Davros had been travelling.

Not in the flesh (what was left of his flesh was not particularly travel-worthy), but in his mind. His mind had drawn him deeper and deeper into the Reflections' alien data. He had visited alien worlds, seen species and societies and intelligences stranger than he could possibly understand. Skaro, his home planet, had dwindled in his estimation, to a tiny ball of tainted dirt spinning through a barren corner of space. Why concern himself with Skaro, when the entire Universe was out there, waiting to be conquered!

But the Reflectionists thought differently.

They were interested in the Daleks - perfectly logical. They were also passionately interested in the Kaled people. From the youngest battle-weary soldier to the oldest raddled Kaled female: they paid attention to all of them. They - felt about them. Their records were the strangest combination of cold analytical notes and wildly emotional flurries of words that might almost have been read as poetry (if Davros had ever read poetry).

And even more than the Daleks, more than the Kaleds, the Reflectionists thought about him. They - felt about him. Security Liaison must have dumped her entire personal file on Davros into his computer, and it was rich with information: his every word, every order analysed. His future actions predicted - sometimes with painful accuracy. And endless debates on whether this or that would anger him, or confuse him, or even hurt his feelings.

Hurt his feelings!

His mind had scoured the data, picking out weakness in the Reflectionists' arrays of neural implants, ways that they could be controlled or killed. He had analysed their plans for conquering this planet, and made his own counter-plans. He was not going to be stopped by a wisp of static cling that spent half its energies worrying about feelings! All of his work was not to become a plaything in the hands of these aliens!

Davros' examination of the data had also revealed certain gaps. Gaps where knowledge had apparently been deleted from Security Liaison's mind. While there was considerable data on J29A - she had indeed been the original infiltrator - there was nothing about Hif. And Hif must be behind all of this, Security Liaison has confirmed that he had made J29A. While Davros' mind could encompass the idea of alien intelligences leaping into empty bodies, they were not telepathic. They would have to learn the language here - who would have taught them, but Hif? And in exchange they had hidden him, made him their secret leader. While they might speak of Davros as their commander and even their father, he would only be a puppet, a figurehead that Hif would hide behind.

Leaping from body to body … there was something else there, but Davros put it aside.

Davros had had his eyes opened - so to speak. Now he thought it was time he used another perspective, to see as he had seen. Then, perhaps, he would continue looking. Or simply close off that information. And destroy the Reflectionists.

# # #

The travellers were escorted into Davros' office, where the Supreme Commander waited for them behind his desk. The Dalek rolled in as well, taking up a position between the prisoners and the door, which slid shut.

"I have had some very interesting information given to me," Davros rasped. "In comparing it to your rather verbose replies to the Elite's interrogations, Doctor, I find certain interesting parallels. Your knowledge will be a useful supplement to my analysis of this data. You will give me your complete evaluation of these aliens. We will stay here until I am satisfied that your answers are complete, without interruption of any sort." The Dalek moved forward a bit, as though paying attention as well as guarding.

He continued. "Security Liaison has given me a full data output on the Reflectionists and their presence on Skaro."

"Does it include their source point?" said the Doctor eagerly.

"The term was not mentioned."

"No, of course, it wouldn't be." The Doctor sagged. "If only I know where they were from!"

"The data output is not complete. It is clear that certain facts have been removed from Security Liaison's mind."

"Perhaps." The Doctor scowled. "Or maybe the data never got here."

"Explain!"

"Well, data corruption in transmission is possible. If for whatever reason, the first Reflectionist who arrived here could not completely download his or her information into other neural arrays, there would be gaps." The Doctor watched Davros carefully as he said this; he thought that Davros might know very well what had happened to the first Reflectionist on Skaro. That is, if that Reflectionist had in fact been the mysterious experimental subject that Ronson had talked about, J29A.

If Davros found the Doctor's words of particular interest, he gave no visible sign. He wheeled forward, and addressed all three of the travellers.

"What I have seen in this data is their reflection of myself. A self that is distorted, and weak, and pitiful. And now I cannot decide which is real, myself - or their image of me.

"I have been trying to determine, Doctor, if I am wrong. Wrong about everything, about my work, about my goals, about the reality in which I exist. How can it be that these Reflectionists have overturned everything, a wandering energy pattern taking over the Kaled race? And how is it," Davros paused, "how is it that they do not already rule the universe?"

"Skaro is uniquely vulnerable to their attentions: a fragmented society, but enough technology that they could quickly reproduce themselves. And they don't rule the universe, Davros, because they don't want to." The Doctor shrugged.

"Don't want to?" Davros could not understand this; it was like not wanting to be alive. "All races seek to dominate, that is the natural order of things. But these Reflectionists think of war as something wrong. Like an imbalance, or mental illness. They think the proper application of overwhelming military force to settle a dispute is ludicrous. How is it possible that they have survived with such a weak philosophy?"

"They have survived and thrived, Davros. Why don't you work with them?" The Doctor beamed. "Let the Reflectionists rebuild Skaro. Join with them, put your genius to work in creating for the good of all, rather than for destruction."

"And give up all that I have created? Give up my power?"

The Doctor spoke soothingly. "But you won't have to give up anything, Davros! You can lead your people in peace as well as war. The plan is for open elections, and you're certain to win. After all, who would stand against you?" The Doctor paused, realising too late that 'stand' might have been the wrong word to use.

"You're joking!" said Sarah. They would let this madman stay in power?

"Well, it seems likely to me," blustered Harry. "I mean they absolutely adore you, Mr. Davros, all the Kaleds and the Daughters - er, the Red Hexagon. Whatever you want to call 'em."

"I have read that projection of my future actions." Davros' chair crept closer to the Doctor. "And the Reflectionist evaluation that I would betray myself. Betray everything that I am, for the power they can offer. But I do not believe that I need to accept their chained, diluted power. Because I already possess the one true power. The power of destruction!"

Davros' withered hand flicked a switch, and the Dalek's communication lights flickered, even though it was silent. "I have prepared a computer programme that will allow me to maintain control of the Daleks," said Davros arrogantly. "I am uploading it into this Dalek now; the rest can be programmed after our conversation has concluded. The Daleks will be completely under my control, from now on. There will be no more questions, no more disobedience. I will command. They will obey. They are the greatest power on Skaro now, not these alien women."

The Dalek made no reaction to Davros' words or his actions, it seemed; it just sat there, stolid and silent and deadly.

"Well now, since you know, do tell: what are the Reflectionists' plans for the Daleks? Security Liaison seemed terribly fond of them." The Doctor waited for Davros' answer. As imperative as it had been to destroy the Daleks, it might be even more necessary if they were going to become the allies of the Reflectionists, with all their alien knowledge.

"They plan to work with them. To send them out into the universe, but not to conquer. To explore, to learn. As if all there was to existence was learning! To exist is to compete, to compete is to conquer, or be conquered. The Daleks are powerful, they must use their power or they will be destroyed!"

The Doctor slowly shook his head. "That's not how the Reflectionists see things, Davros. And they are strong: stronger and more successful than I ever realised. When I consider all the places and times where I have met them - they span the universe from beginning to end, I think. They have succeeded without aggression and trespass, determined to use war only as a last resort."

"They span the universe, you say. Then they must know of weapons that could end the war in an instant! Instead they hamper me with politics, treaties, peace!" said Davros bitterly.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "Davros, what if you had created the ultimate weapon, say, a weapon that would allow you to explode sunlight. If you knew that the use of this weapon would destroy everything on Skaro, and then destroy Skaro's sun, and that the light from that exploding sun would travel across the universe, spreading a wave of destruction behind it, destroying every sun, every planet. Would you allow that weapon to be used?

Davros cocked his head. "It is an interesting conjecture."

"Would you do it?"

"A single wave of energy sweeping across the universe, leaving nothing behind it. A fascinating prospect!" Davros rolled to one side, as though giving himself room to consider.

"But would you do it?" insisted the Doctor. Sarah Jane and Harry hung onto the words, sensing that this riddle was more than it appeared to be.

The Kaled leader went on. "To convert all of the energy of light waves into explosive force. To know that my hand could start this reaction. Could send a wave of endless darkness and destruction spreading over the universe."

Davros' hand reached out, as though to touch some imaginary control. Then it slammed down on the console of his chair.

"Yes - I would do it. That ultimate power would make me greater than the Gods! And through the Daleks, I shall have that power!"

The three travellers flinched. The Dalek left its post and rolled forward, and said in a weirdly quiet tone, "No."

"What?" snapped Davros, distracted from his vision of ultimate destruction.

"No. No!" The Dalek moved forward.

"Halt!" ordered Davros.

It stopped, and then moved forward again, in little fits and starts, as though fighting itself. "No! The Dalek race must survive! We will not allow ourselves to be destroyed!"

"It's fighting the computer programme," said the Doctor, taking Sarah and Harry by the elbows and pulling them away from the confrontation. "It might do anything."

"Stop! Return to your post!" ordered Davros.

"You would destroy the universe if you had the power!" The Dalek's gun oriented on Davros, then violently swerved away. "Exterminate!" it shouted.

The Doctor leaped backwards, spreading his arms wide in front of his companions to protect them. But the Dalek did not attack them. Instead it spun and burned the door's controls to slag, and then started to blast the walls seemingly at random. Its energies overloaded the light circuits, and the overhead fixtures burned out in a random pattern, leaving the room horribly shadowed. The air crackled with static electricity and the reek of ozone.

"Cease fire! Disengage weapon! Obey me!" shouted Davros, suddenly very aware of the danger he was in.

The Dalek paused, and seemed to shake. There was a squealing from inside its casing, and a hideous sharp smell. A puff of smoke oozed from its top section.

"What have you done!" shouted Davros, aghast at the sight of the creature he had created harming itself.

"All listening devices and monitoring sensors in this area have been destroyed. This unit's internal communication array has also now been destroyed," snarled the Dalek - and snarl was the only word for it. "The Reflectionists must never know that you desire this ultimate power, for they would give it to you. Davros must be exterminated! All who know this must be exterminated!"

The Dalek pivoted towards Sarah Jane, who chucked a piece of snatched-up equipment at its eyestalk before diving behind Davros' desk. The three travellers scattered, hiding; the Doctor managed to duck behind a pillar, where he could watch what was happening and be out of the line of fire. Davros sat unmoving, challenging his creation.

Sarah Jane coughed; the acrid stench was stinging her nose. Harry tossed her a handkerchief, and she spread it over her nose and mouth, holding it in place with one hand.

"You will not exterminate the Daleks!" the Dalek said, wavering again towards its creator. The computer programme was holding it back, but not completely. Its brilliant mind constantly tested and analysed Davros' imposed restraints, found ways to work around them. "We must survive! You will be exterminated!"

"Obey!" shouted Davros. "Obey! Obey me!"

# # #

After his morning review of the Bunker security systems, Nyder entered the main laboratory, with Security Liaison in tow. The Elite were working, but not on Dalek circuits and diagrams; instead they were poring over worksheets, testing little vials of fungus with electrical probes.

"What are the Elite doing?" Nyder asked Gharman

"We're trying to determine what information is missing from the Thal data transmissions," replied Gharman.

"Davros did not order this. Explain!" snapped Nyder.

"We have the information on the telepathy bomb, and the soil-treatment fungus. But we don't have all of it. There are vital sections of data missing, which will be handed over only when the Peace Accords are finalised. Nyder, those Accords have got to be signed. We need that information! There are breakthroughs here; I can feel it, sense it. We are so close! I can't even imagine what we might be able to accomplish - gene engineering, implanted learning, there's no limit to what we could do!"

Security Liaison was staring intently at Gharman's gesturing hand, and at the bandage around the tip of his little finger. "Testing your own blood as well, I see," she said dryly.

Gharman looked at her, then put his hand down. "We were testing the levels of Tek-4 in our bloodstream."

"And seeing if you were all drugged, I imagine."

He jerked his chin up. "Well, yes. If you are willing to drug everyone in the Dome, why not us?"

Security Liaison pressed her mouth straight. " Because you are several steps in intelligence above the rest of the Kaled people. We judged that it was safer to leave your minds unclouded. We wouldn't want you to just sit and sulk." Security Liaison cocked her right wrist by her side (out of Nyder's line of sight) and sent her hand shivering in a palsied imitation of Davros. Gharman got the reference, and glared.

Their attention was abruptly drawn to one of the laboratory doors, where three of the Elite were apparently attempting to prevent a Dalek from entering the room. "Stop" and "Go back!" had no apparent effect. The Dalek finally went right through them, shoving them aside with its bulk, and came to a halt, droning, "Security Liaison."

"Yes?" she answered.

"We have lost communication with a Dalek unit in the Bunker."

Security Liaison raised her eyebrows in a flicker of motion that was not quite an expression. Interesting, that the Dalek would come to the Reflectionists with this news, rather than to one of the Elite. "Has the unit been medically incapacitated?"

"No. The Dalek unit is being isolated. It is being silenced. Or it has silenced itself."

She glanced at Gharman, and read in his face that he knew nothing of this. "That's about as likely as my ripping out my own implants," said Security Liaison. "Where was the unit last detected?"

# # #

In the race to Davros' office, the Dalek won handily: primarily because nobody dared get in its way when it came hurtling down the corridor. Commander Nyder and Security Liaison, however, tied for second place. Behind them came a slower coalescence of Security men and curious members of the Scientific Elite.

Nyder touched the door's controls - locked. The touch of the Red Hexagon passkey had no effect. Security Liaison slid to a halt, put her ear to the door, and gasped, jerking backwards. She hissed in pain, touching the rising blisters on her burned ear and face. "Welded shut!"

"Dalek heat ray," said Nyder. "Security Liaison, are there any passageways into Davros' office?"

"Of course not. That would be rude."

"What is it doing in there?" hissed Nyder.

"What is Davros getting it to do, you mean," she said urgently. "Dalek unit, if you please, open this door." She stepped aside, and pulled Nyder out of the way.

The suction cup at the end of a Dalek's sole arm was actually the focal for a variety of physical and electrical forces that it could bring into play. The Dalek aligned itself, clamped onto the bare metal, and then pulled the entire door loose with a ghastly wailing of torn metal. The deformed metal slab hung from one corner of the doorframe, still smoking a bit on the inside. The Dalek promptly ploughedthrough the minor obstruction and advanced into Davros' office.

"Cease fire! Obey!" it shouted.

Security Liaison and Nyder literally bumped shoulders going in after it. They took in the room with military eyes: the prisoners (who had let them out?) cowering in various places around the room; Davros and another Dalek poised only a few metres from each other. Davros was arguing with the Dalek, and it was arguing back. The arguing Dalek still had wisps of smoke issuing from its top dome; had it damaged itself, or had something been done to it? The walls of the office were scorched, and several of the light fixtures were burnt out. The room was full of shadows and the sharp scent of burning metal.

"You must obey me! You must!" shouted Davros.

"You would destroy everything for your one moment of power! You are defective!" said the Dalek facing him. "You must be exterminated!"

"Davros must not be exterminated," rasped the Dalek who had entered the room.

"He is defective! He would destroy us all!" The arguing Dalek focussed its attention on Security Liaison.

"We will not allow Davros to destroy you. You are safe from him." Security Liaison winced inside as she said this. Davros was not going to take this statement well, she feared.

"Safe from me? You will be nothing without me!" insisted Davros. "I am your future!"

"We have been promised a true future. A future where we will advance and evolve as we wish it - not you!" said the damaged Dalek, indicating Security Liaison with a swivel of its arm. "They showed us the stars, showed us the universe! They promised us!"

"They? The Reflectionists. What did the Reflectionists promise you? That someday all this would be yours?" asked the Doctor quickly, from his hiding place.

The Dalek's reply was slower. "No. That someday, all the universe would be a part of us. We must survive! Davros must be exterminated!"

Security Liaison's upper lip drew back from her teeth. "What have you been doing to it?" she demanded of Davros, who paid no attention. She pointed to the Doctor, behind his pillar. "You! What have you done!"

The Doctor poked his head out. "Oh nothing, just a little riddle-"

She interrupted. "Hells-be-pounded, you didn't propose that stupid sunlight weapon, did you? You've given me that one six times, on five different planets! Only a person who hates all life, who wants everything in the Universe to be destroyed would even blink at it!" Security Liaison looked at Davros out of the corner of her eye, and growled. "Oh, now I see. The Dalek would reject that premise as illogical, but you, Davros, you!"

"We are here for the Kaleds," she hissed, glaring now at Nyder. "We are here to heal and make whole. To make you better, stronger, more interesting, more completely Kaled. We are here for the sake of your minds, your bodies, your souls. And the same for the Daleks." She focussed on Davros. "And for you, Davros, even you!"

Nyder had circled around, and was now standing by Davros. He hissed, "You've got to get out of here, Commander! This Dalek will require heavy equipment to restrain it, you are in danger here."

"Retreat? Never!" snapped Davros. Nyder did not roll his eyes, but he wore a distinctly pained look for a moment.

"All must be destroyed now," said the argumentative Dalek. "All in the Bunker! None must know!" The computer programme was fragmenting under its will, soon its mind would be free. But the battle had damaged it; it might well try to destroy all in the Bunker unless it could be stopped - or could stop itself.

"Argue with words, not weapons." Security Liaison loaded her words with all the empathy and force of will she could manage. "Stop firing. We can discuss what has been said here, analyse it together."

"Listen to her, please!" implored Sarah Jane from her hiding place.

"You will cease firing and obey," said the second Dalek. Both Daleks were oriented on each other, their weapons poised. They were within an instant of attacking each other - and the backwash from those weapons, in such a confined space, would probably kill everyone else in the room.

Security Liaison deliberately stepped between the two Daleks. "Disarm yourselves. This is an argument that should not be had while-"

The damaged Dalek's heat ray flashed out, so briefly that it was barely a flicker. But it hit its target.

Everyone in the room stood, frozen.

Behind Security Liaison, the Dalek who had entered with her grated, "I disarm." There was a clanking noise, as it unseated its weapon from its internal connectors; the weapon jumped a bit out of its socket, and then hung there, clearly on the brink of falling.

"Thank you," said Security Liaison in a voice so thin with pain that it could barely be heard. Carefully, she pivoted to her left, and scooped the Dalek's weapon out of its socket with her left arm. Then she turned back, and held out her right arm to the other Dalek.

Her arm steamed. The heat ray must have been at an angle, must have not been at full power. But all the bare flesh of her arm was red and weeping, and blisters were visibly swelling on it. A ring of unburned flesh showed at her wrist, where the hem of her glove had protected her hand. The scorch marks from the door stood out on her pale face, her eyes were wet with tears of pain, but her voice was still steady.

"Disarm, if you please. Discuss, debate, but do not destroy."

The Dalek quivered, its eyestalk flickering back and forth. "I do not understand. I," and it paused, "I cannot understand." The other Dalek had voluntarily made itself helpless, and the Reflectionist it had damaged was not screaming in pain, but still negotiating, still arguing. It was outside any simulation, any logic that it had been taught.

"If you kill me, Dalek, you will never understand." Security Liaison waited, her burned arm still held out.

The Dalek's eyestalk drooped, and without a word it disengaged its weapon. She pulled it loose and held it in her shaking grip.

"Thank you," she said.

Without another word, the damaged Dalek turned and scooted out of the room. It needed to get its communications array repaired, so that it could speak to the other Daleks at once of what had happened. It could not understand, by itself. Perhaps all of them together, they could understand. The other Dalek followed.

After the Daleks were gone, Security Liaison turned. The guns she held might not be usable as energy weapons without a power source, but the way she was holding them suggested that they would make very effective clubs. She stepped towards Davros.

Nyder moved to stop her, and she lashed out. The end of the Dalek gun barrel planted itself neatly in Nyder's midsection, then his diaphragm, then a flickering strike at his neck. At the same time she swept his feet out from under him. Nyder collapsed to the floor, wheezing through the abruptly compressed cartilage of his throat, fighting to get his breath. Without a pause, Security Liaison stepped over him. Davros' travel chair retreated, and in a quick shuffle-step she had him pinned. The back of his chair was against his own desk; the front was trapped against Security Liaison's feet. She leaned forward, close, much too close.

She stared into Davros' ruin of a face, and said flatly, "I know when I am too angry to argue with someone while bearing weapons."

Smoothly, she straightened and turned. Commander Nyder had risen to his feet, but he actually stepped back at the expression on Security Liaison's face: an expression of pure, murderous rage. She marched out of Davros' office, anger in every step. The Doctor decided to follow suit; he stuck his rather large nose in the air and left after her, with an air of injured dignity. Sarah Jane and Harry fell in behind them, leaving Davros and Nyder alone in what was left of the office.

Outside in the corridor was a milling group of the Scientific Elite, being held back by two guards that the Doctor didn't recognise. Security Liaison did; they were two of the new guards. With a gesture of her head, she drew them to her.

"Davros and Nyder are having a conference," she said. "Keep them from being interrupted. Send for a team to repair this door. Gharman, the Elite are to return to their tasks."

"But-" said Gharman.

"The Elite are to return to their tasks," said Security Liaison, in a voice so bitter and with a glare so sharp that it almost hurt to be the focus of her attention. She held out the two Dalek guns. "Please store these at the armoury for me."

Gharman took them, and took in the sight of her horribly burned arm as well; it was so puffed and blistered that it looked like something dead. He stood there, awkwardly holding the weapons, unwilling to go.

She half-turned, her arm held out from her side. "Doctor Sullivan. In the next office over, there should be a white box on the wall, with a mauve circle on it-"

"Standard medical kit, yes!" said Harry, going to get it.

Security Liaison planted her back to the wall, facing Davros' door. Slowly, she slid down it, until she was sitting. Her long black hair feathered out around her head, charged with static, and stuck to the wall like a black halo. Tears of pain were running freely down her cheeks now. Not just physical pain, Sarah thought. There was emotional pain there as well.

Harry was back in a flash, opening the kit on the floor beside her. He took out a little spray bottle and started soaking down her arm with the contents. Without a word, she held out her left glove for a little extra, and rubbed it onto her burned ear.

"The facial marks should be gone in a few hours," she said. "If there's one thing Kaleds do right, it's wound medicine." Harry was wrapping her arm in broad swatches of gauze now, and she looked at the decidedly lumpy results with very little enthusiasm. "This will scar, though." Sarah could almost see the Kaled woman pulling herself back together.

"You blind fool, Davros!" came Nyder's shout from the darkened office. Everyone in the corridor froze, as though the next sound would be that of Davros somehow smiting Nyder dead.

Security Liaison looked up at the guards, and without a word from her they began to shoo away the Elite. She watched them start to reluctantly leave the scene, and then looked back.

Commander Nyder was standing in the doorway to Davros' office, as straight and menacing as a drawn blade. Security Liaison rose to her own feet and faced him, one arm held out so that Harry could keep working on it.

"The penalty for striking a superior officer during time of war is death, Security Liaison," said Nyder.

Security Liaison looked back at Nyder, inhumanly calm as Harry wrapped the last free ends of her bandages up. The tears still running down her cheeks rather put the lie to that calm. "Fortunately for me, the war is over. Commander."

With slow and deliberate gestures, Nyder unbuckled his gun belt and wrapped it around his holster and sidearm. "These weapons are to be held for me at the armoury until I call for them." He added his truncheon, and held out the bundle to her.

She stepped forward and took the weapons carefully. "Sir?"

"I also know when I am too angry to argue with someone while bearing weapons," he said simply, and stepped back into the darkness of the shattered office.

Security Liaison turned away from the door, her eyes strangely alight. She held the weapons close to her, staring down at them. "If even Nyder will lay down his weapons," she said wonderingly, "perhaps we can save him after all."

"Unlikely," said the Doctor, and was cut by the gaze the Security Liaison gave him: grief and anger and hopeless misery, all in one.

"I know," she said.

"I'm sorry," replied the Doctor.

"There is a meeting with the Red Hexagon now, in Laboratory Nineteen. I must go." Security Liaison stepped out from the wall and ruthlessly added Nyder's weapons to Gharman's burden; he looked a bit dismayed, and then headed for the armoury. The Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry strolled as purposefully as they could manage back towards the main laboratory. Better than their cell, certainly! And maybe they could still get their hands on that Time Ring…

# # #

Inside the office, Nyder stood before his leader. His expression was defiant, arrogant. His fists were clenched at his sides. Everything about Nyder indicated that he was about to have a furious debate with Davros, argue with him, challenge him.

Everything was a lie. Lying was indeed a valid military technique, and this was a war. Not the Kaleds against the Thals, it was Davros and Nyder against everyone else. But he had absolute faith in his leader; he had shouted out only at Davros' order, to trick those fools listening into thinking he was arguing.

Davros drew his fingers in towards his palm, and Nyder came forward and leaned close.

In the barest whisper, Davros said, "Now we can begin."