If Stillman had problems stirring up revolt amongst his colleagues at the factory, he would have found the going much easier back at the mines. The combination of impossibly high targets, shift work and reduced rations was taking its toll on the miners. Although life under the Daleks had never been good, it had been better than this. In the past their masters had been more willing to turn a blind eyestalk to the little ‘indulgences’ that made life bearable for everyone.
Now instead the nightly round of distant flashes from the valley served to remind the miners of all the things they were missing out on. Each flash was a human life being extinguished; as yet another food smuggler paid the ultimate price. The goods that did get through were over-priced and of poor quality. But they were vital nevertheless to sustain life in face of the punishing schedule down below.
In the room he dubbed his ‘office’ back at the slaves living quarters, Olsen used a metallic packing case as a desk to spread his papers on. The figures collected for this cycle were not encouraging reading; they were going to miss their targets by at least ten-percentage points. That was not good news for him, or for Charlotte-his daughter.
Orpheus came to see him: “The night shift are refusing to go down until someone issues them with more lamps,” he announced breathlessly.
“What!” snapped Olsen, “I’ll bloody sort that lot out,” he muttered snatching up his gun belt from the side of his chair. Orpheus laid a hand on his and looked into his eyes.
“I really wouldn’t do that boss,” he said. “They’re very keyed up at the moment, especially after the new girl…”
“Yes, all right!” snapped Olsen, settling back in his seat. “How was I supposed to know she was a suicide risk? The Daleks don’t tell me these things!”
The telepath nodded: “But it’s not just Karen’s death boss. The men are now saying that the overseer at the processing plant is helping the Daleks find the smugglers.”
“Venables? How?”
“Signalling and surveillance from the control room at the top of the processing complex,” said Orpheus. “A couple of nights back Luton said he saw lights flashing in sequence, electric lights, he swears by it.”
“Electric lights!” snorted Olsen. “That lad’s making things up again. I can’t imagine even Venables sinking that low!”
“Even if he hasn’t the workers here believe he has and that puts more fuel to the fire.”
“Exactly, which is why I need to do some fire-fighting,” said Olsen grimly, snatching up the gun-belt once more. “I think I’ve let these slaves undermine my authority for long enough, don’t you?”
Outside they were confronted by a delegation of miners with Luton at their head. He stood in the central square, his pale skinny frame like alabaster in the light of the fire. Stripped to the waist he had apparently just come straight from the bath for his dark hair hung damp and dripping little drops of water across his furrowed brow. Standing hands clenched at his sides he weighed up his taller and heavier opponent as he bore down upon him.
“We ain’t going nowhere until we have better lighting and equipment,” he said flatly. “If the Daleks want us to dig at night they got to give us the right tools for the job!”
“Is that right?” asked Olsen with a grim smile. “And what makes you think you’ve any choice in the matter?”
He was standing now with his hand resting on the revolver handle. Luton clocked his move and grinned broadly: “You can’t kill all of us Olsen,” he said. “Leastways you can’t kill enough of us to stop tearing you a new arsehole for the Daleks to stick their plungers up!”
There was a murmur of support from Luton’s rear and the Overseer was forced to acknowledge that it wasn’t just one upstart he was fighting. He’d have to change that. He squared up to his opponent: “Think you’re man enough do you?”
With his index finger pointing squarely at Olsen’s chest Luton delivered his reply: “Man enough? Any day lardy! You’re fat and old and nothing without the Daleks to back you up!”
“So, just you and me than,” said Olsen, unclipping the gun belt and handing it to Orpheus: “Keep this safe for me,” he said calmly.
“Olsen, you’re making a big mistake,” said the Telepath under his breath.
“Trust me,” said Olsen, turning to address the waiting delegation of miners that had become swollen now with fresh onlookers drawn out of their sleep by the commotion. “Let’s see if your punch is as big as your mouth Luton!”
Luton tensed his body, ready to strike, his torso a taught knot of sinewy muscles, without an ounce of idle flesh to be seen. He uncoiled and landed Olsen a ringing blow to the side of the head. The big man reeled backwards with agony and surprise.
“You’re a dead man!” snarled Olsen.
“I don’t think so!” said Luton, ducking a blow and kicking his opponent’s shins away from him. Stumbling to his knees Olsen laid himself open for Luton’s next punch to the jaw. Staggering backwards he tried to get some distance between himself and his opponent. His vision blurred as the dancing, triumphant figure of his enemy continued to taunt him. “Your day has gone old man! The Daleks’ll have to deal with our demands once you’re out of the way!”
“It’s not over yet,” said Olsen, his mouth spewing dark red blood over his overalls. “You’ll have to finish what you started!”
Grunting, Luton swung for his kidneys, Olsen intercepted the blow and grabbed hold of his wrist. “Skinny little thing, aren’t you?” Putting all his weight and power into play the Overseer twisted the miner’s arm back on itself. Luton’s face contorted in agony as the tendons broke and his shoulder was wrenched loose. A swift karate blow to the back of the head silenced his screaming. Rising unsteadily to his feet the Overseer prodded the limp body to make sure Luton wasn’t playing dead. Satisfied that this wasn’t the case he turned to the other miners. “Anybody else got anything to add before I bring proceedings to a close?” he asked, wiping the blood from his mouth.
Joseph Venables was in his late fifties with silvery dark hair and a boxy jaw that gave his head a strange bullet shaped feel. He was thinning on top and wore round-rimmed glasses through which he peered at the world through grey eyes. His face rarely cracked a smile, unless he was inflicting pain on someone, which he’d plenty of practice of since his capture by the Daleks, many years ago.
“So you’re the little weasel who’s been spreading rumours about me?” he asked the battered figure in front of him. Luton stood to attention in the bare glass walled office that Venables had above the main processing complex. Through the windows could be seen the distant grey rectangle of the processing plant itself, dwarfed by the immense rotund shape of the smelting works.
Luton’s face was swollen heavily on one side so he had difficulty replying: “Sorry sir, were you talking to me?” he asked. Venables nodded to his Assistant Overseer, a burly thug by the name of Kootz. He in turn grabbed Luton on the shoulder of the arm that was still in a sling; the errant miner gasped with pain.
As Kootz continued to apply pressure Venables stepped over to the window to survey his kingdom. Like all the other workers in the factory, his uniform was a serge blue boiler suit, only tailored better than the average slave’s. He also had a red rim to his peaked cap and he wore a gun belt similar to Olsen’s around his waist. The gun and the ceremonial whip were his badges of ultimate power.
“You know what I did before the Daleks captured me?” he asked.
Kootz relaxed his grip for a second: “Answer the Overseer!” he barked.
“Ow! No sir!”
“I was a chemist working for a big trans-system company,” Venables explained. “A worthy job in its own right, but never one of any grandeur by any means.”
“Yes sir,” said Luton, contrite.
“I never had that much responsibility in the grand scheme of things, but I always liked to make sure my own end of the business was running smoothly,” he sighed, as if the weight of his position should threaten to crush him any instant. “And of course I never had much in the way of dealing with other people. I was a scientist; I dealt with experimental data and statistical analyses. So since being here I’ve had the opportunity to develop my interpersonal skills and get to appreciate human nature much more fully.”
At a nod from his master Kootz once again resumed applying pressure.
“What I have learnt is that people respond to a firm hand,” he tittered. “Please forgive my quip! Don’t let it be said that I don’t have a sense of humour!”
“AH! No, sir! I wouldn’t dream of it, no!”
“Good, I’m glad that is understood,” said Venables. “I’m a fairly straightforward person as long as you do what you are told. If you don’t, then I can become what to you must seem wantonly cruel. However to me, each response and your reaction to it form part of a especially complex algorithm upon which I rest my theory of personnel management.”
“Yes sir,” said Luton, bewildered.
Venables nodded to his lackey: “Show our new recruit to his workstation Mr. Kootz!”
“Aye, aye sir,” growled the guard. “Come on you! Look sharp for the man!”
Luton’s previous suspicions about electricity at this part of the complex were conformed the moment he had arrived. Now that he had seen the layout of the place from Venable’s office he thought he understood why. The office and monitoring station were built on a high bluff overlooking the rest of the complex, which was a half-mile or so down a sharp incline. He later learned that the offices themselves were lined with a layer of beryllium to shield the instrumentation as far as possible. The instrumentation monitored the furnaces of the smelting works, which were powered by a series of controlled explosions of Dalekanium. Not much else could be said that was positive about the Daleks other than their superior engineering skills.
Luton found himself assigned to one of the monitoring stations, since all he could manage were light tasks at this time. The fact that he was still alive at all was a testament to how truly in need of humanoid labour the Daleks were. Especially at this time, the demand on the processing plant was considerable as more and more raw unprocessed rock was torn out of the belly of the asteroid to feed the relentless production lines.
Luton found he wasn’t the only transient employed at the processing plant; his immediate colleague at the monitoring station was a young Eurasian woman with a Brit accent. “Oni? That’s an interesting name,” he said. “Where do you come from?”
She didn’t appear to hear him and carried on checking the rows of data as they scrolled past the screen. Luton decided to shut up a while; she seemed pretty distracted to him. He was never particularly good at speaking to women, having been taken by the Daleks when he was still a boy. That was a lot of heartache and sadness there that normally the demands of the mines helped to shut out. But this job on the other hand…
“They took my baby.”
Her words tore him from his reverie: “Who did? The Daleks?”
Oni was gripping the console with both hands as she gave her reply: “That, that thing they employ,” she said coldly. “Invidious!”
“Invidious!” echoed Luton in disbelief. He began to shake uncontrollably.
“You know him?” she asked.
Luton nodded: “My family were settlers on Nether Ortemus, in the Tricorn Nebula. That is all I really know, I can barely remember mum and dad. But I remember when we first heard the Daleks were coming; the sound of their flying machines in the air, and the smell of burning. Their machine voices shouting at my kid sister, and me “You will obey!” “Move!” all their usual crap!”
Oni shook her head: “Sounds horrible.”
“And that wasn’t the worst of it,” said Luton. “They forced us into stasis and brought us here, to this hell world. Both me and my sister were to become the playthings of the one you call Invidious, subjects of his experiments into the human factor.”
“He took my baby,” said Oni, “my baby!”
Luton didn’t know how to tell her, or even if he should. From what he knew of Invidious it was certain that the child would be better off dead.