"My initial test of the computer programme to control the Daleks does not seem to have been successful," said Davros.

Nyder looked around the smouldering remains of the office, but offered no other comment.

"But in the process of the test, the Dalek has destroyed all Red Hexagon listening devices within this office. Now we have time, a little time, before those devices are replaced. Time for us to plan. You are the only one I can trust, Nyder."

"You have always had my complete loyalty." Nyder was practically swooning with relief inside; this was all part of Davros' plan, obviously. He should never have doubted his Commander. He was in control, always.

"Yes, and I will need your loyalty now more than ever. We must discover the true plans of the Red Hexagon, and find out where they have hidden Hif."

"Hif?" asked Nyder.

"He must be the key to all of this. It is his treacherous alliance with these aliens that has allowed them to sweep so spectacularly to power. He must be found. Shout, if you please."

"Idiot!" Nyder howled at the top of his lungs, after carefully stepping away from Davros so as not to damage his tympanum. Anyone listening outside would be fooled into thinking they were still arguing. Then he stepped back, all attentiveness.

"I want you to go to the Reflectionists, and say that you want to work for them. That you believe that only their knowledge, their authority is enough to save our people."

"Surrender?" said Nyder, with an ill expression.

"Unless you have a better alternative?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. Security Liaison said that there was to be a meeting of the Red Hexagon. I made some adjustments on the audio broadcast system in Laboratory Nineteen. We can listen."

"Excellent. We may be able to find the traitor; even if they do not speak of him, the information we gather may be enough to allow us to break these aliens' power over the Council. I have recording equipment here, prepare it," ordered Davros.

Nyder swiftly gathered the tape reels, set up the equipment. His wireless receiver set could be tuned to any broadcast unit in the Bunker that had been properly modified.

With a few turns of a dial, the two men were soon listening to the sounds of many murmuring women - all murmuring in the same voice. Along with this came the sounds of scraping chairs. Nyder could picture them in Laboratory Nineteen: a white light shining out from the tabletop, illuminating female faces in the dark. He glanced up at the doorway to Davros' office, but apparently people were continuing to keep their distance. Good.

"We are many," said a lone Red Hexagon voice.

"We are one," said many identical voices in unified reply.

"We meet on Skaro, in the Kaled Bunker. I am Eleventh Leader. Report in sequence. Communications Focal?"

"This immediate galactic region is filthy with metallic dust, we can detect that even with the native instrumentation. It will take us considerable time to punch through and re-establish contact with galactic civilization. Worse, we still do not know what date it is - the stars we need for reference are not visible! There isn't a single satellite we can draw data from. We may never get a clean print! And I feel naked without proper orbital coverage."

"You are naked," came the retort. "There are never enough clothes to go around. Genetics Focal?"

There was the sound of footsteps, and a chair being moved.

"You are late, Security Liaison."

"I was injured," said the flat Red Hexagon voice. "Davros took it upon himself to interrogate the prisoners. One of them teased him into one of those spectacular outbursts of his. The Dalek in the room did not take it well."

Murmurs of dismay came from the broadcast speaker. Nyder frowned at the understatement.

"You are marked."

Security Liaison's voice was almost peeved. "It is the right arm, and therefore of no concern. This body is to be recycled in any case." She coughed, harshly, and then went on. "I have shared my knowledge and my pain, and will compile and deliver a preliminary analysis after this meeting."

"Understood. Genetics Focal?"

"First pass mapping is complete. About what we expected: only the most aggressive genes have been passed along, with no consequences paid to the sort of payload that went with them. We're going to be up to our chins in lethal recessives if we don't get some more diversity into the genome here. Along those lines, Kavell had suggested something interesting in connection to the Thal fungus. He has been working with Thirty-Ninth Geneticist. Thirnig, your report?"

A rustling of papers. "Based on the tests Kavell has already done, and IF the environmental cleanup proceeds as projected, we can use a micro-engineered form of the fungus to cleanse the genes of every Kaled within two years."

"Impossible!" snapped Davros in his office, as though the Red Hexagon could hear him.

"A communicable process? Something we can just release and just sit back and relax as it works?" asked one of the women.

"Absolutely not!" said Thirnig. "It's a gene-rebuilding fungus redesigned for living tissue. On your average Kaled, maybe three percent could have a fatal reaction to an uncontrolled inoculation."

"And the Mutos?"

"Oh much worse, maybe as high as ten percent would have adverse reactions. Fortunately all we have to do is stop the process with chemicals, retune their blood chemistry and then re-inoculate. If someone is too badly damaged to be healed by this, well, they have other things to worry about besides their posterity."

"All right then ... all right." A pause, then what sounded like Eleventh Leader spoke again.

"Thirnig, I want you to make up an air-communicable form of this fungus. Sporulate it, we need say five hundred standard units of mass to disperse. We haven't spiked the North Face mortars; that gives us the range to shell upwind of both domes. We can also plant packets in the Dome air filtration systems. We..." But her words were drowned out by shouts of dismay from the others.

"That is NOT acceptable!" "We can't do that, it's mass murder!" "Three percent is too high, ten percent!" "We can't risk Davros!"

"Or Nyder!" shrilled one voice above the rest. There was a hush, then a sudden outburst of chuckling.

"Oh yes," said a snide female voice, "mustn't risk-"

A flurry of blows and squeals came from the speaker; it sounded like a fight.

"Security Liaison! Fourth Memory Compiler, cease!"

The sounds of panting. "Fourth Memory Compiler, that was unnecessary and cruel. Apologise."

A growl. "Why should I apologise? Long Ears is a-"

"A murderer, and he'll murder me given a chance. I expect he'll garrotte me, and try to get the wire through my neck as high as possible, so as not to damage my vocal cords." Security Liaison's voice was flatter than ever. "But was that not what I was created for? He is my murderer." Her flat tone somehow managed to be possessive with these last words.

"Every Kaled is a treasure beyond price, irreplaceable - unlike ourselves. The man is to be saved, if we possibly can save him," ordered Eleventh Leader.

"Understood," sighed Fourth Memory Compiler. "Apologies tendered."

A smack of a fist on flesh. "Tenderised and accepted. And don't call him Long Ears."

The voice of Eleventh Leader went on. "If you two are quite finished? These unrefined fungus cultures are to be used if, and only if, we lose control and are overwhelmed. The last survivors are tasked to make sure that the spores are released, at the cost of their own lives if necessary."

There was dead silence, in the meeting and in Davros' office.

Eleventh Leader went on remorselessly. "If we leave behind only a posthumous legacy, we will leave them a chance at a future. Medicals, you will make sure that information on the handling of the cleansing process is put where their doctors will find it. Recorders Focal, report."

"We are compiling a complete and true Kaled history. The false reference works distributed by the government are worthless, even for basic reference. We have asked people to bring forward their books, their tapes, but we have had few responses. They do not trust us enough yet. In addition, we need to make up a separate history for later dispersal."

"Explain."

"These names are too well known: Kaled, Skaro, Davros. We must plan to muddy the trail, to obscure the Dalek's origins. Our research shows there are at least two historical scientists, Yarvelling and Osl, who had the raw brainpower to have created the Daleks. We will be preparing a false trail."

"This is a secondary consideration; we do not need to lay that trail until we are off-planet. Devote your attentions to recording and restoring current Kaled history. Culture Sculptors Focal?"

"Talk about starting from scratch! It's going to take years to get these people into the habit of caring for themselves; decades to start building patterns into them that will allow them to create a complete culture. We are going to need more peace celebrations, I'm afraid. The current crop of boys ages ten to fourteen are going to be three handfuls. Aggressive, combative, all fire and fight and ready to kill. Also illiterate, ill-mannered and antisocial."

"Crop?" whispered Nyder, with a twist of revulsion. Were the Reflectionists going to - to eat the Kaleds?

"Their aggressiveness needs to be channelled into more positive pursuits. No idea on the women, their culture is even more stunted than the men's, and completely separate to make it worse. It will be a constant struggle to help them, men and women and children, reintegrate into families. Some may never manage it. It will be generations before we know what we really have here; gene projections can only show too much."

"And if we can't breed war out of them? If it is too deeply written into their genes?" demanded Eleventh Leader.

There was a giggly chuckle from the speaker. "We'll give them something worthwhile to do, I assure you."

More eerie high-pitched female giggles. "Something to exterminate," one of them whispered.

"Planet Sculptor Focal?"

"The initial fungus tests are positive; once the Peace Accords are signed, we can start wide-scale soil treatment and clean-up with the particle fountains."

The next voice that spoke made both of the listeners flinch. It was, unmistakably, Dalek. "The proposed environmental alterations will make this planet unfit for Dalek habitation!"

"They dare!" hissed Davros. They dared bring his Daleks into their meetings, while excluding him!

The women spoke in eerie chorus. "There are many planets blasted with radiation in the universe. You shall have as many of them as you please. We foresee that your presence could serve to prevent war: people will stop fighting rather than risk their descendants becoming like you."

"To become more like a Dalek should be the aim of every race. We are perfect!"

"And completely modest about it too," came a dry voice that was probably Security Liaison.

"We excel at all things," the Dalek said.

A lone Red Hexagon voice said, "One of the Dalek embryos was murdered. By the other embryos. You did it, and not out of modesty. Please tell us why."

"You murder one another. You have created Security Liaison purely for organ grafting. What the Daleks do for and to the Daleks is none of your concern." The Dalek's voice verged on the emotional.

"Nevertheless," was the calm reply.

The Dalek blatted angrily through its speakers, a meaningless noise. Then it spoke. "The Dalek embryo was defective, undisciplined, unfocussed. Its mind structure was hopelessly fractured. It was insane. And it was trying to jump the queue."

"Jump the queue?"

"It was manoeuvring to be one of the embryos taken for the automated production line. Once it was fully armoured and mobile, it would have begun exterminating all life in its path: Kaled, Reflectionist, even Dalek. It, it hated life. It wanted everything in the universe to be dead. This was its only passion, its only purpose. It had to be destroyed."

"Second Dalek Compiler?"

A cough of embarrassment, from one of the women. "The Dalek embryo in question managed to falsify its outputs into the computer. I believe that it had reached the critical intelligence level where stability is impossible to maintain. And while we can share thoughts between ourselves and the Daleks, we cannot implant an entire new personality - not without riddling healthy tissue with multiple implants, which will infiltrate the neuron array with such enthusiasm as to cripple that brain and body. No, we could not have saved it."

A high noise came out of the speaker, and Nyder looked at his equipment. Was it broken? Then he recognised the noise as some sort of cry, or wail.

"We mourn," said all the Reflectionists, and the Dalek, in unison. "We are sorry that it has died."

Davros shuddered, as best he could. What had these women, no these creatures, done to his Daleks? Mourning their dead now, what next?

Then a general shuffling, as though moving on to new business.

"Reflectionist Homecoming Committee, report."

Nyder frowned. What did that mean?

A sigh from the speaker, then two women spoke in unison. "Communications is correct, we may not be able to punch out to the galactic communications web. With the data lost from the original transfer, we cannot generate the correct code keys to access the Reflectionist grid. We may need to self-improve until we can generate an entirely new key, and then send a ship to leave the dust clouds and communicate."

"Explain," rasped the Dalek's voice.

Eleventh Leader seemed to be the one who replied. "We were one when we came here, and we were in danger. Experimental Subject J29A transferred our Reflection into a new body before she died, but the transfer was made in haste, with crude equipment, and data was lost. We need to prove our worth and skills to the Reflectionist Hives on other worlds, so that they will allow us to share and trade with them."

"The Reflection transfer should have been of prime importance!" snapped the Dalek.

"It was, I assure you. But we cannot always choose how we will pass ourselves along."

"It is the interference of Davros that has caused this data loss!"

A general murmur of cleared throats, and whispers. The Red Hexagon spoke in unison.

"Dalek, what has been done cannot be undone. We who have died because of what has been done, we forgive those who have done it. We are the one who died under the needle, not you. You will not attack Davros for the harm he has done us, just as we will not attack him."

Commander Nyder had always thought the phrase "feel your heart skip a beat" was just a figure of speech, but during those words he thought he did feel his own heart stutter. He was the one who had put down J29A, his hand had held that needle, and if they all remembered it, all these women, what revenge might they seek against him? They were not in control, he reminded himself grimly. Davros was in control, he would protect his most valued associate.

"Davros is your enemy if he has damaged you in this way!" insisted the Dalek.

"He will never be our enemy."

Davros exhaled sharply through his nose. "We shall see," he muttered, paying no attention to Nyder's distress.

"This meeting is ended. Return to your tasks. Security Liaison will confer with the other Daleks, as to their extended analyses of Davros' outburst."

"I obey," she said, and there was a general clatter of chairs sliding across the floor.

In Davros' office, Nyder pressed a switch and the speaker fell silent. He looked at Davros, waiting to see what his response would be.

"Another shout, if you please."

While Nyder let off a really impressive string of obscenities, Davros sorted and organised his plan. By the time Nyder was out of breath, Davros was done.

He said, "I will want to play the recording of the Red Hexagon meeting to the new Kaled Council when they meet with me today. It is important that they realise exactly who they are dealing with: people who think of our entire species as clay to be moulded as they see fit." Davros never even considered that this was exactly the way he had treated the Kaled genotype. He continued, "But before we play this tape for the Council, perhaps you could make it a little more … concise. Security Liaison will be conferring with the Daleks, so she will not be spying on you."

"I understand," said Nyder, and left with the tape. He had an editing machine hidden away, and in a few minutes he was sitting before it, moving this section here, cutting out a rebuttal there. His gloved fingers fairly flew over the tape reels; he had done this before, preparing materials for Davros' review, enhancing or even creating blackmail material, distilling interrogation tapes to their essentials. This would be his finest creation. He mentally prepared a summary of his changes for Davros' review; he would need to speak to it after playing it for the Council.

# # #

Sarah Jane was quietly amazed at just how much the main laboratory had changed overnight. Oh, it still looked the same: bare metal walls, plain desks, weird scientific instruments everywhere. It was the people inside who had changed. The scientists were not sullen, or frightened: they were smiling, arguing, talking excitedly about the Peace Accords, about decontamination procedures, about the future. The future that they had been seeing as nothing but a grey and dreary survival: suddenly it was bright and new before them, and they reached out for it with both hands. The tall fellow, whose name was something like Cave - Kavell maybe? - was walking around with a grin on his face that lit up the room. Even the Security guards looked less sullen.

The Doctor was happy to give his own input on the plans for the rebuilding of Skaro, the restoration and cleaning of its water and soil. He took every opportunity to hover over Ronson's desk, but the scientist seemed to have tucked away their personal possessions somewhere else. The Time Ring was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened in there?" demanded Gharman, coming back from the armoury. "Has Davros gone out of his mind?" He looked around abruptly at the Security guards, but they seemed to take no notice of his outburst. He moved closer to the Doctor, and said in a lower tone, "What happened?"

"Well, it was something quite spectacular, actually. I don't think I have ever seen anyone successfully argue a Dalek into disarming itself out of good intentions; generally it's a trick. There was a chap named Lesterson…"

"What happened between you and Davros?" growled Gharman. "He is our Commander, and I have just seen him apparently try to commit suicide by Dalek! Unless you somehow took control of the creature, and ordered it to attack-"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, it wasn't like that. The Dalek was there to defend Davros. He brought us in for questioning about the Red Hexagon, the Reflectionist aliens. What I wanted was some insight into Davros' mindset, but what I saw was terrible. I believe that he is completely incapable of working with the Reflectionists. I don't think that he can even conceive of a peace that does not involve the Daleks slaughtering every enemy of Davros' on this planet.."

"That sounds very final," said Gharman quietly.

"It's madness; and the Dalek saw it too. And it reacted, well, appropriately. A Dalek will destroy another Dalek that it sees as impure or defective, and so …"

"But the Dalek stopped. It did stop itself."

"Yes." The Doctor studied Gharman closely. The Kaled scientist's face was awash with emotion: confusion, fear.

"It doesn't matter what Davros believes, strange as it is to say it," Gharman finally said. "The Peace is coming, and nobody can stop it. Not even Davros."

While the Doctor and Gharman were talking, Sarah Jane had taken the opportunity to pull Harry aside and explain to him just what he had been like while under the influence of the Reflectionists' drugs, and gently point out that the scientist who had been asking about dance lessons had probably actually been asking for something a bit more horizontal. But in the resulting conversation, something crucial had turned up. Something the Doctor had to hear.

"Doctor," interrupted Sarah Jane, "Harry says that the Reflectionists are from Earth!"

"What?" said the Time Lord, looking up. "How does he know that?"

"Well," said Harry, ambling forward, "I was in the Womens' Section-"

Ronson dropped his pen and stared at Harry. Harry held out his hands.

"Just for a little while!" he protested, and Ronson sat back. "Anyway, I made a joke about 'Lysistrata'."

"And?" said Sarah Jane.

"And the Daughters - sorry, the Reflectionists - all laughed." Sarah raised an eyebrow at Harry; considering what she remembered of that notoriously racy Greek play, it had probably been a rather earthy joke.

"That is interesting," said the Doctor, abruptly looking rather ill.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" asked Sarah.

"What is wrong, is that the play 'Lysistrata' hasn't been written yet. And at the time it was written on Earth, it would be impossible for a Reflectionist Hive to do a Launch of one of their patterns, because Earth's technology was too primitive."

"So?" said Harry, his brow ruffled.

"So? What do you mean, so? It means that the Reflectionists and their energy patterns don't just travel in space, they travel in time. They are from the future; they could be from any time in the future. They could know thousands, or tens of thousands of years of galactic history. And they could give it all to the Daleks!"

"But they don't want the Daleks to go to war!" objected Sarah.

"If they don't give the information, the Daleks might take it from them. Secrets of spaceflight, details of Dalek wars and battles and defeats in the future, advanced weapons. It would be an incalculable aid to any plans the Daleks, or Davros, still have for galactic conquest. Ronson, has the Kaled Council issued any word on the shutting down of the Bunker?"

Ronson, who had been following the conversation intently, said, "No, there's been no orders to shut down." He leafed through a pile of papers in front of him, memos of some sort. "No, personnel in the War industries are to return to their tasks, to participate in the repurposing of their labour positions."

"Makes sense," said Sarah. "You can't just throw away all your drill presses just because you aren't making bullets with them."

"But the Bunker serves no purpose except creating Daleks, Ronson. It has to be shut down!" The Doctor ran his hands through his hair.

"The creation of the final weapon may have been our task, Doctor, but not now," said Gharman firmly. "We can devote ourselves to peaceful activities now. We are better equipped than any other Kaled group to evaluate and distribute the particle fountains, and the Thal fungus once we get all the details."

"All the details?"

Gharman looked embarrassed. "The computer file transfers are not complete. The complete data is to be given as part of the Peace Accords ceremony. Today."

"Today?" asked Harry. "Well, congratulations! Really. End of the war, and all."

The Doctor did not look like he shared in Harry's enthusiasm. "The end of something, certainly," he muttered. "Do you really think the Daleks are going to be interested in peaceful activities?"

"I don't know," said Gharman. "They certainly are behaving outside the parameters that Davros set for them."

"Given the chance, they will set their own parameters," said the Doctor grimly. "Not even the Reflectionists and Davros combined may be enough to stop them next time."

# # #

When they were not on display or duty, the Daleks had their own 'quarters', where they played endless simulated war games, devised fantastic strategies, tested their ideas and their minds and themselves. It was a bare room, devoid of furniture: none of the Bunker personnel cared to stay here long enough to sit, and Davros obviously brought his own chair with him.

A single metal lab stool had been brought into the room, and Security Liaison was sitting on it. Her legs were drawn up against her chest, and her arms formed a circle with her hands on her knees. This odd pose was necessary, to support the heavy tangle of cables that streamed from her neural transfer array, connecting her to multiple Daleks within the room itself.

If Davros had seen this, he would have been shocked to the core. He knew exactly how brilliant, how complicated the minds of the Daleks were. To communicate with so many of them at once was the work of a spectacular prodigy.

In the dimness, Security Liaison sat, surrounded by the Daleks. Her eyes were half-closed. She was thinking, hard and fast, and the Daleks were responding. Again and again they came to voids in the understanding between them, and one or the other side would bridge that gap.

The concept of forgiveness received considerable attention, as did the perils of universal destruction. Security Liaison, and the Reflectionists through her, made it clear that they had no intention of allowing Davros to blow up the universe - at least, not while they were in the universe with no way of moving into another.

~We would find that remarkably inconvenient,~ she thought, and the Daleks all appreciated the understatement. Then the conversation went on, to tactic, to dominance/submission patterns, to genetic editing, to replication redundancy correction, to the evolutionary pressures of conflict, and on and on.

# # #

Councilman Mah was leading three other Council members to Davros' office. Verro had gone back into hospital after a frightening thromboembolism. Dynna, well, it was strange enough having a woman on the Council. And though she was very good at some things, she was still not a born politician as they were. Best not to expose her to Davros right away. Davros could be - slippery to negotiate with.

The Bunker looked much the same as it ever had, although Troc pointed out the thin line where the beam of the matter disintegrator had cut through Mogran's traitors. And there were the Daleks, of course: metal lumbering things, with raspy voices and disconcerting mechanical stares. Mah was glad to get past them and into Davros' office, which looked like a bomb had gone off in it.

"Please excuse the untidiness," said Davros, moving forward along with Nyder to greet the Council. "There was a weapons malfunction, it will not happen again."

"I hope your safety was not at risk, Davros," said Mah. "Your death would be an irreplaceable loss to the Kaled people."

"I was not in danger, fortunately," lied Davros. "Your own death seems to have been - misreported, Mah." Davros waited for the Councilman's answer: did Mah know that it was Davros who had arranged for his assassination - which had apparently been stopped, in secret?

"The Daughters' cover story of my death let me concentrate all of my energies on the ending of this conflict, rather than petty politics," said Mah, his face showing nothing but happiness. One of the other Councilmen coughed at the 'petty politics', however. Mah continued, "Your creations are matchless, Davros. They have ended the war. You have ended it, through them."

Mah leaned forward a bit. "Davros, we would like to ask that the Peace Accords be signed here, in the Bunker. Today."

"Here? You would let the Thals here, into the very heart of us?"

Councilman Mah spread his hands out flat in the air. Commander Nyder's eyes darted over the Councilmen, and noticed that they all had that slightly far-away look that the new Security guards wore - although not to so great a degree. Then he turned his attention back to Mah's words.

"The Thals will be politicians, not soldiers," he said. "They will be under a flag of armistice, as will the members of the Kaled council. You yourself-"

"I do not want to interrupt," Davros interrupted, "but I fear that I have grave news for you. News that may mean that the Peace Accords will never be signed." He watched the Councilmen's reaction: dismay, fear, horror. "Commander Nyder, please start the recording."

Nyder reached to the desk and pressed a button. "This recording was made today, of a secret meeting of the Daughters of Davros," he said. The playback started, and they all listened, fascinated.

Davros reminded himself to praise Nyder after this charade was over: he had done a fantastic job. Of course, the editing process had been considerably helped by the fact that all the Red Hexagon sounded alike. He could splice their businesslike machinations into what sounded like the ravings of a bloodthirsty insane woman - or rather, a whole room full of them. And Nyder had deftly managed to remove their alien origins as well.

The recording ended with a sinister voice intoning, "We are in control. We will exterminate the Kaleds." An eerie female chuckle; then the tape machine clicked itself off, and the reels stopped.

"I must admit my failure to the Council," said Davros mournfully. "My creations, as you have heard … they have been driven mad by power, corrupted by it utterly. Sadly, I must ask the Council's aid in their arrest and trying them for treason. Now that their insane plot has been exposed, we can use the occasion of the Peace Accords to capture the entire Thal ruling elite, in one blow! We can cripple their war efforts in a day! Final victory will be in our grasp."

The Council members looked at each other and Davros, their expressions showing shock. "That is a very interesting audio document," said Councilman Mah finally. "A very nice edit."

Commander Nyder's face remained motionless, even as Mah's eyes bored into his.

"I find it particularly interesting, Commander Nyder, that you would remove the section where Security Liaison begs for your life. Did you think that made her too sympathetic, or were you embarrassed?"

"I do not understand," said Davros.

"Strong words from you." Councilman Mah looked at the Supreme Commander with a touch of sadness in his face. "Davros, the Kaled Council has been given a live audio feed of the Daughters of Davros' meetings. We listened to this one before we left the Dome. We may not understand everything that we hear, but we understand enough, Davros."

Mah drew a deep breath. "Davros, the Peace is here. The end of a thousand years of war is here, now, today. It is a blight upon your honour that you would try to trick the Kaled Council into going back to war with this forgery. Are you suggesting that the Daughters broadcast a false meeting to us, and you have captured the correct recording? You are going to have a hard time convincing us of that: for starters, yours is considerably shorter."

"The recording-" Davros flailed mentally for a way to take control back of the situation, but Mah lashed back.

"The audio feed was true, and the Peace Accords are true. They are real, they are necessary, and they are to be signed here, before sunset today. And you-" Mah shot his hand out at Nyder, pointing angrily, "you are to have no part of the Security arrangements. We will work directly with the Daughters on this: I think a matter disintegrator or five along the travel route should keep things in order."

Mah's voice was a curse. "You are Davros' hands in this, Commander, and as soon as the Accords are signed," and then he stopped, and laughed. Through his grin, he said, "I was going to say, I would have you reviewed for Fitness to Serve, Commander - but that hardly matters now, does it? What need will the Kaled people have for a Security Commander, after today? We are all falling out now."

Nyder swallowed, and felt the first bite of outright fear mixed in with his jealousy. They were planning to supplant him, after all. Mah turned back to Davros.

"Davros, we know that the Daughters are not truly your creation, but they honour you, and we should honour you as well. Your attendance at the ceremony would be more than welcome-"

"No, no." Davros somehow managed to curl himself in his chair, to look even more like the fragile shard of ancient burned flesh that he actually was. "I think it would be better for all concerned if I did not make an appearance. Please say - say that my medical condition precludes it. This is for the future of Skaro and I - I am its past." His head wavered on his neck.

"Very well." Mah's lips were pursed, as though he tasted something bitter; sweat shone on his high brow. "This Peace is for all of us, Davros. Your Daughters, if I may still call them that, have insisted that your power here should not be restrained. The Bunker is yours, and if your men leave, the Daughters have sworn to take their place. And now," Mah's eyes flicked to Nyder, and away, "I must go plan the Peace Accords ceremony. It will be an occasion that will change this planet's history for the rest of its existence. It must be as memorable as possible."

With a gesture, Mah gathered up the Councilmen and they left Davros' office.

Nyder was almost afraid to look at his Commander, but resolutely he crushed his own fear, and looked. It was his duty, after all. What he saw was Davros in his most towering rage.

"A memorable ceremony. That they shall have," Davros said slowly. "It will take them some hours to prepare a chamber, arrange for the safe-conduct of the Thal scum to my Bunker. I will need that time, to perfect the Dalek computer control program."

"The Dalek countered the program before," Nyder objected.

"Because it knew consciously that the program was restraining it. The new program will be broadcast and distributed so that it controls the Daleks only on a subconscious level, and they will know nothing until it has already taken hold of all of them. The Daleks will be under my total control then. Forever."

"What are your orders?" asked Nyder crisply.

"The Daleks will be sent into the Dome. They will be ordered to kill every Kaled until they find Scientist Hif. Once he is captured and under my control, I will take over the Reflectionists and use them, and the Daleks, to implant the neural arrays into the Elite and any surviving Kaleds that I judge to be of use." Davros' voice was eerily conversational, as though he was not describing the mass mind-destruction of his own species.

"You, Commander," and Davros turned his chair towards Nyder, "have a special task. The utter extermination of the traitors on the Kaled council, and the Thals, at this farce of a Peace Accords ceremony. You will strike a blow that will go down in history! It is a pity that Mah and his fellow traitors cannot be properly punished, but they shall die for victory."

"Yes, Davros. And after that," Nyder's voice trailed off. He swallowed, and said, "The neural implants."

"The implants will allow me to maintain total control of the Elite. And the Reflectionists."

"And Security?" Nyder waited, chin up, for Davros' answer. When it did not come, he went on. "Davros, the Red - the Reflectionists have made it clear that the neural implants will totally destroy an adult mind." He waited for Davros' response, but there was none. Softly, he said, "My mind, Davros."

"Commander," said Davros softly in return, "if someone threw a grenade into this room right now, would you hesitate to throw yourself on it? To save my life at the cost of your own?"

"Never, Davros." Nyder stood at attention, his pain showing only in the crease between his brows.

"I assure you, your loyalty will not go unrewarded." Davros turned back to his desk, dismissing Nyder with that move. "I must work on the computer program, it will require all of my attention," he said. Nyder hesitated for a moment, and then left, steps brisk and back straight.

Once the rebuilt door had closed behind him, Nyder's steps slowed, and he actually found himself standing still in the middle of the corridor, blinking. He knew Davros. He knew his words, his tone, and what could be read of his body language.

Davros had not said that Nyder would not be harmed. He had said that his loyalty would not go unrewarded. And Nyder was painfully certain that his reward would be that he would be implanted - last. His reward would be to see the Elite, the scientists, his own men, be turned into empty shells. He imagined them coming for him, faces blank, and the Red Hexagon with them. Their hands grasping him, taking him to the surgery.

His eyes caught the shadow of an oncoming patrol, and immediately he was all duty, turning on his heel and striding off as though absolutely certain of what he was doing. Underneath, he was certain of nothing at all.