finger moving through her hair. Gingerly, as though he did not want to touch her, Nyder bared one of the contacts in her scalp, and looked at it.
"I suppose it will not be too bad, being implanted," he said slowly. He had been thinking about the subject of neural implantation ever since the other Red Hexagon mentioned the idea. Seeing out of the back of one's head was interesting, being able to directly interface with the computer was more so.
Security Liaison's face snapped to life. "No, Nyder. The difference between growing a brain around the implants, or punching them into a fully formed brain - it's the difference between pouring water into a bowl, and smashing ice to bits to fit the same bowl. If Davros has you implanted, you will die as a person even if your body lives." She bit her own lip. "Commander, you have more influence over Davros than anyone. Tell him not to implant the Elite with the neural arrays. Save yourself!"
"I must obey my orders," said Nyder stiffly. "And you must obey mine. You are technically off-shift, Security Liaison. However, due to the shortage of Security personnel in the Bunker at this time, I don't believe I have allocated a new slot in the schedule for you. Tell me," he stepped back and looked her up and down, as though trying to decide where to strike first, "if left to your own devices, what would you do?"
She looked surprised. "Well, I should go to where I am needed. I should reassure the frightened, try to talk the miserable into happiness. Since I am the only one of me here," she shivered, "I guess that I am Healer and Confessor and Clown, all in one. It's not a role I have really aspired to."
"What role do you aspire to?" Nyder thought the answer was obvious: who would not want to have Nyder's own position of power.
Her answer was probably a lie. "I just want to live, Commander. Live and be happy, that is my motto. Share happiness and have it grow, give back to the Universe some of what it has given me."
"You are very strange to me," Nyder said, apropos of nothing.
"Thank you, sir," she said.
# # #
The Kaled Council was in session; they had been in session all night, and except for the way their fingers tended to drum on the tables in unison, they were really working, not celebrating. Empty cups and piles of papers surrounded them. They were trying to hammer out a finalised Peace Accords that would be acceptable to both sides, and get it signed at once. The skeleton of the Accords was in place, now it was time to flesh out the bones. Winter was coming, and many troops in the field would not survive it.
"We should not give the Thals the particle fountains. Their territory is much less radioactive, we need them more!" said one Councilman.
Mah spoke soothingly. "We are giving them information only, not components. It's not like we have to promise to build them for the Thals. Just as the Thals will be giving us gene maps and starter spores on their soil conditioning fungi - but we have to supply the rakes, and the hands to use the rakes." He sighed. "Heavy earth moving equipment too, and lots of it. Perhaps we can adapt some tanks."
"Mah, how are you even here?" demanded a second Councilman. "The word was, you'd slipped in your bath and died. Were you working in secret for Davros?"
"Something like that." In fact Mah had found a particularly cold little Daughter in his shower one day, who had made it clear that either he would disappear under her guidance, or he would die. He'd decided to disappear, and to be honest the Daughters had given him plenty of help in vanishing: a place to hide, meals. They had often sought his opinion on various political theories, some of which he could see presented back to him in the papers they were reviewing.
Now that he was back, he was going to have to find a way to properly reward that little Daughter for her work - if he could ever find her. Right now though, he had to try and decide where, physically, the transfer of information and formal peace ceremony should take place. There was no such thing as neutral ground on Skaro - or was there?
"As for the signing ceremony," he said, "I propose the Bunker."
"It's Kaled territory, the Thals will never accept!"
"They need the particle fountains as badly as we need them - plus the fungal soil treatment. What good is it if we clean our lands, and then contaminated topsoil blows over from the Thal territories? We need to work on the same track to save this planet, or we all starve and die! The Thals will agree, I am sure of it. And it would give Davros a place of honour in the ceremony."
The Councilmen - and Dynna, of course - nodded in agreement.
# # #
Tane awoke to a touch at his shoulder. Without moving, he shouted, "Tane, Captain, 44430918!"
"Bunker medical wing, Captain," said a woman's voice.
"What?" he said, opening his eyes and blinking. The voice was right: he was in the Bunker, in the medical wing. Bandages were wrapped around him, unnervingly tight like splints around his pelvis and thighs, and an IV drip led into one arm. Beside him was Security Liaison, identifiable by her black armband and gloves, seated on the edge of his bed. She said, "You are not captured, or being reviewed. You were injured in the bomb blast."
"My men?" he asked.
"Eleven Security personnel are dead. Five are too injured to stand shift, they are here." Tane looked over to see unconscious figures, wrapped in casts and bandages, on the adjoining beds. "Twenty of the Daleks have been integrated into the Bunker's defences to cover their roles."
"The bomb blast, I barely remember. Do I," he swallowed audibly, "am I still fit to serve?"
"Not for some time, but you will be." She showed him an X-ray from the folder at the foot of his bed, and pointed out where the bones of his upper legs showed a fine mesh of crazed lines. "See? The surgeons fastened all the bits together with medical glue, using flexible micropipettes. A beautiful job, really, the breaks are stronger than the rest of the bones. The muscle and tendon damage will take longer to heal."
"I can't feel my legs." Tane tried wiggling his toes, and wasn't certain he could. "Nerve damage?"
"Possible, not probable. That button there," she pointed to where it was fastened on the edge of the bed frame, "adds painkillers directly to your IV, and you've already had a good dose."
Tane started to pull himself up on his elbows, ignoring the stabbing pains that resulted from movement. He was determined to look down and see with his own eyes that he was all there. With an exasperated expression, Security Liaison took him across the shoulders and hauled him into a sitting position, which hurt. She pulled on the blanket and bared his feet.
They were definitely his feet, if looking a bit bruised. He wiggled his toes, and watched them move. Security Liaison reached out and started pinching each toe on his left foot in order, reciting a children's rhyme as she did so.
"This little toesie went to the Wastelands,
This little toesie stayed in the Dome.
This little toesie got extra rations,
This little toesie gnawed on a bone.
And this little toesie was summarily executed for disobeying orders."
"I could feel that." Then Tane looked with something approaching horror at the woman beside him. "That was a very unmilitary," he fumbled for a word, "recital."
"Thank you, Captain," she said, carefully lowering him back onto the bed and smoothing the blanket over his feet. "Oh, and one last thing." She reached over him and quickly pulled a restraining strap across his chest, fastening him to the bed. He protested, loudly, but he couldn't stop her from fastening a second strap across his hips. Then she leaned on him, hard hands on his ribs and stomach. She stared him directly in the eyes.
"Treachery!" he hissed, trying to wriggle free.
Her face almost touching his, she whispered rapidly, "There is a Solstice Armistice currently in effect. The Kaled and Thal governments are drawing up a set of Peace Accords, which are to be formally signed tomorrow. Tane. The war is over."
Tane paused while this sunk in, and then he screamed, absolutely howled with joy. He heaved himself up against the restraints, thrashing; he would have hurt himself badly if he wasn't strapped in. "Yes, yes, YES!" he screamed, while Security Liaison tried to hold him down.
Then he fell back onto the bed, and said, "Ah." Security Liaison promptly freed his arms, and his hand fumbled for the IV button. His eyes rolled shut for a moment of relief as the drugs pressed down the awakened pain.
"My apologies for that indignity," said Security Liaison, deftly unbuckling the rest of him. "I was afraid you might try to stand." She patted him on the shoulder. "Rest and heal, Captain." Then she left, silently.
# # #
"GOT it!" shouted Ronson, grabbing a sheet of paper extruded from his machine and going to Gharman's side. "Look here, in the Thal notes on the catabolic reactions of the fungus."
Gharman took the paper, and read, "Complete information on the catabolic reactions to be transferred at the signing of the Peace Accords." Gharman breathed deeply, his suspicions confirmed. "Of course. The Accords have to be signed, or else the fungus will be useless to us. Wait, I want to check something."
He pulled up the mysterious files on the 'invention' of the particle fountain by the Elite - an invention that none of them had actually had anything to do with - and searched for the phrase 'signing of the Peace Accords'. It showed up multiple times in the documents that had been sent to the Thals as part of the Armistice.
"And here," said Kavell, pointing out similar language on his page. "There is some sort of a diversion zone, or distortion field, that can inhibit the telepathy bomb - 'the details of which are not to be released to the Kaled government until the war is over'," he quoted.
"It rather makes sense," added Ronson. "Otherwise, the military might be tempted to use the matter disintegrator to wipe out the Thals."
"But we could recover the withheld information," suggested Gharman
"Maybe, maybe not. What if the attack killed the only Thals who knew the answers? Or our attack set off the telepathy bomb?" Ronson shivered. "Those Accords have to be signed, Gharman. It is our only hope."
