“Come on now Lemuel,” said Stillman. “You don’t really think our friends here are going to save us, do you?”
He was pointing to the tank of Mark V hybrids that dominated the laboratory. One or two of the creatures were prowling around in the corners of the watery cage, looking for any tit-bits of food left over from their last frenzy. They certainly spent a lot of time eating.
“I didn’t say I was happy to be the slave of one faction rather than the other,” muttered Lemuel warily from his monitor station. “But at least this faction looks after us better than the other one.”
“Looks after us!” groaned Stillman; his gaze not leaving the malign shoal of medusas that swam around the tank with such menacing disdain. “Only as long as it suits their purposes! You can’t think this is going to continue once they have their legions of Daleks,” one of the hybrids blinked at Stillman balefully and swam closer to the glass partition. He lowered his voice as he whispered the next bit: “Look at it this way, if the old Daleks are scared of these things then maybe we should be as well!”
Stillman looked at his companion in the dinner hall in open-mouthed horror: “I can’t believe you just said that!”
“Said what?” asked his companion, a pale skinned man with grey eyes and silvery hair. “That the Daleks are no worse than the terran empire?”
Stillman took a deep breath: “Yes! How can you even compare the two? It makes no sense to me: This isn’t some silly game is it, Oscar?”
“It is no game,” said the man sullenly. Around them the hall was alive with chatter as the workers marvelled at the facilities that the New Daleks were willing to lay on for their slaves. “ Maybe you should tell that to the settlers on Meep’s world,” said Oscar. “They were forcibly relocated to a barren asteroid after they refused to pay the Imperial taxes. Forty thousand people died as a result of that one act of callous brutal indifference. One amongst many I might add.”
Stillman could see he was getting nowhere, but once he had the bit between his teeth he refused to let go: “You can’t really be comparing the Terran Alliance with the Daleks can you?”
“Well, let me see now,” said Oscar. “The Daleks use genocide and collective punishment to maintain control over a mass of oppressed slave planets. So does the Terran empire, they too use genocide and collective punishments to coerce and dominate a party of ‘client’ systems. Where is the difference in that?”
Stillman had to contain his anger because he was still wary of drawing attention to himself. He had no real answer to this embittered man’s questions. In essence this all struck to the very heart of the dilemma that Stillman faced: How was helping one set of Daleks over another ever going to be of help to them, when nether side could be trusted further than you could throw them?  How in fact could he ever know that he would see Jane again? At this point he would often find some reason to go out onto the observation platform to see for himself that endless torrent of half-shells spewing out of the heart of the smelting and moulding machines. In this blind marching army of impending death and destruction he saw the universe enslaved and turned into a giant boot camp. Only than could he steal himself to carry on and not to hurl himself into their midst in some final desperate act of defiance.
With all this talk of insurrection Stillman was puzzled that he hadn’t been picked up on the Factory’s security sensors by now. He was less concerned with this puzzle than the dire conundrum of how to contact the conspirators again.
However it was the first mystery that was solved first, when he received a summons to meet Torpes on the lower level biometric labs. Convinced that the game was up Stillman had already planned his opening pitch for a deal involving trade of counter-information by the time he stood opposite his line overseer over a broad gun-metal table.
“You’re not the only ones the Daleks have got to, you know,” Torpes began.
Eyes staring straight ahead Stillman played for time: “I don’t understand what you mean sir?”
“Oh come off it Stillman!” exclaimed Torpes in a bored voice. “All this trying to turn the workers into revolutionaries. You’re hardly very subtle about it. Very amateur indeed!”
Stillman snorted defiantly: “Then you must do what you have to,” he said stoically.
Torpes laughed, his dark blood-shot eyes glinting with delight: “You are a bit full of yourself aren’t you Stillman. I can see why the Daleks choose you for this task.”
In the corner of the room, near to one of the ever-present life support tanks, a disturbance in the atmosphere began. Light rays were bent round on themselves as through a thick lens and this was accompanied by a high-pitched hissing brought about by displaced air. Stillman had never observed a wormhole in real life before but he had seen them on endless science docs on ether vision. So he was not too surprised when the Black Dalek appeared through this portal and gestured for Stillman to follow him.
“You must move quickly, before this opening is detected!” it barked.
“Neat trick,” said Stillman with false nonchalance. “You must tell me how you do it.”
“Silence!” barked the Dalek. “You must hurry!”
The journey through the wormhole, because it was instantaneous was a little under whelming for Stillman, like stepping through a cold sheet of fog and into another room. He recognised the interrogation chair immediately.
“For me?” he oozed, sitting willingly in the chair. “You shouldn’t have!”
Forrester, who was standing near a large monitor screen, looked embarrassed: “We’ve set the Psionic laser to a lower intensity, for debriefing purposes only,” he said apologetically.
“My word Forrester,” said Stillman as they secured the transceiver dish to his head. “You almost sounded concerned for me then. Well done! Maybe there’s hope for you after all!”
Torpes had followed Stillman into the room, behind him came the Black and Silver Dalek. “Torpes is one of our agents,” it said as the wormhole closed behind them.
Stillman rolled his eyes: “I kind of guessed that already,” he said before turning to the overseer. “So who have you got in this world that they’re holding hostage then?”
The Overseer was just about to answer when the Dalek barked angrily: “We are wasting valuable time, begin the debriefing now!”
“Okay,” said Forrester turning the Psionic laser on. Stillman winced as it connected with the transceiver dish.
“Why don’t you debrief your pet manager over there!” he gasped, pointing in Torpes direction.
The Overseer smiled wryly: “Thankfully I have only a mediocre mind suited to mediocre tasks,” he said. “I’m an administrator, not a scientist.”
“Concentrate on the task in hand!” barked the Black and Silver Dalek.
“Okay, okay,” said Stillman, who was just about coping with the throbbing headache the laser was giving him. “Where would you like me to begin?"
Before they could answer an image started to form: “Maybe I’ll start with the conventional Dalek design,” said Stillman as an exploded diagram of the Mark III machine and associated mutant appeared on the screen.
“We’re already familiar with our own anatomy!” growled the Black and Silver Dalek
“Patience,” tutted Stillman. The image of the Mark III began to be overlaid with a new cutaway diagram of the Mark V.
The Dalek grumbled impatiently: “Hasn’t the human brain got a facility for three dimensional modelling?” it asked Forrester.
“I’ll adjust the intensity of the carrier wave,” the replicant suggested.
“Hey! What’s wrong with my diagrams-ow!” grimaced Stillman as the Psionic beam changed to a deep red. The image simultaneously bounced into a multilayered wire diagram of the inside of the Mark V, Stillman was astonished by the level of detail that he must have remembered. Obviously the thought amplifier was doing its trick. “But anyhow, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted.” Stillman coughed and a spherical section in the lower half of the Dalek was highlighted in red. “This is one of the salient features of the Mark V. A dark-matter fuel core lies buried in its gut. The Dark Matter itself is held in this thick beryllium lined structure situated under the life support systems, they hold it in a liquid state where it produces vast amounts of synchronic, quantum particles, which collect as both positive and negative streams of energy thus powering the machine and…” Stillman found he was unable to control his own voice; he was saying things that he could barely understand.
“Show us the hybrid creature inside the machine!” ordered the Section Leader.
“Oh, you’ll just love this,” chuckled Stillman. Again the image changed, this time to show one of the medusa headed hybrids floating threateningly in a tank of clear water. Stillman saw that the Section Leader’s headlights were winking rapidly; he wasn’t sure but he could swear he had read somewhere that those lights on top of the Daleks domes were in fact emotional safety valves. In some way they discharged the surges in negative emotions that the Daleks were prone to. Earlier models of the Daleks without this feature would periodically blow their tops-literally. “As you can see the hybrid is a mixture of both Dalek and humanoid DNA, especially cross-spliced to allow the creature to understand human emotions and think outside the box, as it were,” he coughed nervously.
“Abomination!” growled the Section Leader.
On the screen the Hybrid had been joined by three more of its kind and a fifth creature, a hapless Dalek mutant who flailed noisly in the water as…
“Abhorrent! Abhorrent! Abomination!” screeched the Section Leader as the Hybrids began to devour the screaming mutant. Stillman smiled with dark satisfaction as the image changed again to that of the Supreme Dalek addressing the factory workers:
“From now on the tyranny of Mark III rule is at an end…soon it will become an open battle and we will be the victors over the old Daleks…”
The Black and Silver Dalek began to seethe and fume, such was the level of agitation this was producing within him. Stillman was worried now, as the pattern of his thoughts seemed drawn in a preordained direction. “The New Dalek Empire will rule for the benefit of all its subject races. We the Daleks believe that more can be achieved through co-operation and harmony then through discord and strife. We seek not to conquer…but to serve as loyal guardians of interstellar accord.”
We seek not to conquer but to serve.
“ABHORRENT! Abhorrent! Abhorrent! Abhorrent! Abhorrent!” the Black and Silver Dalek screeched louder and higher as the images rolled on. The last scene came completely out of the blue, even to Stillman. The Golden Emperor appeared addressing a vast army of Mark V Daleks as they hovered over a battlefield strewn with the debris of thousands of dead Daleks. On the screen counterparts of Stillman and the Black Dalek were shown cowering under the triumphant Emperor’s gaze. In a booming voice the Emperor addressed his vanquished foes: “The days of the Terran empire are numbered, the time of the old race of Daleks has passed,” his voice was barely able to carry over the screeching Section Leader, for the Emperor now spoke to his counterpart on the screen. “You were the leader of the traitor Daleks. Normally you would be exterminated, but we may still have use for your skills. You will be reprogrammed to obey me, your Emperor.”
Obey me your Emperor!
“No!” gurgled the Section Leader his lights blinking uncontrollably now.
“He’s belching smoke!” exclaimed Forrester.
“He’s going to blow! Switch off the mind probe!” cried Torpes.
“Abomination!”
Obey me!
“I can’t stop the machine!” Forrester shouted. “Stillman! Change the image in your mind!”
“Easier…said…then…done!” grunted Stillman.
“Abhorrent! Abo-horrent! Abomi-nation!” spluttered the Black and Silver Dalek.
Obey!
“Ex-ter-mi-NATE!” shrieked the Black Dalek in defiance, a blinding pulse of energy leapt from the gun stick to the screen, destroying the mind-probe and the torturing image of the emperor. Simultaneously there was a loud popping sound from deep inside the Section Leader’s casing and his lights went dead.
“Oh shit!” said Stillman.
With smoke still pouring out of its casing the Dalek’s appendages now hung limp and lifeless. The door to the interrogation chamber slid open and the Red Dalek entered the room.
“What has happened to the Section Leader? Explain!”
Torpes shuffled uncomfortably on his feet, Forrester moved over to unplug Stillman from his restraints: “It was what he saw coming out of my mind,” said Stillman. “It didn’t seem to agree with the Section Leader.”
The Red Dalek scanned the inert metal casing of its colleague: “He has gone into a state of hibernation following a severe overload of the affective buffers,” it said.
“C-can it be revived?” asked Forrester.
 “Yes, but that is not a priority for us now,” grated the machine-creature.
“You don’t seem too concerned with your fellow Dalek’s well-being,” said Stillman dryly.
“That is irrelevant because information I have received suggests that the Emperor and the Mark V Daleks are ready to make their move.”
“Their move?”
“You are also are irrelevant,” said the Dalek. “We have found a way of infiltrating the base without the need of your agency.”
“Whoa! Hang on a minute!” protested Stillman rising from the interrogation chair. “You might be able to get a squad of Daleks in there, through that worm-hole thing no doubt. But the Factory isn’t exactly Dalek friendly, do you even know the layout of the place?”
“No, but you will provide that information for us,” drawled the Dalek.
Forrester was looking increasingly stressed: “Section Leader, the time-corridors have been shut down under order of the Emperor. We are only able to access them briefly from here for barely a minute at a time before they become detectable.”
“And don’t forget,” said Stillman. “If you can use the time-corridors, so can the other Daleks, and I don’t think you’d come off too well in a straight fight!”
The Dalek examined its unconscious colleague again while it considered its reply: “Very well,” it said eventually. “What do you suggest we do?”
Stillman sighed: “I was afraid you were going to ask me that.”
Torpes laughed, his dark blood-shot eyes glinting with delight: “You are a bit full of yourself aren’t you Stillman. I can see why the Daleks choose you for this task.”
Stillman looked quickly to the corner of the room.  Where was the time-corridor? “As you can see they returned us to the exact moment we were taken from the factory,” said Torpes.
“Oh good, I’m glad I’m not going mad,” said Stillman. “But how come we can’t see ourselves entering the worm-hole right now?”
“Don’t ask me, I’m not a temporal physicist,” said Torpes. “All I know is that it stops our absences being noticed. The rest is all magic as far as I’m concerned!”
Stillman looked to the table between them where a black cylinder of a strange metal had appeared: “I was kind of hoping this bit could have been a dream,” he said as he unscrewed the cylinder’s top. With a hiss of incoming air the vacuum flask opened and a rack of silver coin like objects was extended. Stillman picked one of the objects up and examined it gingerly: “Hard to believe that each of these little things holds the equivalent of 50ks of TNT.”
“Dalekanium is one of the most volatile substances known to science,” said Torpes anxiously. “You’ve seen the size of this factory, I don’t think they’ve been too excessive.”
“No,” said Stillman. “I don’t suppose they have.”
On the way back to his station, Stillman stopped once more to examine the production lines. If what the Section Leader said was true, close to one hundred thousand of these monsters had already been produced. Most of these were now in cold storage facilities built on the outside of the asteroid. There they would await the Dalek Fleet, which would assemble in this quadrant before spreading out to all their other bases dotted around the Galaxy.  Soon the Emperor would emerge transformed, to lead his new race of Daleks to victory over all other sentient life.