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  With a grating thunk, the Commander began moving towards them, weaving and slurring.

  ‘Hallllt.’

  ‘Hurry please.’

  ‘Or you willllll …’ The Commander’s voice died, but the creature kept lurching towards them. The air filled with ozone. With a clatter of gears, the Commander’s gunstick aimed at them.

  ‘I really think,’ Brian sighed, ‘the Daleks may be the winning side after all.’

  The door lock hissed, but the door did not move.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the Doctor. ‘We’ve got to wait for the door to power up.’

  The Commander jerked a little closer.

  Somewhere deep inside the Dalek saucer, a relay switched. A back-up system activated. Internal power systems restored, flushing an excess of stored energy through themselves.

  The bridge was bathed in an intense pulse of light as the power surge washed through its systems. Several instrument panels blew. The Eighth Doctor pushed Brian to one side as the Commander’s gun fired, obliterating the door which had just begun to open.

  Without even pausing to shrug, the Doctor grabbed Brian and they hurried through the molten mess. Racing towards them down the corridor were the Tenth Doctor and Gelsin.

  ‘I think—’ said the Eighth Doctor.

  ‘—we should leave?’

  ‘Party over.’

  ‘Carriages at midnight.’

  The two Time Lords raced into a quiet corner. Around them, the ship filled with the Daleks shouting orders and commands. The Eighth Doctor applied himself to setting Gelsin’s portable apparator. The Tenth Doctor listened to the echoing Dalek orders.

  ‘Secure the Symbiont!’

  ‘Protect the Ultimate End!’

  ‘The Ultimate End?’ said the Tenth Doctor. ‘That’s stupid! What else is an end but ultimate? I mean, you can’t have a penultimate end, can you? Why are Daleks always so rubbish at naming things?’

  ‘They don’t read enough,’ said the Eighth Doctor.

  ‘So what is the Ultimate End?’

  ‘All I know is, it’s a place.’ The Eighth Doctor finished setting the coordinates and handed the apparator to Gelsin.

  ‘We must go,’ the Bloodsman said.

  Brian politely shook his head.

  The Tenth Doctor frowned at him. ‘We need to leave.’

  ‘Alas,’ Brian announced, ‘Mr Ball insists I stay.’ He reached forward and, before anyone could stop him, activated the apparator.

  The group vanished.

  Brian nodded to himself. ‘Time to work out who is on my side,’ he said.

  ‘And so,’ finished Inyit, ‘the way the story goes – and maybe it is just a story – the Kotturuh must finish their quest, must visit every life form until their power is spent. If we die out before that happens, then that energy will be unleashed when the last of us dies and the Gates of Death open.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Ninth Doctor.

  ‘Oh,’ the Kotturuh agreed. ‘Unstoppable death. I said your path was complicated. Who knows if the story is true? But who would want to take that risk?’

  ‘Unstoppable death,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Who would want that?’

  Madam Ikalla pointed up at the skies of Birinji. ‘I think they would.’

  A Dalek scout ship was coming towards them.

  Chapter Twelve

  The first shots from the Dalek scout ship tore into the biodome, sending glass, dirt and leaves burning through the air. The Ninth Doctor made to grab Madam Ikalla, but Inyit was wrapped protectively around her.

  Although the air was rushing out of the dome, although the Daleks were firing again, Inyit’s bell-like voice tolled clearly in their heads.

  ‘Some of those were going to be interesting plants,’ she said. ‘I should like to have seen what they became.’

  The scout ship opened up and the crew slid out, each one firing into the dome.

  The Doctor looked up at the Daleks, shouting even though he knew he couldn’t be heard, even though he knew they wouldn’t listen because Daleks never listened. ‘This is the Last of the Kotturuh!’ he cried. ‘You can’t kill her! You can’t.’

  A massive blast hit them.

  The Donna materialised solidly in the middle of the Dalek scout ship. Dalekanium alloy buckled like a chair sat on by an elephant. The Dalek ship exploded, the shockwave of the Donna’s materialisation throwing the debris hurtling into the Dalek Drones, sending them burning to the desolate rock of Birinji.

  Having destroyed the scout ship, the Donna continued to sink towards the planet’s surface, its massive bulk landing with brick-like elegance in front of the ruined biodome.

  A figure emerged (only a little unsteadily) from the ship, strode up to the dome, and tapped on one of the missing windows. Inside, the Ninth Doctor raised his singed head and blinked.

  ‘Knock knock!’ said the Tenth Doctor. ‘I heard you need a glazier?’

  The three Time Lords met in the biodome.

  The mercenaries found themselves paid a bonus to sweep and tidy and reseal the atmosphere. In the middle of this organising chaos, the Last of the Kotturuh and Madam Ikalla watched as the three Doctors stood scowling at each other telepathically.

  ‘They are like children,’ said Madam Ikalla, carefully lifting a sapling from its shattered pot. ‘Dangerous children.’

  ‘To me,’ said Inyit, ‘that is true of all life. But yes.’

  Sensing they were being talked about, the three Doctors turned.

  ‘The important thing,’ the Ninth Doctor said as though continuing a sentence, ‘is the last legend of the Kotturuh. If Inyit here dies, if their species is wiped out …’

  ‘Then the Gates of Death open, releasing any of their remaining energy,’ the Eighth Doctor nodded.

  They both paused and looked at the Tenth Doctor.

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘They are waiting for you to apologise,’ prompted Madam Ikalla.

  ‘I don’t apologise without tea,’ he said. ‘The best I can manage is chastened.’

  ‘And?’ the Ninth Doctor smiled at him encouragingly.

  ‘We-ell, could be a myth,’ the Tenth Doctor volunteered.

  The Eighth Doctor rolled his eyes.

  ‘Or OK, it could be real,’ his future self conceded. ‘I’ve travelled widely – and a lot of what we’ve learned confirms that Inyit and I are on the same page.’ He bowed stiffly to Inyit. ‘The Kotturuh terrorised the Dark Times. It was right that they were stopped. But it wasn’t right for me to think of them as Daleks – one homogenous mass of evil. Like all zealots the Kotturuh’s power corrupted them … but they didn’t all adhere to their Design with the same malicious pleasure.’

  The Eighth and the Ninth Doctors glanced at each other.

  ‘Like all zealots?’ the Eighth said.

  ‘Yeah,’ sighed the Tenth. ‘I’m including myself in that. You were both right to stop me.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Sorry,’ the Tenth Doctor began, but his face scrunched up. ‘Sorry, but is that your spider plant over there? How is it still alive?’

  ‘Explain your failure.’

  Those were normally some of the last words a Dalek ever heard, but the Dalek Strategist took the Commander’s request casually.

  ‘There has been no failure,’ it responded.

  ‘Incorrect,’ the Commander grated. ‘This ship suffered a system failure during which the Doctor escaped.’ If the Strategist could have shrugged, it would have. ‘I did not allow the Doctor’s escape. You did.’

  The Commander pressed on. ‘The system failure was caused by your experimentation. It interfered with the Ultimate End.’

  ‘The Ultimate End,’ the Strategist repeated. ‘Explain.’

  ‘That is not for you to know.’ The Commander took what pleasure it could in saying so. ‘It is a direct order from the Emperor. It supersedes all other operations.’

  If it had expected the Strategist to be cowed, it was disappointed. ‘As I was
not informed of this mission, I could not interfere with it.’

  ‘Your genetic experimentation put the Emperor’s mission in jeopardy.’ The Commander felt it was on firm ground. ‘And it has failed.’

  ‘It has not failed,’ said the Strategist.

  Listening from the shadows of the hold, Brian tilted his head to one side. It had definitely been worth following the Commander down here. He could already see at least three different methods of provoking the antagonism between these two Daleks. Added to that, the Dalek Strategist was about to reveal something. How fascinating.

  He was still working out what his future held. On the one hand, the Daleks interested him; one could learn much from them, he imagined. On the other, it might be more interesting to kill them.

  The Eighth Doctor reached for the ruins of the spider plant, but the Ninth Doctor got there first. ‘Hector, you made it!’ he said, hugging the pot to him. His face lit up with a smile of pure glee. ‘It’s not hopeless.’

  The Eighth Doctor reached hopefully for the plant again, but the Ninth took a step back, and shook his head. Then he relented and offered the plant, only to snatch it away again.

  ‘Hard cheese. Hector’s my pal now.’

  The Tenth Doctor looked at them both, watching them squabble and play fight. He reflected on what had got them there. The youngest of them throwing himself into the universe in the hope that he would make it better; his former self aware that things had got as bad as they were ever going to get and yet still burning with hope … Which led them to me, he thought. Trying to walk through the stars, imposing order … and ending up just with burning chaos. How long has it been like this? How tired am I? What’s the point of it all?

  He looked over at Inyit, tidying a bench with the help of Madam Ikalla, the vampire chatelaine.

  Yes. That was the point of it all.

  For the first time in a long time, the Tenth Doctor threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘Oi! Everyone. Listen! Listen! We’re going to save Birinji, and we’re going to stop the Daleks.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said the Ninth Doctor.

  ‘You and whose— Forget I said anything,’ said the Eighth.

  Deep inside the hold of the Dalek ship, a creature was imprisoned in a beam of harsh red light. The Dalek Commander approached it sceptically. ‘That … is Dalek?’ it asked.

  ‘That is the Symbiont,’ the Dalek Scientist announced, and turned up the light. The creature within the beam began to thrash as it woke up.

  Bursting out of the lower half of a Dalek casing was a squirming, writhing red mass. Claws and tentacles snapped around a single, malevolent, unblinking eye. Protecting the middle of the bloated thing, roughly where its heart would have been, was a band of solid Dalekanium.

  The creature spoke its first word in a ghostly, grating monotone.

  ‘Kill …’

  The Dalek Commander twitched back slightly, unable to overcome its innate disgust for the unlike. It had understood the Symbiont programme, had accepted it had been commissioned, but found it hard to confront the results of it.

  ‘This is the future of the Daleks?’

  ‘A future.’ The Strategist emerged from the shadows.

  ‘That is not Dalek life.’

  ‘It is not life.’ The Dalek Scientist looked up from monitoring the life signs of the Symbiont. ‘The creature does not register as life.’

  ‘Yet it exists,’ purred the Strategist.

  ‘Kill …’ the Symbiont said again. Its casing twitched as it began to move. Freed from its cone of light, the Commander could see that there was a sort of cowl containing the overspill of flesh, holding it in place. And yet the thing flailed and dripped and clutched at its base as it moved.

  ‘It is useless,’ the Commander announced.

  ‘I disagree,’ said the Strategist and shot the Symbiont.

  The creature glowed from within, but did not even pause in its twitching, gurgling progress across the hold.

  The Commander shot it. Again, nothing happened.

  ‘See?’ the Strategist commented. ‘It is unstoppable. That is what makes it pure Dalek. It does not live, and so cannot die.’

  The Commander shot the creature again.

  The Symbiont stopped, twitched, and its eye fixed on the Commander. It gurgled again the only word it seemed able to articulate.

  ‘Kill …’

  Brian stood at the far end of the hold, considering. He might have had some sympathy for the Symbiont – after all, he too had been experimented on, made what he was. But he liked to think that he worked with grace and style. This creature was as inelegant as it was brutal.

  The disgusting thing slithered towards the Commander, sometimes propelling itself by its tentacles. Claws and suckered tendrils fastened around the Commander’s casing, oblivious to the blasts coming from the Commander’s gun. The creature simply continued to wrap itself around the Commander, squeezing the casing. There was a cracking noise.

  ‘Assist!’ the Commander called, but both the Strategist and Scientist continued to appraise what was happening coolly.

  ‘Halt!’ the Strategist called, and the leechlike grasp of the Symbiont paused. ‘There is something else here.’ The Strategist’s voice echoed across the hold. ‘What can you sense? Tell me!’

  The strange creature twisted in its casing, as though sifting the air. ‘Intruder. Intruder detected. I must kill.’

  ‘Affirmative,’ the Strategist agreed, indicating Brian’s hiding place with a twitch of its sucker stick. ‘That would be correct.’

  The Commander forgotten, the Symbiont glided across the hold towards Brian.

  ‘Kill …’

  Brian ran and continued running, all the while considering his allegiances. It was time to make a decision.

  Along the way he killed his first Dalek.

  The murder took place in a lift. Brian simply stood next to the Dalek Drone calmly and, when asked, assured it he was a prisoner heading for execution.

  While he waited for the Dalek to process this, Brian placed Mr Ball at the base of the Dalek’s shoulder, discharging as much energy as he could spare. He held it there as it sizzled and cried until he heard a pop – as he’d surmised, there was a catch inside the casing. He lifted it up, and pushed Mr Ball into the struggling mutant inside until it went silent. He then withdrew it, resealed the Dalek casing, and enjoyed the rest of the lift journey in silence, thinking about his next move.

  Meanwhile, the Symbiont was ascending through the ship, its exceptional senses homing in on Brian. It did not know what he was, or even care. All it could think was:

  ‘Kill …’

  Brian briefly considered heading for the command deck, but also briefly considered being cut down by a dozen Dalek guns, and discounted it as an option. The main engine room was also out, too well guarded. Instead he headed for what was marked on the map as the drive carbine – where the anti-grav propulsion chamber was housed. He figured there would be a back door into the navigations systems there.

  The Symbiont ignored the baleful reactions of other, lesser Daleks as it made its way through the craft. Its prey was moving swiftly, but its scent was unique, distinctive. There would be much to savour in it as it destroyed it.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ Brian bowed politely as he entered the drive carbine. ‘Forgive me for interrupting you but I would like to know the destination of this ship, please?’

  The Dalek operative on duty whirred around and regarded Brian with some surprise.

  ‘Please do not make me repeat myself,’ Brian tutted. ‘Mr Ball does get so easily bored.’

  He plunged the globe towards the Dalek’s casing. Before he got there, he saw the Dalek’s gunstick light up, and hastily reached out with a gloved hand, shoving the gun upwards. The Dalek blew its own eyestalk off.

  ‘How careless,’ said Brian, as a crack appeared in the Dalek’s casing and something black started to ooze from it.

  Brian pushed the Dalek from the chamber a
nd sealed the door. Then he turned himself to the propulsion computer.

  On Birinji, the biodome was repaired and most of the damage had been put right. The Donna’s crew had even salvaged some material from the Dalek scout ship in order to improve and repair the efficiency of it.

  ‘You know,’ the Tenth Doctor said, ‘when this is over, you should pack in being mercenaries and move into construction. The pay’s better.’

  ‘Not with what you’re paying us,’ one of the mercenaries said, going off whistling to upgrade the air filters.

  ‘Have you been over-paying your army?’ the Ninth Doctor laughed.

  ‘Seems so,’ the Tenth Doctor said. ‘Still, that’s better than the alternative.’ His pocket started to make a noise. He pulled a face.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get that?’ the Eighth Doctor said.

  ‘Yes,’ the Tenth sighed. ‘I just hate the things – what was wrong with the space-time telegraph?’

  He pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and answered it. ‘Brian!’

  ‘Good afternoon, Doctor.’

  ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Mr Ball and I are in excellent health, sir.’

  ‘It’s just – I can hear noises in the background.’

  ‘Ah indeed, sir. That would be the Daleks trying to break in.’

  ‘Break in where?’

  ‘The propulsion chamber. Where I have sealed myself.’

  ‘I see …’

  ‘I have also taken the liberty of attacking the engines a little. That may explain their urgency.’

  ‘It does tend to rile them.’

  ‘But we are still travelling with remarkable speed towards a planet.’

  ‘Is it Birinji?’

  ‘Alas, no.’

  ‘What? Where, then?’

  ‘It would appear to be the Daleks’ Ultimate End,’ Brian went on. ‘As far as I can tell from their drive computer, they intend to destroy this planet completely.’

  ‘Does it have a name?’

  ‘I merely have galactic coordinates.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I believe that from Galactic Centre they are ten-zero-eleven-zero-zero by zero-two.’